The best of hotels
When on a road trip and you land in a town where you don't have people to stay with, lodging becomes very important. We picked the best of hotel rooms and the worst of them. The good ones, of course, were all about us doing our research and comparing rates, while the worst were simply flukes and bad luck. Yeah right. If only we were that smart. In truth, we traveled by the seat of our pants and made decisions as we rolled into towns, with a few exceptions.
Here's a list of our top picks, in no particular order, and some reasons why we loved them:
Maison Dupuy, New Orleans
This boutique hotel won our hearts with its comfortable bed, puffy pillows and beautiful, historic lobby. The valet parking was an added bonus. We drove in and ditched the car, although we had to pay extra for the privilege. The price, overall, was well worth it to spend two nights two blocks from Bourbon Street. I wouldn't want to do New Orleans any other way.
Boulder Broker Inn, Boulder, Colorado
This quaint hotel near the University of Colorado campus had spacious rooms, an outdoor pool and jacuzzi and a full hot breakfast in a dining room. We procured a great rate, which included two free drink coupons, and stayed for two nights. The beds actually had mini-canopies over the pillows. It had a lot more style and pizzazz than Joe Chain Hotel. We were utterly charmed and congratulated each other a few times on the rare find of an affordable gem.
The Inn at St. John, Portland, Maine
We fell in love with this hotel from the moment of walking in the beautiful, well-appointed lobby. Our room was on the second floor, and the staircase turned left, then twisted, then rose again. Our room was definitely old school, in the best historic sense, and the bathroom was large enough for us to sleep in, had we wanted to. We loved the old fixtures and the beauty of the place. The breakfast nook had tons of historic photos of the area to admire. The best part is the price was a steal, especially for it being the Fourth of July.
Embassy Suites, Austin, Texas
Need we say more? Well, maybe just a little more. We crashed on the sofabed of a suite with a friend, and it was a high-class experience all the way. (Thanks again, Ricky!) The breakfast in the morning was the best of the trip, including a made-to-order food bar offering all the hot specialties. It obviously was in a terrific location downtown, too, just across the Congress Street Bridge.
The Maple Inn, Chautauqua, New York
Of course this is on the list, because I've been staying there for years with my folks. We had a lovely room with a balcony and free WiFi, just steps away from the Athenaeum Hotel, where we were attending the wedding. It was pretty quiet pre-season, though, and we missed the usual suspects hanging out on the porch.
Santa Fe Inn, Winnemucca, Nevada
Seriously, this made our list. We had a huge room, with a couch and tons of floor space, for practically pocket change, and we were especially glad after hitting a number of overpriced, rather dirty rooms along the route. We had an afternoon swim in the outdoor pool and enjoyed once again not being in a chain hotel. The strip in Winnemucca is lined with cheap deals, which may be why this one was such a deal. It was squeaky clean, too.
Summer Lake Hot Springs, Paisley, Oregon
We stayed in a little cabin for a good price with our own bathroom and kitchen in the middle of rural, eastern Oregon. The sunset views were spectacular, but the real draw is the hot springs bathhouse. There are even floation devices for soakers to rest on as they absorb the minerals in the water. It was toasty warm, around 104 degrees if I recall correctly, in the water, and our skin really did feel great afterwards. The water unknotted my then-stiff back. We're ready to go back again.
Radio City Apartments, New York City
This was the priciest of them all, but also among the most delightful for its location. There's nothing more incredible than spending a night in Manhattan, right in the center of it all. Our room was a suite with a living room and a nice kitchen, and it was wonderful to walk to and from a Broadway show that night. The next morning, we stashed our baggage with the hotel clerk and spent another full day in New York City. We collected our bags from the hotel around 8 p.m., and headed back to Jersey.
The Olde Mill Inn, Basking Ridge, New Jersey
Although the hotel was gorgeous and the rooms were sumptuous, the best part of our stay at the Olde Mill Inn was my friend Chiara getting married there. As a result, the corridors were full of faces from long ago. The wedding setup and the reception were beautiful, and the food was delicious. A main staircase was a gorgeous centerpiece to the lobby. The bride and groom and their families did a great job with the wedding, and the hotel itself only added to the experience.
And finally, the hotel in McCook, Nebraska, and the name escapes me, but the nice counter lady saved our evening by squeezing us in despite having no official vacancies. We'll update this with the name once I get my paperwork in order. Not only was the room luxurious for a rock-bottom price, we had free breakfast coupons at the restaurant next door. It was fantastic.
