Winter Blues Road Trip - Part 2

We already knew that this weekend was going to cost us an arm and a leg, so we decided to have at least1 meal at a fast food place to save money.  Before we ever got onto the highway after picking up L & M, we stopped in at Wendy's. Everyone got their fill and it only ran Dad $25.00 for the 5 of us. Not a bad way to start off.

 For the next hour or so, Whit and Lissa napped while Matt and I played with our cell phones. When the girls woke up, I believe the three of them were playing Words with Friends with each other - at least that is what it sounded like. We turned on the XM radio and played the "name the artist and the song" from different decades of music stations. Those kids sucked at most of the oldies but I will admit, Matt surprised me with a few. Finally, we got there around 3:00. Check in was at 4:00 but they found us two rooms across the hall from each other that were ready and let us check in.

We were staying at the Quality Inn Suites. There was nothing of quality with this whole experience. I won't go into every detail, but the short run down would be as follows. L & M got the sauna room, we got a semi coolish room. We got a microwave and refrigerator in our room, L & M got neither. Both rooms had 2 queen beds. Our room had a door on the bathroom that was full of holes where people had either punched it in or pounded nails in too hard with hammers and left holes. The back of the door also had a big blob of a hardened (it looked hardened - I didn't touch it) substance that just looked like jizz. The bottles of shampoo and conditioner held an amount the size of quarter. This was supposed to be for a room that held 4 people and 2 bath towels for those same people. Both of our bedspreads were covered in nasty nasty white or discolored stains. I'm not even going there. Our chair had what looked like a bleached stain in the shape of a penis and ball sack. You could see your breath in the pool area. It was so cold, you had to run to the pool and hope you didn't fall on your ass on the way. The jacuzzi was hot, but out of order so you just got to sit in a hot tub of water with everyone, almost like a community bath with no soap and wash cloths. Then you had to run to get back out. Of course we all didn't have towels so I had to stop at the laundry and ask for 3 more so we could shower in the morning. Did you just ask how the shower was? I thought so. Nope - not one iota of hot water. I went without. Lissa said theirs was hot. Must be only on that side of the hall. Whit said there was a pimp 2 doors down letting girls in. There was a family with about 6 kids running up and down the hall although I will admit, they were kept pretty quiet. Whit was really excited to get up and go down for the waffle for breakfast. Nope - one waffle iron for about the 25 people waiting to use it. Went without. We did get to use the toaster for a bagel and Warren had a yogurt. NEVER NEVER NEVER AGAIN!!!

So, we check in and since nobody is hungry the kids decide to start out at the water park and we will go look around town. If you are not a guest at that hotel, you can just pay the fee and go in. Open up your wallets people. $25.00 per person to go from 3:00-9:00. $5.00 to rent a locker and $5.00 for the key deposit. Yep, $88 ish for that little trip. Oh well, it's all for the kids right?

Warren and I took off in search of a nice place for dinner because Lissa and I wanted a cocktail to start off the evening. When we got into town, we went into a candle/antique shop. We browsed the shop for well over an hour. I learned that I LOVE looking at antiques. I can wait until summer when I can go antique hunting for our new cabin. We left without buying a thing but we sure enjoyed each others company and looking around without anyone bugging us. We decided to leave and go next door to a little bar and have an appetizer and cocktail. The kids were supposed to be gone for 3-4 hours and it had only been about 1 1/2. Just as we were leaving, my phone rings. The kids aren't having any fun and want to leave. I'm pissed. I wanted some more "me" time. Oh, well.

We went and picked everyone up and decided we would hit the jerky store and then head out for dinner.  We spent another hour at least in the Beef Jerky Outlet. It was great. They had all kinds of wild game. I tried the alligator (that was as adventurous as I get). Whit got the kangaroo. Warren got all different kinds of stuff. I also got some chocolate covered caramel popcorn and Whit got Cheesy Ranch Corn. We loaded up with another $50.00 worth of junk food and headed uptown to that bar for our supper. We couldn't wait to try our very first Chicago style pizza.

Check back tomorrow for Winter Blues Road Trip - Final Chapter