Day nine we set out from Tucson, as I said before this is the back end of the trip. Our only real plan for this leg has been to hit St Louis to see the mother-in-law. First stop was Santa Fe in New Mexico. It was an intermittently pretty drive with some very, very pretty skies. Santa Fe seemed to be a nice city, we'd heard good things. I suspect we will go back there sometime, it apparently is quite historic.
We had dinner at an Olive Garden restaurant in town that had laughably poor service. This was more of a problem, they made us miss the premier episode of Heroes Season Two. Ahh well, turns out we can watch it online tonight.
We hit the road early in the morning heading for Colorado Springs. This road we got to see more trees than we have in a while. It was still pretty hilly, up and down. This town really went out of it's way for us to not have fun. First there were roadworks that held us up in town and made us get lost since our exit was closed from the Highway. We did find the hotel, checked in and headed immediately back out to head up Pikes Peak. This was our second frustration. We arrived at the entrance to Pikes Peak highway at 5.05, the gate closed at 5pm. Grrr! Not too worry, we went to have some dinner in nearby Manitou Springs and found an awesome Moroccan restaurant, we both enjoyed it but Krista seemed to be reliving some earlier period in her life (she spent a few months in Morocco about 15 years ago).
This area of Colorado seems to be very hippy. There were places where you could have pictures taken of your aura, you know the kind of thing. I think we would go back there.
This brings us though to the final annoyance in Colorado Springs. The hotel we booked was supposed to have wireless internet, as have all the hotels we booked along the way. This was when we relax in the evening we can plan out the route for the following day and book the next hotel. Well, the Clarion Suites on Bijou Road in Colorado Springs didn't have wireless internet working, even the walk up internet station wasn't working until 10pm. This was tiresome. We did get everything booked but it took much longer than it should have done.
The hotel did offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee, they had a certificate in our room pledging that we would not be charged for the room if we weren't satisfied. We tried to claim on that in the morning but the manager was a Dick (literally, his name was Richard Wall). He agreed that we had a grievance and that the pledge of not being charged applied to us, however all he would do was give us $25 off the stay, this despite me making him read the pledge out loud to me several times. We were kind of upset but have been laughing about it all day.
Now we are in Salina, Kansas. I would say that the drive across Kansas is slightly better than the one we did years ago across Oklahoma. It's a little hillier, this makes it possible to see at least some of the surrounding area. Nothing worth photographing though.
Tomorrow we head for St Louis. I seemed to have gained a day along the way somehow, I'm not sure when or where. I thought we were getting to St Louis on Friday but I guess not. Maybe we'll stay there an extra night.
My current reckoning has the car showing just over 5,000 miles for the trip by the time we are back in Milwaukee.
3 comments:
Sometimes people surprise you. Sometimes they have a dragon inside them which is true and good, but also breathes fire upon those who would Destroy their Vacation by LYING to them about their PLEDGE of 100% satisfaction in their hotel guarantee. Gareth was my true hero. Truth be told.
sitting in the computer lab trying not to laugh out loud about the encounter with DickWall. Grand Canyon looked more scenic than when we visited - you seem to have looked a bit harder for the less developed areas.
Imagine that, Krista using dragon imagery in her descriptions. Dork. Oh, and my son would be proud.
Gareth, you are a hero to us all.
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