It's one more contest
During our summer road trip, not including the P.S. of a jaunt to Canada and Washington we tacked on last week, Jonathan and I visited 36 states and one province in Canada.
How many towns and cities did we visit? A "visit" includes a stop for coffee, dragging town, doing something in that particular place. Driving through a town without sightseeing or stopping doesn't count.
Floating back to the states
We had a lovely ferry crossing through the San Juan Islands from Sidney to Anacortes, where I bought the final skein of yarn for my road trip blanket.
From there, we visited another small town or two before settling in the Everett area to have dinner with sister-in-law Susanne at Anthony's Woodfire Grill. All of our meals were delicious. The next morning, after breakfast pastries and coffee at Pave, we toured Boeing's
Future of Flight center near Everett. The main building on the tour has the largest volume of any building in the world. We met some pilots there to take possession of some brand new planes. The new 787 aircraft, which hasn't started production yet, sounds really cool.
We wandered to downtown Seattle and Pike's Market for lunch, where I picked a treat from Piroshky, Piroshky, and the others fended for themselves. After taking in the sights, smells and sounds of the market, we found the hotel in Bellvue for the Music Box Society International conference. My parents walked the lobby and I was fawned over by people who hadn't seen me since I was a little girl. It was a lot of fun to reconnect.
We had a fantastic dinner with Jonathan's friend John that night at Ray's Cafe in Seattle, and the next day we headed home by Amtrak. The trip was delayed due to the train needing another engine. Then it was delayed again in the middle of nowhere, between Kelso and Vancouver, because the crew was getting close to working its maximum hours. I was surprised we didn't get a new crew in Kelso or wait the 10 minutes until we arrived in Vancouver. Instead, a taxi rolled along the riverbank to deliver the next crew, while we waited on the track. It was an odd sight, the taxi on the dirt bank by a river where people were kayaking. We got into Portland soon after that, and my inlaws came to pick us up and whisk us away.
So now we're home. It feels good. But I miss the motion of travel and the changing landscape. It is good to wake up and know where I am, though.
A riot of color
Too bad computer monitors aren't scratch and sniff. Here are some of my Butchart Gardens photos. Imagine a land of honey and roses, powdered sugar mountains and sweet herbs for grass. The gardens smell something like that, but better.
Mmm, flowers and tea
We had an excellent day of exploration, starting with the stunning Butchart Gardens and ending with high tea at the Empress Hotel. Those two bookended of the rest of our day, which included exploring more of the area.
The funky photo at the top of this post is from a photo area in the gardens, which are outside Victoria by about 20 or 30 minutes. Yes, that's us, in the center, with people wavering all around, because it's a reflection. I took the chance for an artsy shot at the photo viewing wall. Photographers are supposed to take turns at an open window to shoot inside a lush, flowery area, but I spotted the opportunity to use the glass windows that were still closed.
I'll post more garden photos later. The colors and smells swept us away for the whole morning. My parents and their friends wandered their own ways, as we took off to do the full garden circuit. The site was a former rock quarry, and there were magestic blooms and dazzling fountains everywhere. You can learn more about it
here.
And tea at the Empress. Six of us attended, the three women in hats, of course, and yes, they were all my hats, brought up from Oregon at the mention of the possibility of doing tea. To do tea, one must wear the proper hat, if one happens to be passionate about such things, as I am.
We started at the lower level of our three-tiered platter with delectable sandwiches. The ginger and carrot one was special in particular, but they all were delicious. We moved to the middle tray for fresh scones with clotted cream and imported British strawberry jam, each of us with our own private jam jar. The green tea cream puffs were divine, as was the chunk of moist amaretto cake.
By the top tier of our tea cake stand, we were soaked in Empress blend tea and stuffed with yummies. And yet, we all found room in our stomachs and our hearts to adore the strawberry tarts, dark chocolate truffles and shortbread cookies sparkling with sugar. Our server Paul was delightful, as were the ladies sitting near us who asked to take our picture because of our colorful hats.
Of course, the tradition of tea is as much about conversation and enjoying each other's company as anything. My parents, Jonathan and I and my parents' friends Ginny and Knowles has a blast chatting and exclaiming over the fine food. I recommend this experience to anyone headed up to Victoria. It's well worth the rather formidable price for a top-notch experience, especially if you're with people you love.
