The well-informed might already be on top of what happened this past weekend, but I'll recap for those not so enlightened.
Friday we began our trek through the mountains of Colorado, on our way to Utah for several reasons. The first hour was good, with the kids swapped out with another group so that, essentially, we got the quiet ones. I pity the poor girl with car-sickness that just wanted to sleep.
Right after the first hour, however, we started noticing truckers stopping and putting chains on. That's NEVER a good sign. Most truckers are insane when it comes to that stuff, and hate applying it. I've seen those guys do 90 through 3 feet of snow on mountain roads. When large numbers of them stop to apply some safety device, it's a bit like seeing the NRA thinking gun-control is a good idea.
But we pressed forward, like fools. And it still wasn't bad. Sure, before Aspen the traffic was moving slower than donuts, but heavy traffic isn't the worst thing you can suffer, and we were sure that once we passed the ski towns things would just open up.
Open up they did, only to visibility in the negative numbers. We cruised at 55 or so, because the roads weren't bad, but the air was thick with this white stuff we'll call, "snow." It wasn't accumulating, but still...
Then, after 5 hours of fighting this stuff, a car appeared as if by magic in front of us. Four feet from us. My wife, the driver, does the wise thing and steers hard to port, landing us in a ditch instead of a dashboard.
It seems that a petroleum packing tanker truck had jack-knifed about 200 feet ahead of our position, and backed traffic to that point. Others had done similar to our maneauver, but none had landed so deeply within the crevass. A kindly trucker told us that he would put in a call and all would be well. Still, we felt the need to wave vigorously to our associates in the other vehicle, who had decided that speeds exceeding 30 would not be prudent in the current circumstance.
They proceeded, while we tried not to die in negative temperatures in the middle of nowhere. As you can tell, we succeeded. Mostly by our wits and my manly might. Or by constant use of the cell phone, a well-stocked cooler, and a full tank of gas.
Which reminds me... at one point I walked all the way to the truck (which, by this point in the story, was a full 3 miles away) and suggested, amongst other things, that they could simply light the leaking fuel and moments later there would be no road block, but this seemed to not be taken well. I did get assurance that 911 had been called and that they really didn't want me anywhere near flammable material, which is always a plus.
Three hours later, after we've eaten a ton of junk food, listened to the radio until it burned out, discovered that the cell phone won't work (out of service area) and used the median as a urinal, the State Patrol drops by to ask us if something should be done.
Seeing as how no tow truck will touch us without the okay from state authorities, this strikes me as a dumb question, but the man is only doing his job, and he has a gun. Never make fun of people that can put holes in you.
Shortly thereafter, we managed to get the car out of the ditch, get into cell phone range, and meet up with our associates. One of whom was none-to-happy about all this snow and mountain business, but we assured her that it couldn't last.
Heh.
We managed all the way to Green River with little issue, the snow quieting down some. And then the woman at the rest stop said that it would be clear sailing, and that we could beat her up if such was not the case. So, instead of staying in Green River for the night, we pressed on to Salina.
Through snow. And mountains.
The poor woman was in tears and throwing up when we reached Salina and turned north. She simply could not go on. Yet she did. Even in weakness, the woman is an inspiration.
We spent 19 hours on the road. No kidding. The trip usually takes something like 9, and we got an additional 10. So we show up after all of this at the hotel where we had reservations. Prepaid reservations.
Oh, surely you can guess what happened here. Go ahead.
Yep.
La Quinta, the chain that we had reservations in, had one out of the three reservations actually, you know,
reserved. The other rooms had neat little envelopes with keys, but the rooms had been
sold. The woman above, shining example of humanity, displayed an almost animal cunning by giving us her room (the one that they actually had) while this was sorted out.
Rule of Travel #14: If the hotel you planned on staying at is grossly incompetent, you want to stay somewhere else.
This rule comes right before The Julius Schwartz* guide to travelling, which can be summed up with Rule of Travel #15: Don't eat where truckers do, and don't forget to wash afterwards.
We discovered the rule shortly after we woke up. Our sacrifice was not getting to meet the manager of the hotel, whose middle name rhymed with "lich"... or so I'm told. But in exchange for that, we got:
a) the room next to the noisiest elevator possible. A new lexicon will have to be developed to describe this. It would be like Eskimoes with snow, only louder... and more vibratory. Lordy. I couldn't get more vibrations without putting a quarter in the bed. And that's not just for erotica, you know.**
b) The bathroom didn't work, and when we inquired as to what was to be done about it, they
c) handed us a friggin' plunger! I can't get over how upset I am on this one. Granted it was a possible means of dealing with the problem, but in a hotel the customer shouldn't have to even wander down to say "my toilet's clogged." It should be alright before the first time it's tried.
d) Cigarette stains in a "no-smoking" room. Not just one or two... they were all over the place.
e) Huge gashes in the tile, curled tile with dark glowing eyes peering over as the denizens of the underworld waited for us to show a moment of weakness.
You know, the list goes on, but my major beef with them is that with any complaint the result was the same:
"It's not my fault."
Seriously, the first problem dealing with the rooms not being retained was addressed not as a customer service issue (i.e. "How do we get them rooms
now.") but as a challenge on who to blame. It turns out to be a computer glitch, according to them, but it takes them 2 hours to figure this out while my compatriats stand in the lobby with children.
Before I left, I checked on some small malfunction in our room, and the reaction of the desk clerk was, "I wasn't on shift."
I did get to meet
Howard Tayler in one of the cooler moments of my life (my baptism). He did a sketch of me, which was super nice of him considering that no fundage exchanged hands (although I did consider it, really... but he was a guest of mine, and that seemed crass to me to call upon him in a professional capacity).
Next blog, maybe I'll tell you about the trip back, and why even MORE crying took place. But it wasn't my fault.
*Julius Schwartz was/is the DC goodwill ambassador. Don't ask.
**That's an in-joke, mostly pertaining to mirrors on the ceiling. Incidentally, the baptismal font has a mirror directly over it. Even fully dressed, my crotch took on new dimensions in that thing as it flickered past on my way back up and I realized that for all intents and purposes, I may as well be buck-naked.
