Motel Hell Part I

It's the luck of the dice when you go from one motel to the next, not knowing what you'll pay. Sure. We could have made advanced  reservations, but my husband doesn't like to be tied to some schedule when he travels. So, we just get to a town and hope for the best.

If you've never stayed in a motel/hotel, I've gotta say one thing, you get what you get no matter what you pay. You get a bathroom, bed, TV, and maybe you'll get a refrigerator/microwave, and a window over the parking lot. Some motels include the usual "continental" breakfast. As if the word "continental" is something special. You get bad coffee and stale donuts at the very least. Other places will give you a hot breakfast, actually prepared by someone. Usually this is some sort of fried meat, maybe potatoes, scrambled eggs that look like something from a M.A.S.H. unit, and lumpy oatmeal. There could be waffles, there might be pancakes, it all depends on what the motel is willing to fork out (it's not "free", you've paid for it).

My experience is, you sometimes get lucky. Luck in finding a place to eat nearby (dinner and breakfast), that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

Our first stay was in Eagle River, Wisconsin. We try and find the "Ma & Pop" style motels, because, usually they don't cost much--around $60-$70, tops. Plus, you can usually park right in front of your door. This is good for when you have a lot of heavy stuff to haul in, as they are usually only one-story deals.

We found a place called "Edge Water Inn", it was right off the river, next to a restaurant that we went to the last time we stayed in this town years ago. When we got out, there was only an old Golden Retriever laying under the patio table in front of the office. She was friendly, and came right up to us. When we saw the note on the door saying the person in charge was "relaxing" on the dock out back, we wondered how to get there. No fear, the dog, being as smart as most Goldens, walked to a narrow opening through to the back of the motel.She waited for us to follow. And we found the middle-aged, rotund woman down a flight of steep steps in a lounge chair on a deck off the water, blowing up some sort of individual rafts.

We asked if she had any rooms available. She had two double queens--"maybe". Well we wanted to get that confirmed. She finally got up, saying she had a family reunion and there weren't many rooms left, said something about apartments too. We noted that there were rooms down below the main rooms facing the river, and those must have been the apartments (or suites). Eventually we got a room, near the end, away from the office and all the "family reunion" stuff, and got settled. We realized we had a door to the back deck, and this is where we spent some time relaxing that evening, watching the boats go by.

We paid $94.00 after tax, and for that money, I'd give the room itself a 3, since it needed dusting, but otherwise clean. But the view was a 5. However, the place really needed some up-keep. We didn't lean on the railing, as it was a bit wobbly, and could have used a coat of paint. The decks were rather worn, and should have been stained, and a few boards should have been replaced. Up-keeping on such a place should really be #1 in priority, especially where railings could fail. But this was an older couple, neither of which looked energetic enough to make beds, let alone some of the up-keep needed.

Their reunion commenced as promised, and even though she said we could join them, we aren't that interested in other people's relatives. Thank you. It was a good thing they pretty much contained their partying on the outer-most deck, shown below.

The restaurant next door is called White Spruce, and can be pulled up to via boat, much like this motel. They have a beer garden on their deck. I remember it from last time, but since it began raining, and there was thunder, they didn't seat anyone outside. Bummer. As usual, more than enough food was served. Salad is always first, and it was very good. I had eggplant Parmesan, and Dennis had something called "smoked meatloaf", which he didn't care for. I think my husband could have been a food critic. He really missed his calling.

Getting back to our room, we had difficulty navigating through the stations on the TV. This was Direct TV, with a thousand and one stations, and I do believe you need a PhD in order to understand how to use it. We wound up watching a Harry Potter movie, and could not find any news stations anywhere, not even in the morning.

Even though motels say they have coffee in the morning, they don't have coffee until they've rolled out of bed and made it. We resorted to our old standby by getting into the truck, and finding a gas station store, which always have coffee and some sort of sweet rolls. Plus, we needed ice. 'Nuff said. We got down the road heading for Land O' Lakes, and wherever the road takes us next.

It's beautiful country up this way, and I like it because it doesn't get boring (like 200 miles of Illinois and more than 300 miles of Iowa). I'll be back with rest of trip and Motel Hell Part II.