O Canada
We're here, in Victoria, after a lovely ferry ride from Port Angeles this afternoon.
We brought our lunch onto the ferry, then checked out Chinatown and the Sunday outdoor market, full of crafts and interesting jewelry. After a coffee stop at Fresh Cup, we found our hotel, which had given us upgrades to suites. Whoo hoo! We have kitchens and everything.
Tonight's dinner was at
Spinnakers, upstairs in the brewpub area, and my raspberry ale was scrumptious. It's been voted best pub in Victoria for years. The high quality food was a great match for the delicious beverages. We all shared around, especially with the salmon cakes and the heirloom tomato platter.
Our first Best of the Road Trip list
Our dear niece has, it seems, has logged into Blogger, which probably means she'll be adding a post here pretty soon about her adventures with us earlier in the summer. We're excited she can take the time away from her busy schedule. Her color guard responsibilities are awesome, including making and teaching routines and ordering uniforms. Apparently other schools have coaches to do this. We'll have to see which football games we can make it to this fall to watch her in action.
In honor of Krista getting going on her blog contribution, here's our first top-of-the-top lists, with many to come, about our road trip experience.
FIVE COLLEGES WE HOPE KRISTA APPLIES TO SO WE CAN COME VISIT HER, BECAUSE WE LIKE THE TOWNS, EVEN THOUGH SHE PROBABLY WON'T APPLY TO ANY OF THEM, BECAUSE THE NORTHWEST IS WONDERFUL AND HAS PLENTY OF WONDERFUL SCHOOLS
Harvard (in Boston)
Amherst (in Amherst, Mass., which is near several other cute college towns, including Northampton)
University of Texas at Austin (Austin, of course)
University of Vermont (in Burlington)
University of Colorado (in Boulder)
On the road again, believe it or not
We packed, then unpacked, and now we're repacked and on the road again, in Sequim, Washington, of all places. The timing worked out for my parents to come out to the Seattle area for a Music Box Society International conference. They arrived a few days in advance to spend time with us, including this jaunt up the Olympic Penninsula and into Victoria, British Columbia, tomorrow morning.
The van is different this time around, because it's full of four people's stuff and snacks. Plus I've been riding in the back seat. Yesterday we drove up to Aberdeen, Washington, to visit sister-in-law Donna and sweet niece Krista, who found her bed short-sheeted last night and text messaged us sometime past 1 a.m. to let us know. She wouldn't have gotten this surprise, of course, if she had done her blogging about her trip with us for this very site, as had been requested of her several weeks ago. On the other hand, she's apparently been busy knitting her very first, and most gorgeous, sweater, and doing sudoku. Oh, and with a job and being co-captain of the marching band's color guard. We better give her some slack. Perhaps she would e-mail us a picture of her sweater so we could post it in lieu of her What I Did on My Summer Vacation essay. Otherwise, it'll be more short-sheeting for her.
On the way to Aberdeen, we explored Olympia, always a favorite haunt, especially Wind It Up, Archibald Sisters and the scrumptious farmers' market. We're counting the days until our peaches ripen. We spent today in Port Townsend, poking our noses in and out of shops and checking out the town festival going on. People constructed living rooms out on the main Uptown Street, so gawkers and locals alike could come sit on the furniture, visit with friends and eat their lunches. The Tyler Street Coffee stop was, as always, a delicious highlight. I had fresh, oven warmed gingerbread with homemade whipped cream. Jonathan savored his americano. My parents also had coffee and a lovely not-sweet roll full of fruit and nuts.
Tonight's a room picnic with salmon from a local cart, which is apparently a local favorite at the food co-op. Mmm.
Whatever shall we do when we get home and don't have any more trips planned? And whatever shall we blog about?
Playing catchup
The last few days of our trip seamlessly melded into being with family back home. So here's a short recap of Utah onwards to Oregon.
My father and his family swam in the Great Salt Lake back in the 1950s, and I really wanted to as well, but when we drove by Saltair, an appropriate place, which oddly looks like an Arabian palace, it was right after breakast. And I wasn't sure I wanted to get that briney before having enough caffeine. Instead we drove a bit farther and stopped to take photos of the lake and smell the air. From there we drove for a long time through the salt flats, which look something like this:
I was amazed at the sheer whiteness. I was also amazed by
Metaphor: The Tree of Utah. After that pale landscape, we found ourselves in the desert in Nevada. Winnemucca was our overnight destination, a place with casinos and lots of hotels, so finding lodging wasn't a problem. We had a great suite at the Santa Fe Inn and a hearty diner breakfast in town. Winnemucca actually has a motorcycle festival called Runamucca. Cool.
