The Low-Quality Inn

So, when you are out on the road, there are a few things that make life much nicer and can make a huge difference in your day. One thing is a nice hotel. It doesn't have to be fancy, but a room that is clean and doesn't smell bad, or have stains all over the beds. If you find hairs in the bathtub, or bugs anywhere, it just gets gross and really hard to relax. Believe me, we hit several of those along the way. Ick.

Another thing that is a plus for us each day is a Starbucks within walking distance, a good restaurant, and free wireless internet. Yesterday in Augusta, GA we had all of those things provided for us. A beautiful Marriott, with soft comfy beds and clean bathrooms. A Starbucks right in the lobby (yay!), a great Italian restaurant in the hotel... AND.... free wireless internet! We were happy campers!!

After the show at the Imperial Theatre in Augusta (which by the way was wonderful... awesome audience!) we had a dilema. Do we spend the night in Augusta, or go ahead and drive the 70 miles or so to Newberry, NC. If we go on ahead that night, we can all sleep in the next day. Yes. That sounds like the best idea... so off we go. We leave Augusta at midnight. Around 1:30am, we pull up to the Quality Inn. Oh dear. I have a feeling we should have stayed back in the comfort of our Marriott. This isn't looking too promising. Deanie and I get out our suitcases and drag them across the road to our hotel room. As we are wandering around, trying to find our room, a drunk guy starts following Deanie around. "Hey Baby. What are you doing? Do you work here?" Deanie's looking at him like he's crazy and just trying to get away from him. We find our room. It's around the back and there isn't much light. We hurry into our room to get away from the drunk man. Turn on the light..... and realize we've made a huge mistake. The smell hits us first. Oh MAN!!! We're both thinking the same thing. Maybe we can just leave all our stuff there and go back to the bus to sleep in our bunks. However, then we both realize that if we do that, we will have to wake up early because the bus is going over to the venue for an early load in. It's already almost 2am. We want to sleep as late as we can. We're both exhausted. Deanie smiles weakly and says, "Can we do this?" I nod. We're both too tired to change our plans now. We both lift up the covers in our beds before getting in. You've all done it. You can't just get under those blankets without first making sure there's not a roach or spider or anything moving under there. Yuck, yuck, yuck!! I'm shuddering just thinking about it.

Luckily, we are both SO tired we fall asleep quickly... and don't wake up until 10am. Nice. The next morning, I decide to go down to the lobby to get coffee. I can hear a man singing at the top of his lungs. It's one of the janitors there. He's singing "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone" as he's doing his cleaning. Well, at least he's finding a way to entertain himself while he works, right? Later, we leave to find some lunch and when we come back neither one of our keys will let us into the room. Oh BOY! Now what do we do??? All of our stuff is still in the room. Down the hall is the singing janitor..... we ask him if he can let us into our rooms. He looks at us for a minute as if he's trying to size us up. "Are these girls on the level?", he's thinking to himself. "Or are they just pretending to be in that room so they can get in there and steal somebody's stuff?". He finally asks us, "Are you staying here?". Deanie says, "Yes, but we're getting ready to leave, we just need to get our stuff out of the room." The man takes his key and swipes it. Nothing. He swipes it again. Still nothing. Uh-oh. We might be in a real jam now. He says, "I'll be right back." and leaves to go to the main office. We are stuck outside of our room several other shady characters walk around us. Deanie tries everything to get in, but we are locked out for sure. Finally, the singing janitor comes back with a different key. This time it works... Yay! We grab our stuff as quickly as possible and leave....... we decide to wait on the shuttle out in front of the hotel instead of staying in that room any longer than we have to!

The kicker of it all is that when we finally got over to the venue, we saw a beautiful Hampton Inn RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from the Newberry Opera House, where we were playing. Why didn't we get rooms THERE?!?! We ask. Come to find out, they actually HAD rooms there waiting for us, but there was some sort of communications breakdown and we didn't know it. Drat!! I love Hampton Inns. Always clean and comfy......

Anyway, we did an afternoon show here. Then we ate dinner. And now most everyone is taking a nap before we have to do show #2 at 8pm. Then we will head home. Home to our own beds. Beds with no bugs, and clean bathtubs.   I will miss the singing janitor though.   Maybe I can get my hubby to sing "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone" to me while he cleans our house.....??    I can only hope.