Let's get this out of the way first. Things can happen when you travel. You just need to be able to roll with it. I went on a 12 day vacation with my dear son to celebrate his graduation from college. (VERY, VERY proud mother) We went to Florida. We spent 4 nights in a condo 3 minutes from the beach and then 5 days at Walt Disney World. It was a great trip - but there were a few hiccups on the way home. So before I go into blissful vacation detail, I will address the weirdness that was our trip home and get this nonsense out of the way.
First up I got a call, the night before we headed home, that my fridge did not work. My fridge that I had to live without for 9 months when it was broken before because I did not have the money to fix it. UGH. Not a nice thing to come home to. So we headed home thinking of $$$ to fix that and $$$ to replace the food. Off we drive.
It is extrememly depressing to have spent more than a week in Florida and have to face an 18 hour drive home especially when you are leaving the "Happiest Place on Earth" so it was with us when we were heading home. After driving for hours we were hot and tired. It was about 9pm and we had been on the road for nearly 12 hours. We pulled into the Scottish Inn in Manchester, TN. for one reason plain and simple, it was CHEAP. Sign said $29 and since we were on the way home from vacation you know money was an issue. My first clue should have been the front desk chick who did not have a top tooth in her mouth. She told me that the price was only for 1 bed and 1 person. Our rate would be $50. I was tired. So I handed her my credit card. We pulled in the parking lot and lugged our bags to the second floor. We opened the door and....cue the bad horror movie music. It was creepy and dirty and hot. The TV was 10 years old and missing buttons. The lights on the wall were crooked. The carpet was so disgusting I would never have taken my shoes off. The beds looked lumpy and linens dirty. Ryan said the shower faucet was hanging off the wall. When he looked at the second bed there was something weird all over the pillow area. That was it. I told him to take the bags to the car because we were not staying there.
I went to the front desk and told the gal that I was not staying there because there were bugs in the bed and she told me I could not get a refund because I had been there longer than 10 minutes. I was furious!!! WHAT!!?!? It took me 10 minutes to lug my bags up the steps look at this flea bag dive of a room and get back to the front desk. I told her there were bugs in the bed and she sent someone to "verify" it. I hightailed it after this chick because I was afraid that she would brush off the bed and say there was nothing there. When I got there for some reason she was in the bathroom?!? I said HELLO here is the bed and here is the stuff on the bed. There was a lot of...who knows what....all over the pillows and top of the cover. She looks at it says it's not bugs, look, it is crusty!?!? (What does that mean????) She said she could show us another room and I said...umm...no...I can't stay here. She called the front desk and told them to give me a refund.
I went back down there and slammed my credit card on the desk. The chick says to me, "Honey I did not mean you could not get a refund but we need to check these things out". Ran my credit card for credit and I beat a hasty retreat. Scottish Inn 2457 Hillsboro Blvd, Manchester, TN do NOT even think of staying there.
We headed down the road deciding that we had learned a valuable lesson - We are worth so much more. We will not sell ourselves short any longer. The only reason we stopped at that nasty, dirty place was because it was cheap. Well darn it we are worth it. Driving about 30 minutes we decided first of all to be safe we were only going to stay at a place we had heard of and knew would be good. We decided on the Holiday Inn because Bing Crosby would not steer us wrong. Sure it was more money but remember we are WORTH IT. So for $118 we got a clean room. With nice clean sheets and floors and towels and bathroom. AHH the pillows were great. The room smelled nice. And a super plus was the hot breakfast. Ryan had: scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy, cinnamon roll, pancakes & milk. I did not have all of that, but I had a nice breakfast too. Even the lobby area was clean. I figure we would have spent at least $20 for this breakfast at Cracker Barrel so it was a big winner.
Well until we got to the car and the AC blew hot air and the temp gauge did not move. I did not want to be driving down the road and have the car overheat so I called AAA to see if they could give me an idea. Woman told me she did not think it would overheat but she was no mechanic. Told me not to drive on the highway which was funny since I had a 6 hour drive ahead of me. SIGH Went into gas station and got directions to O'Reilly Auto Parts. Guy there was very nice. Looked over car and determined we should not overheat. So off we went. Me reliving my 18 yr old self driving to FLA in a Ford Maverick with no AC and the wind blowing in my hair.....that is until the sweat started dripping down my back. The trip down memory lane sort of ended then. But luckily the temps never got above 86 and it was overcast. So not too bad. It was loud with the windows down but a little south of Paducha the highway going south was closed. We were stuck in traffic as 1 lane on our northbound side was closed. We then saw a very bad accident had happened in the south bound lane. Traffic there was backed up for miles. People were standing all on the highway. I said a prayer for everyone and realized how blessed we were to not be in an accident or stuck on the highway. All I had to deal with was hot air and loud wind. I was grateful.
So putting the bad mojo away....good news.... we did not stay at horrid motel but at lovely place with great breakfast because we are worth it. Fridge turned out to be a blown circuit. AC on car magically healed itself after resting for a night when it got home. You have to be grateful for all miracles and blessings no matter how small. There is always reason to Twizzle! Next up will be details about our beautiful trip.
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