We crossed over into Oregon, the hot and dusty side I hadn't been to before. It was beautiful, even the treacherous highways without guard rails. Great views. We lunched in Lakeview, Oregon, a small town Jonathan remembered from his boyhood due to accompanying his dad, who built a forest service cooler there. He'll probably blog more about how we made a pilgrimage to the cooler, once we get settled in more. Unfortunately, the water table wasn't high enough for us to see Lakeview's geyser, so we'll just have to go back.
From there, we spent the night near Summer Lake at the
Summer Lake Hot Springs. We rented a cabin for the evening and went for luxurious dips in the hot, mineral water in the resort's bathhouse, which is open 24-hours-a-day. It was rustic and beautiful out there, and watching the sun go down over the lake and nearby mountains was a relaxing ending to our journey. Much better than hanging around making lists about what we had to do the moment we hit our front doorstep. Here's a picture of our cabin:
We frolicked a bit in Bend, Oregon, on the way back home, but we weren't much in the mood to dally or shop. We spotted a new organic coffee place in town,
Strictly Organic Coffee. Then we powered through the last few hours of driving, headed past what seemed to my Jersey sensibilities a rather large forest fire in the mountains, to hit I-5, the highway that shoots up and down the West Coast. After all these weeks and months of driving on other highways, it made us smile to recognize destinations along the way and wonder if our friends who lived in those places were home.
Home like we were about to be.
One plus one plus one... that's a lot of hats
We've done our official count of hats in the van. It has been certified, notorized and authorized by the Laura and Jonathan Traveling Circus LLC. The count does include two stocking caps, which are indeed hats, despite not being all that fashionable. It also includes several purchased during the summer, prior to the day of the contest announcement, but it does not include the crushed (and I do mean crushed) velvet one we sent back home in June due to the beating it was getting.
The final answer is, drum roll please... 19.
Which makes Chris our winner. Congratulations! You win four business class airplane tickets and a five-day stay at a luxurious condo in Bermuda, where the pink sand will get under your toenails. Uh. Oh right. Wrong script. Chris wins a prize from our minivan, hand-carried back to Oregon from some very exotic locale, like south Texas.
Although Chris was the winner, with the closest answer of 14, he commented that they'd all be mine and one would be Jonathan's. That statement was more funny than it was true, as it turns out. The final breakdown is as follows: Jonathan, 10 hats; Laura, 9 hats, including the New Orleans one which in an alternate reality should count as four hats because of its beauty and that tickly feather on the side. The stocking caps are Jonathan's, as if that needed spelling out.
Karen is the runner-up, with a guess of 13, and Doug gets style points for his 30.3 guess and the accompanying hat breeding theory, which we have our scientists working on at this very moment.
In the other winner's circle, which we know fondly as the Where's Jonathan contest, M has jumped in with both feet to win two prizes. Congrats on your clean sweep! In the nature chronicles double special edition, Jonathan was hugging Emily Dickinson's tree in Amherst, Mass., in the first picture and at Yaddo's gardens in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., in the second one.
Disclosure: M is my mother. But she was not prompted or hinted or shown photos of the places in question. She guessed both right on her own. Honestly. She has never commented on a blog before, either.
Alien invasion
This is a water tower we spotted in Ogallala, Nebraska. Go figure. It's certainly more interesting than the ones we spotted labeled HOT and COLD.
Home sweet home
Here's the long and the short of it.
We arrived back in Portland yesterday, after a wonderful stay at the Summer Lake Hot Springs in eastern Oregon and a visit to Bend. After we were home for about half an hour, Jonathan went down to the basement to find me some gardening shears. He called up the stairs to tell me we had guests.
Rats. I was sure they were rats.
Turns out, niece Krista and her friend Riley were hanging out in our basement, quietly. Who knew? And who knew such giggly teenagers could be quiet in the same room together? Other than being thrilled to see them (and thrilled to not have to worry about critters with tails), they helped us unload two-and-a-half month's worth of luggage, food and other clutter from our van.