The Time I Occupy: Enter Me

I like getting the new year's calendars from our bank, and hardware store. You get what you get. But our bank puts out images from people who have gone out to our parks, and afield. There are also sayings to go with them, quotes from famous poets or writers. I like this one:

"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
~Muriel Strode

This week was our 27th wedding anniversary. As a tradition we always talk about the memory of our first date, for it was there that it all began, and it is this one night, March 1st in 1986 when our life really began. Thirty years will have passed coming up this coming March 1st. We have always been together, save for two times. Once, when I was in the hospital, and once when he tried to do OTR driving. We realized we could not be apart for that long. Not even for a night, and certainly not for weeks at a time. 

My husband likes to remark upon how unique I am. I did not/do not follow others. Not in the styles of dress, I wear what I like, and ignore fashion of the day. In fact, I've been a step ahead of fashion, to be downright truthful. Also I don't act the way other women act--emotionally, nor do I like to talk about others like they do. I don't go to any "hen parties". Those would just bore me to tears. Most men, who don't know me, probably are a little confused at first, but they come to grasp that I am an individual. That is what attracted my husband to me. He did not want the same type of woman to be involved with again. He'd gone "through hell". I won't get into that, as it is very personal.

On our second date, remember it was March, we went to a state park. There was still a lot of snow down, yet it got to 60 degrees then. (He can remember exactly what I wore, and that my feet got wet and we had to go back to my house to get me some dry shoes and socks.) In this white pine very hilly park, we traversed steep, rocky trails overlooking the river way below. I following him like a sheep, and he was amazed at how I adapted to such adverse conditions.He found out I was very outdoorsy, a hardy country girl. (He would later find out just how tough I was when he asked me to marry him and come out to Colorado with him. We enjoyed camping in several western states, in which it rained nearly the whole time.)

Dennis had already made up his mind to leave for Colorado by the time we'd met. He was working 2 jobs in order to leave. One week he put in nearly 100 hours in both the school bus driving (where we met), and the pizza place. He was very depressed and lonely. The last thing he expected was for his prayers to be answered.

Enter Me. 

I, meantime, was taking classes at NIU, but I wasn't really into my studies--art history. I would have worked toward some sort of degree. But I had been divorced, thankfully childless, and had had several boy friends in the years between and found no one that was similar in thought, likes, and especially someone who actually loved me.

I too had prayed. I didn't expect my prayers to be answered. 

But they were.

Of course, once I met Dennis, I was--how shall I put it? Extremely distracted. Needless to say, I didn't go any further with my studies. His proposal was one of those he popped the question: "

Today we put up our tree and decorated it. We haven't celebrated Christmas in a long time. Especially putting up the tree. I think this year of changes, with a lot of depression stemming over someone else getting a job he wanted, had his emotions in a real tangle. I helped him through, but he did it himself. Maybe he prayed again. At any rate, he took 2 weeks off after the park job ended and before he came back to driving the bus (transit) with me. He did a lot of walking. I think he did some soul searching. I told him it would help. I know it did.

"A friend is a second self."

~Aristotle

We lean on each other a lot. We know we are similar to those "misfit toys" in that Christmas cartoon you see every year when it comes on. Members of his family call us "black sheep". Whatever.

We are friends first. A friendship, it is said, will outlast romantic love every time. You never want to hurt your friend, nor stay mad at him. I've know women who want to hurt their husbands, or get even with them, make them buy them something expensive to "make up" for whatever they did.
I'm not like that. Neither is he. We don't hurt one another emotionally.

Not that there isn't, or wasn't romance in our relationship. Dennis was the most romantic guy I've ever known. He always thinks of me, in many ways, showing it in the things he does. He lets me do my thing, while he does laundry and does most of the cooking. He'll let me take time off from work in the summer.
Flowers in a vase, I've told him, only last a few days. It's our love that lasts forever.

This is from a wonderful anniversary card sent to us by his father:

"When you find the one

who moves in step with you,

sets the pace with you,

and looks forward to the same bright future...

...then you know you

have truly found your soulmate.

Lunch in Taos 2010

Crazy Horse Memorial--more than just a carving in rock

Doing something different today. This is one of my vacation posts. Hope you enjoy the history of an excellent place to visit if you ever get to the south-west section of South Dakota, in the area of Custer.

