This week I am on vacation. I am so happy about this because I was getting to the point of desperately needing a change of scenery. We decided to head out of town for the desert for the weekend to get some sun and natural beauty. My good friend Hotwire found us a cheap deal on a hotel that looked decent, so we were feeling pretty good.
When we arrived at the hotel it seemed a bit dated in decor. But the room was clean, the bed was decent, and the staff was friendly so it wasn't bad. However, the parking situation was a bit bizarre. It involved parking in an adjoining parking garage that had several stories. The only way to get into the main parking areas was to enter the garage, make a sharp right turn, and then wind your way up this really narrow parking ramp that our small-mid size rental car could barely clear without scraping the walls.
I guess the garage was built when everyone drove a VW bug. Given that most people in the desert seem to prefer large SUVs and trucks, it seem like a bit of a mismatch. When you entered the garage there was a sign that stated that large trucks and vans should turn left and park on the ground floor.
So Saturday night we come in after dinner, coffee, and hanging out with a friend. As we enter the garage we are following a large Ford F-150 pickup truck. I figured it would hang a left, but no, it turned right and started towards the ramp. I gave them tons of room by hanging back, figuring they would simply see the tiny entrance to the ramp and reverse out of there. Wrong again. The truck tries to turn up the ramp and cannot swing wide enough to make the turn. Instead of stopping and backing out, the driver then tries to run the back wheels up onto the ramp and gets the left rear side of the truck stuck on the metal pylons. The roof of the cab got stuck again the low clearance roof in the front. It was a mess.
The occupants of said vehicle appeared to have had a lot to drink, so I assume our good friend alcohol contributed to the mess. They stood around, at a loss for what to do, and finally begun letting the air out of the tires. It looked like they were going to have several thousand dollars of body work damage when they finally got it out of there.
We reversed out and ended up parking in the large vehicle spots. A hotel maintenance guy had come out and told us to tell the front desk where we were parked due the the problem. The lady at the desk then informed us that we would get a ticket if we parked in the large vehicle spots and we need to move further into the garage. Our attempts to explain that a large truck was stuck and blocking the only entrance to the garage upper levels were meet with a confused stare. Finally, she told us we could just ignore the tow ticket that they would not tow us overnight. Um, okay.
The next morning the truck was removed from the ramp and nowhere in the lot. I guess they checked out early. More drama in the desert is still to come so stay tuned.
Showing posts with label Wanderings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wanderings. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Friday, July 18, 2008
You Get What You Pay For
It has been a busy week but I finally have some time to sit down and ponder the funny moments of the past few days. The week started with quite a bang literally. We'll get to that. On Saturday I headed out of the city to attend a medical conference at a resort destination not too far from here. Since I just started residency, I could not get the time off to attend the whole conference. But a mentor of mine suggested I come down for the final part of it to do some networking. By the time I made this plan, all of the lodging for the conference was full and all of the hotels/motel in the immediate vicinity were booked as well. The few rooms I could find were very pricey--like over $150.00/night to stay at the Howard Johnson's. Then I found a deal. Only $99/night, steps from the ocean, underground parking. Right. I knew something had to be wrong with it, so I read some reviews and it sounded like it if you just wanted a clean, basic room with a decent bed to sleep on for a night, this was the place.
As we drove into the area where the motel was, I suddenly saw this three story pink monstrosity coming into view. The building was bright, florescent pink--like the color of a pink plastic lawn flamingo-- except in areas where the stucco was peeling off to reveal a barf orange color cement wall. There was a dry mermaid fountain in front with the paint peeling off the mermaid's face to give her the appearance of a cyclops. My stomach sank because I knew it was our hotel.
We checked in and were told we were "upgraded" to the second floor. As we opened the door to the room it smashed into the bed which was scrunched up against the door. After squeezing into the room, we noted that the television was precariously bolted to the ceiling in the middle of the room and looked like it would come crashing down in even the smallest of earthquakes. The sink and surrounding counter were only about three feet off the ground. It was so low that the motel had provided a small, dirty stool with stuffing coming out of the seat for us to sit on to use the sink. The sheets had cigarette burns in them, the couch had some mysterious stains on its sagging pillows, and there were small signs adorning items like the alarm clock that read, "unauthorized removal of this item from the room will result in charges to your account."
