Michigan Road Trip!

I'm going to attempt to write a bit.  I can probably only write until Rene wakes up (which may be HOURS from now - who knows!) because after that, I am FORCED to play and chat and swim and laugh.  (Because you all know I would NEVER want to do any of that!)  It's harder than you think to keep up with things on a blog.  And there's all kinds of formatting and stuff that I seem to have to constantly be adjusting, but I want to make your experience easy and fun to read.  I have had to change the look of the blog and there are MANY things about blogger I DO NOT LIKE!  But you don't have to hear any more about that grumble...


We took off for our Michigan Road Trip on June 9th.  I took a couple of roadside photos to fit into my "Photo of the Day" album.  One interesting thing we saw that I didn't get a photo of was a wind generator arm being transported.  Those things are HUGE!  Now I'm just talking ONE propeller being trucked down the highway - it took a trailer with THREE extensions on it to fit!  No dramas that first day or night.  We spent the night in Lincoln, Nebraska.  Remember Chris said no more Motel Sixes?  Yay!   Also, remember that Chris bought an electric skillet so he wouldn't have to take me out for dinner?  After we got to the motel, he headed to the grocery store and  brought home what he was going to fix for dinner.  I got a three course meal!  First, he brought me some veggie sticks with dip.  Next, he cooked up some pork chops and served it with crab salad!  For dessert, we had cantaloupe and a candy bar.   PLUS, he did all the clean-up as well!  Isn't he just the sweetest, cutest husband alive?  I was thrilled.


The next day we tootled on along to Davenport, Iowa.  The motel was quite nice, though the elevator was being repaired and our room was on the third floor.   Again, I had a delightful Chris-bought, Chris-made, Chris-cleaned dinner!  I even volunteered to go shopping FOR him, but no, he wanted to take care of it himself.  The only thing that marred the evening was that at 7:30, we suddenly heard a shrill, shrieky, ear-splitting, high-pitched siren in our room!  WHAT was THAT?  Chris thought it was the smoke alarm, but we had already eaten and cleaned up - so there was no smoke at all!  I had just turned the coffee maker on to make some hot water for tea, but wasn't that odd to set off the smoke alarm??  It didn't last long, only a few seconds, so we put it down to a fluke, and brushed it off.  We settled in to watching TV, checking email, etc. and danged if about 9:30, the damn alarm went off again!  Startling us and upsetting us.  This time I called down to the front desk and the clerk there claimed that someone had been smoking in the hall underneath the smoke alarm and he had chased him off and reprimanded him.   Unfortunately, for safety reasons, if the smoke alarm goes off in ONE room - it goes off in EVERY room.  He hoped it wouldn't happen again, and sorry for the disturbance.  Well, yeah.  WE hoped it wouldn't happen again as well!  We turned off the light about 11:00 and JUST as we were getting to sleep, the alarm went off a THIRD TIME!  Aargh!  "That clerk is going to be getting a LOT of complaints now!"  Chris figured that someone had a grudge against either the clerk or the hotel in general and was setting off the smoke alarm on purpose.  We went to sleep again.  And DANGED if that smoke alarm didn't go off EVERY TWO HOURS throughout the night!  We were awakened at 1:30, 3:30, 5:30 and again at 7:30 (see - I was sleeping later than usual because my sleeping was intermittent!)
Grumble, grumble.  I figured that clerk was going to be handing out a LOT of refunds that morning - and mine was going to be ONE of them!  We went down for breakfast, and while my waffle was cooking, I went to the desk.  "Are you giving out refunds this morning?"  I started politely?  After asking me my room number, the clerk (a different one) told me, "Oh, since you booked with a third party (Priceline) we have no control over your refund."  
I said, "So what are you going to do about our appalling night?"
She said, "Well, I offer my sincere apology that your sleep was disturbed."
"Is that all you are going to do about it?"
"Well, ma'am, unfortunately, we have no control over the smoke alarm system in the building, but we will work to get it repaired as quickly as possible."
"So, aren't you going to offer me a voucher for another night in one of your hotels or something similar?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, Ma'am, but I have no control over vouchers - that would be the head office." (Notice how many things she has no control over!)
I'm getting pretty angry by now, so I asked, "Is this what your MANAGER suggests you do to help your guests feel better?"  
"Oh, no, Ma'am - the apology is straight from ME, not from my manager.  I'M the one who is saying sorry!"
Thoroughly disgusted, and obviously getting NO satisfaction, I walked away grumbling. 
At the breakfast table, we discovered from others who had been staying in the hotel for several days that this problem started TWO NIGHTS ago!  Some woman had hung her laundry on the fire sprinkler outlet in her room, it had come out of the ceiling, set off the fire alarms in every room, water had gushed out of the hole in her ceiling and she flooded three or four rooms on two floors!  So, the elevator was out, four rooms were under reconstruction, and there was obviously a short in the system, because the smoke alarms went off every two hours SINCE THEN!   Don't YOU think the hotel should have probably turned away new guests, KNOWING that they were not going to get a good night's sleep?

The offending smoke alarm - looks happy - sounds ATROCIOUS!

We went back up to the room, Chris called Priceline and explained the problem.  They got confirmation of the situation from the hotel, demanded that the hotel reimburse THEM, and then they allowed that they would reimburse us for the cost for the night.  OK then, at LEAST we didn't PAY for it!  As we were leaving through the lobby shortly after that, the clerk called out to me, "Oh, I took care of that refund for you!"  I just glared at her and walked out.  If I had had my wits about me I should have retorted something clever, or at least "YOU didn't take care of ANYthing!  It was out of YOUR control!"


OK then, on to Michigan!