 This is the mountain in South Dakota, in private lands in the Black Hills, in Custer County. Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota elder, approached the Polish-American sculptor,  Korczak Ziolkowski back in 1931. For those of you who aren't familiar with Ziolkowski, or this giant supture, he was one of the men who worked on Mt. Rushmore. This monument, being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain, considered sacred by some Ogalala Lakota, between Custer and Hill City, and is about 17 miles from Mount Rushmore. The sculpture's final dimensions are planned to be 641 feet wide and 563 feet high. The head of Crazy Horse will be 87 ft high--by comparison, the heads of the four presidents at Mnt Rushmore are each 60 feet high. This work has been in progress since 1948, and is far from completion. I remember visiting this when I was very small, with my parents. When completed, it may become the world's largest non-religious statue since 1967 held by the Soviet Union's "The Motherland Calls".

This is what the completed work should look like eventually. I remember my husband and I coming out about ten years ago. We also came to see it back in the 90's and they were working on the face. I see by the picture, they've really gotten far with that.

Ziolkowski died in 1982, his widow, Ruth, took charge of the sculpture, overseeing the work on the project from the 1980's to the 2010, when she decided to focus on the completion of Crazy Horse's face first, instead of the horse, as her husband had originally planned. She believed that once the Indian's face was completed, the sculpture would be a better draw for tourism. Seven of their ten children, have carried on the work, and daughter, Monique Ziolkowski, a sculptor, modified some of her father's plans to ensure that the weight of the outstretched arm is supported.

The memorial is to be the centerpiece of an educational/cultural center when completed. As of my last visit there is a museum, a very nice restaurant, and a couple of shops to buy all Native American made crafts. I always buy a chunk of the blasted mountain whenever we go.

Oh, and one more thing to mention, this is NOT a federally funded project. Believe me, the government approached Ziolkowski a number of times, and he turned them down. The original agreement was to not have the American government get involved. You know they would have changed everything about the place. So, this is a worthwhile place to come to, should you get out on the road and are in that area. And if you go, here is a site in the area of Custer, to find places to see and stay. Always a lot to do there. The only thing I don't like about South Dakota is that they've gone with open casinos, and gambling just about everywhere you turn. I'm not a gambler. I think it's a terrible thing to get addicted on.

Hope your summer is going well. I'm going to enjoy the rest of my week off, just staying home, mostly.

No Surrender

I'm baaaack!

We went on a short trip out to New Mexico, having wanted to go back there one day. My husband and I hadn't taken a trip where we'd gotten out of Illinois in a while--especially out west, so we debated on the fact we couldn't really afford it. But then again, you need to get away from everything for several days. We decided to go, screw it.

We stayed in Taos again. Same place called Witten Inn. Cheaper than the others, I'm sure. And we took a walk up town to the Plaza where we had nice memories of having a delightful lunch, back in 2010.

We ordered beer, and then a beef taco sort of thing. There's a saying "you can't go back". What that means is you might go back, but you can't repeat those same experiences. We know this, but it was hopeful we'd at least get a good meal in this one place, since it was pretty good the last time.

Not so much. the meat was dried out, and in chunks. It basically ruined our experience there and we won't go back.

Us on balcony having lunch in Taos 2010 

We didn't let it detur our enjoyment of the late afternoon. We went to different shops in the Plaza

shops in plaza, Taos, NM

It wasn't as busy this day as it was the first time we'd been here. But plenty to see, and if you have money, a lot to buy. Saw one woman carrying around a large Indian drum, and her husband, in a motorized chair, buzzing along side her. I thought that maybe those things could use a little carrying cart when shopping.

Anyway, the walk back to the motel did my knees in. But the traffic was worse than we remembered. I don't know what it is, but everywhere we went (except for the back roads down through Nebraska into Kansas) were busy.

The next day we wanted to take a drive. I wish I could download the pictures from our phone to let you see, but I can't. Anyway, the best place to have lunch turned out to be a place in Red Rock, which is a skiing community. Lots of hotel choices here, and plenty of shops and lots of parking. They had little cars that weren't much bigger than go-carts, to rent if you had $30 burning a hole in your pocket and drive for a half an hour.

After lunch, we went on our way--the big loop that took us past "Ghost Ranch". Now, if you've never heard of Georgia O'Keef, you might want to check her out. She pretty much put New Mexico on the map. I think it's one reason why artists flock here. That, and the views are fabulous! I got this pic from Wikipedia...

As you can see, an artist would love to paint in such a place. We didn't go into the ranch, but stopped at a road side area to take it all in. Next time, we hope to have much more time to explore more of New Mexico. It's dry, and in the north, because of the altitude, it doesn't get quite as hot as the southern part of the state.

