How Not to Hotel

When we race in Canada, we are not allowed to leave our car, etc. at the track and drive home.  It's one of those Intent of the Law versus Enforcement of the Law but it only takes one grouchy border guard to ruin our life.

So, we have to get a hotel room when we're racing.  A person can camp at the track because there is power if you don't have a generator (we do) bathrooms if you don't have a camper (we don't) and even showers.

For a while we did have a camper and I loved it.  Then we sold it because reasons...I don't even remember now. Oh, yes, I do.  We didn't have room for it with Kevin's parents house being built next door. We do have the enclosed car trailer and we have slept in it from time to time.

This is the ONE TIME that I will say that "I Am 50" and camping at the racetrack is no longer an option.  I haven't been on this earth this long to have to kinda sorta camp in our racecar trailer.

So, hotel it is.

Sometimes it's difficult to book a hotel room because weather is a thing and so are cancellation policies.  Every single time this summer I've had to find a different hotel than before because they've been booked.

One hotel is actually less than five minutes from the track and guess what hotel is almost always booked.  Yeah.  There is another hotel nearby that we stayed but it got a little sketchy and we stopped.

Now I'm not a Motel 6 kind of person, nor am I a Waldorf Astoria kind of person.  A happy medium where our stuff won't get stolen, we won't be murdered or bring home infestation, is all I ask.

The first hotel of the summer turned out to be an extended stay hotel and it was the nicest hotel we have EVER stayed in.  It was a suite and was beautiful.  If we'd known it was so nice, we would have left earlier from the track to enjoy it more.

Then that one wasn't available the next time. (and frankly, not in our budget again)  This one was nice but average.  Nothing to be excited about.

And that one wasn't available this last time, nor the one close by, nor the expensive one.

I booked another one, on the outskirts of the adjoining town so not conveniently located really.  It was a chain hotel so I wasn't terribly worried about it.  Your standard issue hotel.

The past two times it was just Kevin and I. Thank you sweet tiny baby jesus.  Sadly, this time the family was with us.  As you may have guessed, his brother and s-i-l are super fussy about hotels.  I just can't even with them.  Trust me.

So, of course there are issues.  Mostly issues created by their attitude.  The rooms were paid for already so they just needed a credit card to secure the room in case we trashed it. For this hotel it was only $50 (shoulda given me a hint there).  But of course his brother fusses about it.

Luckily, Karma was instant this time.  We were in the "main" part of the hotel and they were not.  They were in the other building, in the older part of the hotel, across the parking lot.  You would have thought that a sherpa was required to guide them to their room. Yes, I laughed.

We got our room and it wasn't bad. Pretty standard.  Then Kevin noticed the floor.  It was tile.  Tile all through the room.  Weird, very HGTV.  Not a single rug or carpeted section. I didn't particularly care for it but it wasn't something I was worried about.  Kevin was in Camp Don't Like It.  I'm sure in theory it's cleaner than carpet but it didn't feel like that.

Then the what-felt-like-a-Dollar-Store remote for the television didn't work. I found the buttons on the side of the television to power it on and change the channels.  Like in the prehistoric ages.  It wasn't worth it to phone for a new remote to me.  And also like the prehistoric ages, I believe they must have a giant antenna on the roof because the channels were few and fuzzy.  Clearly not cable.

But the wifi was free and good.

Kevin went and showered.  He took a little longer than usual but I wasn't really thinking about it.  He came out a little frustrated and said "The shower has zero water pressure. I have more pressure when I pee."  (graphic, but funny)

He went to bed and watched the one channel that I found while I showered.

He was not exaggerating even a little bit about the water pressure.  Nothing to be done about it so I just tried to power through it.  But I kept losing my balance in the shower.  This is not a usual thing so I was getting concerned.

All hotel tubs are small and not meant for baths and this one was no exception.  EXCEPT this one was concave, like a little trough.  That's why I kept losing my balance, because I was standing/straddling a trough.  Still I persevere, I just kept telling myself  "This is giving you a good story to tell."

I forgot to refill the travel shampoo and conditioner after the whole Catching My Hair On Fire episode so I used the hotel soaps.  Dude, they were thimble sized.  At this point, I am stupid tired and I'm just laughing.  "Look at me, I'm a giant. I can crush this regular sized bottle. Hahaha"  Here is a photo because I brought them home.  It's next to a Pringle chip for juxtaposition.

And they smelled like Citronella.  Not citrus, as labelled, but Citronella.  A smell that I actually hate. Haattteee it.  Perfect.  It's like the hotel had a list of how not to hotel.

At this point, if the towels here washcloth sized, I would not have been surprised.  Strangely, they were not.  They were narrow, like hotel towels usually are, but they were longer than usual.  So I got that going for me.

Off to bed I went.  Kevin is nearly asleep but awake enough to complain about the one television channel.  I shut off the television, like a caveman, and turned on the music app on my phone.

Now I feel like Goldilocks.  The bed was So SOFT.  Like weirdly soft.  Hotel beds are usually firm and sturdy.  This bed felt like what one imagines sleeping on a cloud would feel like.  Not bad, not great, just soft. S.O.F.T.

But the pillows.  The pillows were, no exaggeration, about six inches thick and firm. It's like they knew the bed was too soft so they tried to offset it with brick pillows.  Kevin went right to sleep because he does that.  It took me a little bit before I finally just moved the pillows out of the way and went to sleep.  Only to be awakened sometime during the night by Kevin hucking pillows off the bed.  Again, for reasons beyond me, I am not grumpy.  It's like two in the morning and I'm laughing.

We got up early and left.  We were both prepared for the litany of complaints from the brother and s-i-l.  And they had them, like they always do. (and this is where I say that they NEVER book their own rooms because "I'm already booking a room so can I just do theirs too.")

Their complaints were similar AND they did comment resentfully that they were in the older part of the hotel (I did not do the "karma" cough. I want a treat.)  And then they upped the ante with "Our room smelled."  Followed with "But I put my CPAP on and didn't notice it anymore." from the Brother.  Which was kind of supposed to be a joke if you ignore that his wife still had to deal with whatever smell they had.  This part of the story is a perfect synopsis of him as a person.

Now we know not to stay at that hotel again.  We'll probably try the Crackhead Inn again before we go back.  I did get a "Review your stay!" email and I did.  I wish I would have thought ahead and just provided the link to this post.  Maybe I can do another review...