Today's my mother-in-law's 70th birthday party, our deadline for returning home, and once we celebrate today and get more settled in, we'll write about the last few days of our trip and start posting our favorites lists, including our favorite coffee shops. So stay tuned for a longer update featuring some amazing sights, such as the Hole-in-the-Ground and where's a good place to go for breakfast in Winnemucca.
And if you haven't guessed on our hat contest, now's your opportunity. We'll be counting them sometime soon and posting the correct answer on Wednesday. So if you want to win a prize, jump on in now. The water's nice and warm.
The big Five-Oh
Yep.
I've officially been to all 50 states now and spent a bit of time in each one. Quick drive-throughs didn't count to mark a state off, only actual activities and wandering about.
I don't know what this means. Certainly not bragging rights. Perhaps it'll make me a better conversationalist in Oregon, meeting all those people who have moved to the Beaver State from elsewhere. Oh, Nevada? Whereabouts? Winnemucca? I was there last month, running amucka.
Utah was my 50th state, and I was on a take-it-or-leave it bend for a while, thinking if I saw all 50 by the end of this summer, maybe there wouldn't be a reason to go back out on the road. But with all the cool stuff we've seen, there are tons of interesting and weird and beautiful places we didn't find the time for. In two and a half months. All that time, and we still couldn't see all of America. Kind of a good feeling to realize that.
The time has gone by so fast. Starting the trip, I was sure we'd be able to spend as much time as we wanted in every place and see every little thing that piqued our fancy. Ha. All the more reason to do another trip down the road, so to speak. Besides, Jonathan has only seven more to go before he's seen all 50!
Couple of states in a row
The road heat on our laps and arms, the change in sound of the highway beneath our tires, the landscape shifting from green to brown to pink. What we've seen most of lately is the sights outside our van window.
After Kansas, we found our way to Buffalo Bill Cody's Scout's Run Ranch, in North Platte, Nebraska. The self-guided tour was really interesting, with artifacts in the main house and then other buildings around the property to explore, including a huge barn filled with displays and old show posters. All this and more for one $3 parking tag. We ate at a cafe in town before getting back in the saddle for Colorado.
When we arrived in Boulder and fell in love with it, we decided to blow off Denver. Boulder is nestled against the mountains and whoever planned the city got it right. There's a large, pedestrian-friendly Pearl Street Mall downtown, full of restaurants, shops and apparently a nightlife scene that keeps the University of Colorado students happy. We had a wonderful dinner at the Walnut Brewery in downtown. They brew their own beer, and boy, was it good. Made me glad, after all these weeks of brewpub-free living, that we're returning to Oregon. The atmosphere in Boulder's original brewpub, or so it's called, reminded me of the Pelican Pub in Pacific City.
We spent the next luxurious day as a road-trip-free zone. We hung out in our hotel, the Boulder Broker Inn, which was lovely and a great deal, in between wandering around the Pearl Street Mall and the Hill, eating and exploring. In the morning, we visited Boulder's Chautauqua. It's one of four in the country still existing from the original Chautauqua movement. That movement began in Chautauqua, New York, where my family and I vacation. The Boulder Chautauqua had well-known musicians on its docket, but it didn't have the kinds of lectures and other programming of the larger, original one. It would be incredible to spend a summer week in Boulder, though, listening to music and sipping iced tea on a cottage porch. The Boulder Chautauqua has the added benefit of being the beginning of some gorgeous hiking trails. We sauntered up one a little ways, but we weren't prepared for a day hike, so we didn't go too far.
Oh, and we had lots of coffee in Boulder. I think you could spend a week there and still not hit all the coffee shops in town. Jonathan's favorite of the places he tried was the Laughing Goat. The Boulder Co-op was adorable, too, full of interesting food and nice people. We'd shop there a lot if we lived in town.
On our way out of town the next morning, we paused at Celestial Seasonings for a tour of the factory. I learned lots of things I didn't know before, like how strong smelling a room full of mint can be. And teas that are naturally caffeine free aren't actually tea, because they don't use the tea plant, camellia sinensis. That plant is naturally caffeinated. The naturally caffeine free ones (as opposed to decaf, where the caffeine is removed) are made from herbs alone, without the tea plant. The whole factory smelled like a brewing pot of tea. Mmm.
We ventured up to Fort Collins, Colorado, on our way out of town, where we had lunch in a cafe, Deja Vu near the college. Then it was onwards to Cheyenne, Wyoming, a cowboy town for sure. We had our coffee break in The Plains hotel in downtown, where there was a cafe. We also did some cowboy shopping at a historic business.