Luckily, there was not time to stay long as we had to get over to the conference. Out the door we headed hoping that the room would seem better when we got back late that night to sleep.
...
When we arrived around midnight we noted that the outside parking lot was full and we needed to pull into the underground parking garage. In we went and to our horror found that a big chunk of it was flooded. That was where the remaining normal parking spots were. Having a tiny car, however, we managed to squeeze into a spot in a drier area that was next a huge SUV taking up its spot and almost half of ours. Relieved to have fit, we jumped over the water and made it into the elevator. Up we went.. and then we stopped on the first floor. Into the elevator stepped a very drunk couple. They seemed shocked to see us and began asking us if we had just come from a bar that we could recommend to them. Sorry, we told them, we don't know bars in the area. The elevator stopped on the second floor and we got out of the elevator. The couple followed us down the walkway, staggering and laughing. As we tried to open the door to our room around the bed, I noticed that the couple was going into the room next to ours. This could be bad if they stay up and are loud, I thought.
We got in and decided to watch a movie for a bit. We could hear the couple talking since the walls were paper thin, but they soon stopped. Maybe they passed out. The bed sucked but it was late so we decided to stop the movie and get some sleep so we could jet out of there early the next morning.
...
Bang, bang, bang, bang, squeak, squeak, squeak, bang, bang. What the hell is that? I bolted up in bed and saw that it was 6 am. Suddenly, I realized it was the couple next door having sex on the other side of the paper-thin wall. They were so loud. I put in earplugs and I could still hear them. That was it. We were done. We got up, packed our bags and left our tiny room with the couple squeaking, banging, and moaning away in the pink monstrosity by the beach.
As we drove into the area where the motel was, I suddenly saw this three story pink monstrosity coming into view. The building was bright, florescent pink--like the color of a pink plastic lawn flamingo-- except in areas where the stucco was peeling off to reveal a barf orange color cement wall. There was a dry mermaid fountain in front with the paint peeling off the mermaid's face to give her the appearance of a cyclops. My stomach sank because I knew it was our hotel.
We checked in and were told we were "upgraded" to the second floor. As we opened the door to the room it smashed into the bed which was scrunched up against the door. After squeezing into the room, we noted that the television was precariously bolted to the ceiling in the middle of the room and looked like it would come crashing down in even the smallest of earthquakes. The sink and surrounding counter were only about three feet off the ground. It was so low that the motel had provided a small, dirty stool with stuffing coming out of the seat for us to sit on to use the sink. The sheets had cigarette burns in them, the couch had some mysterious stains on its sagging pillows, and there were small signs adorning items like the alarm clock that read, "unauthorized removal of this item from the room will result in charges to your account."
Luckily, there was not time to stay long as we had to get over to the conference. Out the door we headed hoping that the room would seem better when we got back late that night to sleep.
...
When we arrived around midnight we noted that the outside parking lot was full and we needed to pull into the underground parking garage. In we went and to our horror found that a big chunk of it was flooded. That was where the remaining normal parking spots were. Having a tiny car, however, we managed to squeeze into a spot in a drier area that was next a huge SUV taking up its spot and almost half of ours. Relieved to have fit, we jumped over the water and made it into the elevator. Up we went.. and then we stopped on the first floor. Into the elevator stepped a very drunk couple. They seemed shocked to see us and began asking us if we had just come from a bar that we could recommend to them. Sorry, we told them, we don't know bars in the area. The elevator stopped on the second floor and we got out of the elevator. The couple followed us down the walkway, staggering and laughing. As we tried to open the door to our room around the bed, I noticed that the couple was going into the room next to ours. This could be bad if they stay up and are loud, I thought.
We got in and decided to watch a movie for a bit. We could hear the couple talking since the walls were paper thin, but they soon stopped. Maybe they passed out. The bed sucked but it was late so we decided to stop the movie and get some sleep so we could jet out of there early the next morning.
...
Bang, bang, bang, bang, squeak, squeak, squeak, bang, bang. What the hell is that? I bolted up in bed and saw that it was 6 am. Suddenly, I realized it was the couple next door having sex on the other side of the paper-thin wall. They were so loud. I put in earplugs and I could still hear them. That was it. We were done. We got up, packed our bags and left our tiny room with the couple squeaking, banging, and moaning away in the pink monstrosity by the beach.
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