We hated to leave, but our last stay was in Las Vegas (no, not that Las Vegas), New Mexico. It became a town way before the more famous one in Nevada did. We tried two motels, when we arrived on the outskirts of town. The first one they seemed to be too busy to even say they'd be with us in a minute. My husband has no patients, but maybe that was good in this instance. We left and tried the next one. There was a guy pressure washing the drive up area. When we walked in, someone was painting, and the woman who was checking in someone held a paint brush in one had.

At this point, Dennis had looked across the road and saw an Motel 8, saw the flowers and thought "that looks like a happy place". So, we drove over there. At once we were greeted with smiling faces. While we checked in we were told there not only was a breakfast, but also there would be a hot soup and salad tonight. Yes. Free. And the guy who was just coming off his shift offered to help us carry up our ice chest. Wow! The soup was very good. The breakfast--we had poached eggs!--and we made friends with a middle-aged couple who were going south to visit a daughter. We visited at length with them. They'd been all over like we had. I got to drop the fact that I was a writer. I managed to give them one of my cards, and the woman said her daughter liked anything with vampires. Go figure.

While traveling, you never know where you'll be able to find a good place to eat. (We don't like McDonald's--you will have to shoot me if I eat there again, because we did have to eat there one night, and chose something we thought wouldn't kill us--chicken (?really?) McNuggets and fries. OMYGOD! My gut hurt for hours that night! Never ever will I eat or drink anything from that place again!) So, when we got to North Platte Nebraska, we had a hankering for chicken. I kept saying "No, I want to go to Whiskey Creek. Dennis tried to get to the Kentucky Fried Chicken place, down town, but there was construction. Somehow I think it was meant to be. We like Whiskey Creek where they put the meat over open pit fires. We settled on a small lunch chicken grilled salad. I say small... I really couldn't eat it all. There was a "large" dinner one. I'd hate to see how big that was.

We got under way again. Oh, I forgot to mention we had to drive through "The Springs" (Colorado Springs area). My husband did so, white knuckled, but did a superb job. I don't recommend driving on I 24 through the springs, unless you have nerves of steel. I had to close my eyes a few times and I was a passenger! We were also driving ahead of a boiling black cloud that was surely going to get us. We made it out of the Springs intact. Some how. That black cloud trying to gain on us. We took a road--I don't remember which one--east, and by this time it was going on one o'clock. We needed lunch. Dennis remembered that somewhere along this back road was a place where we'd stopped back years ago. I didn't remember it. But we found a Walmart. Lo and Behold! A Subway! We got the usual flat bread meal, ate and by the time we got out, it had begun to rain. We got into the truck and drove east again, and then the rain came down. Big huge drops. We worried that it might hail, but it didn't, luckily enough.

The way home was less than exciting. It always is. We hate driving home. Wish we could just twitch our noses and just be home. The other bad point about driving any more, is the gas pumps. No. The price of gas was much better the further we got away from Chicago and ILLinois. It's the "pay at the pump" thing. If you've never done this, it works like this. Either you pay with a credit card at the pump, or you have to go in and magically guess how much gas you need. Right. Like a person know exactly how many gallons you need. Once Dennis tried to pay at the pump with the card, but it didn't work. So, he had to go in. After getting gas--when the frigging thing finally works--you go back in, and get your card, or if you didn't quite get the amount you guess, you have to get reimbursed. It's such a haste. By Iowa, Dennis had road rage which I'd never seen in him before. I really thought I'd have to abandon ship.

But we made it. This week and next are my last weeks off. And this week is nearly gone. I've been busy all summer working on gardening projects, my writing, and, in the afternoon, I crocheted. I've finished two afghans, and have another one going, and a few others I'm experimenting with. I'd like to make a fall one, now.

This month is my birthday (27th), and it's the big six-OH! I've been doing pretty good on my Atkins diet. I only gained back one pound on the trip because I had a salad whenever I could, and breakfast is a no-brainer if you you can get eggs, and meat.

As a sort of celebration, my first two ebooks are $0.99 for the whole month. I've noticed that I'd made a couple of sales this week since coming back, and I wondered if my giving out my card to a few people didn't contribute. I gave a card to the waitress at Whiskey Creek, and she said she was a fan of vampires too. So, you never know. It's a good thing to have a business card to give to people, or post somewhere.

So, Vampire Ascending and Vampire's Trill are BOTH on sale now through the 31st. So, if you've wanted to check out these ebooks, now is the time!