From Cheyenne, our trail took us further west to Laramie, where we got gas and checked out the town. On our way toward Rawlins for the evening, we detoured into the Vedauwoo recreation area, an area known for its oddly-shaped, beautiful rock formations, known by the Native Americans as a spiritual place. We saw lots of deer and cattle along the drive. As it was getting late, we opted to hit the road again. I've never seen anything like it. The rocks looked like they had been sculpted or balanced on top of each other on purpose.
A note to any travelers: The stretch of Route 80 along lower Wyoming isn't a great place to need a room for the night right now. We paid an exorbitant sum for not very much room, and apparently got the last place in Rawlins. Demand has pushed the prices way up there. According to our neighbors, who were on their way to the motorcycle rally in Sturgis, a pipeline project along the highway has kept demand high, due to the construction workers needing rooms. Everybody's full, and what rooms there are get jacked up in price. I'm glad we got a room, because the next town over was probably packed with people, too.
We pulled into Utah last night, first to Park City, where the Sundance festival is held. It was definitely a ski town in the summer, with lots of interesting shops downtown. We pushed on to Salt Lake City, where we found one of the few remaining downtown hotel rooms. Apparently the lodging issue here is some kind of monthlong conference, which has filled the hotels. Who knew we'd have the most trouble finding places in the last leg of our trip? We'll see how we do tonight.
Last night's dinner, at a noodle place called Mi La Cai, was delicious. We're off to explore Salt Lake today, then head ever westward into Nevada. Where hopefully we'll find a bed, or a campsite, for the evening.
Here's a new contest (insert cheering)
How many hats do Laura and Jonathan have in their van?
The contest is official as of today, and answers can come in through Aug. 13, the day after we return. We'll count our hats when we pull our stuff out of the van. I'm not sure of the answer myself, so it's not multiple choice. A hint: it's more than one.
Whoever guesses the right amount or closest to it wins a prize. Whoopee! Hurray! Yippee!
Oklahoma, OK!
Norman, Oklahoma, a college town right outside Oklahoma City, welcomed us a couple days ago with heat and more heat. We've become accustomed to drinking tons of water and only spending as little time possible in the sun. Everybody's been talking about the 100-degree temperatures and accompanying humidity. It's good to know Texas and Oklahoma aren't that hot all the time. In Norman, a shopkeeper recommended Bison Witches Bar and Deli for lunch. We were surprised to find although nobody was out on the streets, everybody was inside Bison Witches, gorging on huge sandwiches and bread bowls brimming with soup. We joined the masses to feast. The state was on our must-see list, since it's one I hadn't been to before.
After Norman, we went to the national memorial at Oklahoma City. It was very sobering to stand where the federal building was and realize its scope. The memorial was beautifully, thoughtfully constructed, with large gateways on either side representing 9:01 and 9:03, the minutes framing the minute of the explosion. Empty chairs are set in rows representing those who died. The picture is from the 9:01 gate, looking toward the moment after, with the reflecting pool in between.
People had hung tokens, stuffed animals, messages and pictures on a wall near the second gate. On an overlook walk, small bells were attached to a fence, where the playground was, each with the name of a child who died there. Passers-by can walk along and ring the bells in their memory.
We had the best of intentions after that to go to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, but we were sun dazzled and heat impaired, so we couldn't find it and instead drove through the Bricktown historic area. I discovered later the museum is only a few blocks from the memorial. We took that as a sign to get back on the road to Wichita, where we arrived in the evening, in time to pick the wrong hotel and that's a story that's already been told.
In the morning in Wichita, we spotted a large farmers' market, where we found delicious cookies and a new hat for me (of course). In search of coffee, we followed a billboard to the Spice Traders, a wonderful tea and spice store that captured our imaginations and got me back into thinking of tea as a calming ritual and not just as a way to wake up without coffee. I hope to have some tea parties when we get back home. After all, my hat from the farmers' market is very much a tea party hat, and I'll need an occasion or two to wear it.
Views of Texas
A shot from inside the John F. Kennedy Jr. memorial in Dallas, Texas.
San Antonio's famed Riverwalk.
The Alamo, also in San Antonio.
A good night's rest is here
So the upshot of last night's horrid hotel experience is as follows:
We, very politely, explained our lack of sleep while checking out this morning, and the clerk offered us $10 off. Perhaps it would have been more if we were part of the power outage, too. It seems, though, there's a larger issue of personal responsibility.
The next part of the story was arriving in McCook, Nebraska at 9:30 this evening only to find this is the busiest weekend in the whole year in this region, due to school starting again soon, I suppose. No vacancy, no vacancy, and no vacancy. The best suggestion was driving an hour north, but nobody could guarantee if those hotels would have rooms. With the crazy thunderstorms shooting across the plains, not to mention the continuing heat, we didn't want to camp, even if there was a campsite nearby.
After I told the third hotel clerk about us driving a long ways today to get here, she fiddled around with her computer and figured out how she could squeeze us in. I am so very, very grateful. The Wal-Mart parking lot was looking like our best option tonight, and yet here we are, ensconsed in a clean, spacious room with WiFi, with complimentary hot breakfast in an actual restaurant (gasp!) next door tomorrow morning. We couldn't be luckier. We wish wonderful things for the nice lady who took the time to find us a place in the inn.
Zen and the art of hotel picking
Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't. Sometimes the free WiFi turns out to be a scam or there are no hotspots on your floor. Sometimes the hotel tech help line claims the company doesn't support Safari. Whatever.
Last night, in Wichita, by far we had the worst experience of our hotel roaming summer. It started with half the hotel losing power around 7 or so. Luckily, we were on the third floor, which wasn't affected. We congratulated each other for our luck and headed out to dinner downtown.
The power was on in the whole place when we got back, which we took to be a good sign. Around 9:45, when we were both asleep due to wanting to get up and put a lot of miles under our belts today, a party started in the hall. There were slamming doors, screams and loud thuds. There were people opening drinks and talking in loud outside voices to each other. Constantly. An hour later, when Jonathan went downstairs to complain, the staff didn't offer any help or talk about quiet hours. He said the basketball team had just come back to the hotel. As it turned out, all the ruckus congregated in front of our hotel door. Whoever was next door, either the coach or some popular player, had, I'm not kidding, a knock every five seconds on the door. Jonathan counted the time for a while between silence and the slammings and knockings. The shortest count he got to was two, the longest was 62. On and on, over and over. Slam knock unintelligible screams, bang. I think it was the basketballs bouncing up and down the halls that made the banging sounds that weren't the slamming sounds.
We got up finally and I read half my new book, while he surfed the Internet. Thankfully, this hotel did have that going for it. After four hours of thinking everything was dying down, only to have another slam bam wham scream fest start up again in a few more seconds, we passed out from exhaustion.
I thought it was funny for a while, but then I got frustrated and angry, because it was so awful the staff should have stepped in, especially after complaints. Or moved us to the first floor. Yes, this whole thing was centered on our floor, not to mention the epicenter in the room next door. I moved then from anger to sadness, because these kids obviously haven't had anyone in their family to teach them to respect other people. Perhaps that's because they haven't received the respect they deserve. Or because they've never had the luxury of spending the night in a hotel.
I do feel very disappointed in the hotel management and the inability of the staff to offer anything (earplugs? more pillows?) when Jonathan complained about the situation and asked for a remedy. We're rolling out later than we expected this morning, but we'll go find a cute coffee shop downtown that roasts their own coffee and try to get this day started on a better foot. Make the most out of it. After all, we're going to need that caffeine today.
Texas, part two
Even though we only had two nights in Texas, that part of our trip feels like it was super sized. So here's the second half.
We spent the Schlitterbahn night in Austin, with tasty food from a local Tex-Mex chain for dinner, then explored Austin all the next day. The morning lead us to the Wheatsville Food Co-op, where a cashier suggested Spider House for coffee and/or evening entertainment. We headed there next, and found smooth espresso drinks with a moist pumpkin muffin. It was hot, but not too bad in the morning yet, so we sat out back on their patio. The business has free movies at night and also is a bar. The atmosphere was what we expected to find in Austin, very cool, unlike any place we've been before, interesting people watching and, of course, great coffee.
Turns out the night we rolled into Austin the first time was on the 40th anniversary of the sniper shootings from the University of Texas at Austin tower on campus. More violent history. We didn't go to see the tower, but it was visible along Guadalupe Street, where we wandered during the afternoon in search of shops with air conditioning and bottles of cold water.
Then we found Book People, my new favorite bookstore, next to Powell's of course, and some of the other top-notch ones we've seen on this trip. The store was huge, with friendly help and tons of well-written, laminated staff recommendations. Some of the writeups featured pictures drawn by the staff members. I spent plenty of time reading those and learning about books I didn't know about before.
After lunch at the flagship Whole Foods in Austin, we browsed at Waterloo, a music store. Book People was named the top bookstore in the U.S. in 2005 by somebody, and Waterloo received a similar top award for its industry. Cool.
I can see why Austin keeps topping lists of places to live. There are lots of restaurants, attractions, museums, a happening night life (although it didn't happen for us!), arts and culture and a sense of intellectualism. Plus it's the state capitol, with a building taller than the U.S. Capitol Building, since everything is bigger in Texas.
Unfortunately, we had to keep moving due to our time schedule, so we left Austin for a night in Fort Worth. We missed seeing the nightly bats that fly from under the Congress Street Bridge at dusk. We'll just have to come back.
We had Riscky's Barbecue in Fort Worth for dinner. The next morning we took off for Oklahoma.
All Texas
The last few days have been big ones, Texas size days. We started off in Texarkana, staying the night on the Arkansas side, although we drove there on the Texas side. Jonathan and I were both right! How often does that happen when people take opposite sides and both think they're right?
We saw so much in Texas that our Let's Go USA book opens to the Austin page now, unbidden.
Dallas was hot but interesting. We went to the Urban Market for lunch, which is part cafe and part grocery store. We had a delicious, healthy meal (i.e. not fried or barbecued), then took a walking tour of downtown. The I.M. Pei architecture is delightful. We paid our respects at the JFK memorial and spent some time around Dealy Square, looking at the grassy knoll and the Texas School Book Depository Building. It's one thing to read about his death and the conspiracy theories, another to stand there and look around and judge distances and angles. We skipped the conspiracy museum, though, in favor of heading south.
In Waxahachie, we visited Clara, nephew Alex's and niece Krista's grandmother. Jonathan and I had a great time chatting with her. I had never met her before, and it had been many years since Jonathan had seen her.
We rolled into Austin late, hungry and tired of driving. Thankfully, Austin has plenty of late-night hotspots. We picked Ruby's BBQ for dinner, and the food was awesome, flavorful and moist. Oh, and cheap prices, too. After browsing in the huge toy store across the street (also open late), we took to the road again and drove a bit south for the evening.
The next morning, and I wish I could say what day it was, but by this point, the days have blurred together in a mix of good food, road smells, a sweaty back against the car seat, a whole world of memories in every day. Anyway. That day, whatever day it was, we went south to San Antonio. That whole day was one of the most fun-packed of our whole trip. It was also one of the hottest. Walking outside for a few minutes slowed my body and brain down to the speed of molasses.
Once we arrived in San Antonio, we ferreted out Madhatters on Beauregard Street and had the most incredible breakfast. It's known for its tea, so we shared a pot of All Day Breakfast. My breakfast was cardamom and cinnamon tea oatmeal, which was healthy and not too sweet, but oh so tasty.
The Alamo was very intense. I was surprised at how moved I was being there. I didn't know the name of the 16-year-old I was related to who died there, but I saw Jim Bowie's name everywhere, as well as in an exhibit about the Bowie knife. Walking around there, reading about what happened, I felt connected to my roots, something I didn't expect to feel in Texas. History was right there in front of us. Although there were plenty of tourists there, the spirit of the place and its importance in American history was palpable.
San Antonio's Riverwalk is 2.5 miles of paths, beneath the main street area, along the San Antonio River. We found quiet delight in strolling along the river, watching the boats giving tours and enjoying the gardens and historic plaques. After coffee at Sip, a hip little cafe, we slipped over to Market Square for some browsing in the shops.
After a quick bite to eat, a hat shop visit and another stroll along the Riverwalk, we headed back north to New Braunfels, where Schlitterbahn is located. It's a 65-acre waterpark with a Bavarian theme to it. We met Ricky, Crystal's husband, there for an afternoon of water adventures. He was in town in Austin for business.
Schlitterbahn features water from the Comal River. Its tubing rides were especially relaxing and fun, and one we rode actually
dropped us out onto the river itself. It was amazing. The park was named the top waterpark in America by the Travel Channel. It was definitely my favorite. We spent four hours there, grabbing tubes and hopping in the water, sometimes waiting in lines. Eight at night rolled around before we knew it.
