After nearly falling asleep after driving most of the day on Sunday, we ended up staying at the Super 8 just west of the OK/AR border. We think we have grown accustomed to better hotels. When we first were married a Super 8 motel would have been just fine. We were tired and after driving the previous night for many miles looking for really anything, we saw the Super 8 and stopped because we were so tired. We were disappointed. The place was a dump. We should have known by the sign out front offering weekly rates. The room was small, everything was worn and worse of all, there was something living in the room, or at least we think. The only thing missing was a desk clerk with hair slicked back with Vaseline sitting behind bulletproof glass. We pretty much hit the bed and fell asleep (fully clothed due to the skeevy feeling we had) and after maybe 30 minutes were awaken by something in the room. We turned on a the flashlight on the cell phone, Chris put on his shoes so that he could easily kill whatever might be crawling around and we started looking. We couldn’t find a thing so we tried to sleep some more. Later in the night we heard it again, but once again, couldn’t find anything. We slept uneasy for the next 6 or so hours and woke up and got on the road by 7. As we started driving we wondered if we are spoiled or was that place really that bad? Mostly due to travelling for work and staying using points when we travel on our own we have gotten used to Marriott hotels and newer Holiday Inn chain hotels like Candlewood Suites and Staybridge Suites. It is rare for us to stay at one of what we call lower end hotel chains like a Super 8, Days Inn or even a Best Western. Nowadays unless it is a bed and breakfast we usually stay away from local mom & pop type places too. Have we become snooty?
We started driving towards Huntsville, AL, which was advertised at just under 9 hours from where we stayed. We really did not make any stops until lunchtime, when we got off of the interstate because we were in the mood for pie. We had visited a rundown place called the Family Pie Shop, in De Valls Bluff, AR several years ago. The place wasn’t much on the eyes; it was actually not even a restaurant. It is more of an annex of the house of the woman who bakes the pies. The pie shop is built out of a former bicycle shed. Maybe we are not snooty after all? We remembered they made amazing pies though. On the wall inside was a picture of Bill Clinton when he was governor of AR, eating pie at the pie shop. People reportedly travel many miles to come to this place and this would have been our second time here. Unfortunately, likely due to it being Columbus Day, the Pie Shop was closed. We were not too disappointed though, because right across the street is an amazing BBQ place which again, is more than run down, but the pulled pork sandwiches are to die for. We ended up getting 4 of them, 2 each and we ate in the car before hitting the road again towards Alabama. When we almost got to Huntsville we stared passing lots of cotton fields and we stopped to get some pictures.
We got to the airport in Huntsville just after 5. We had to go there first because we had to return our car and pick up a new one, or as we had hoped, keep the same car and just renew the contract. We drove into the return area and the guy there didn’t think there would be any problem, he just said we would have to go to the counter and explain to them what we wanted to do. We drove up and parked near the counter, talked to the people there and had some problems. Since we had a Suburban but our contract was for an intermediate sized car they said we could not keep the monster unless we paid the extra price. Chris told a white lie and said that his company would not pay for the bigger car and it would be a major pain in the neck to unpack and repack another car. Really we had no leverage on our side, just a hope that they would feel bad for us. The lady then said, ok, let me check in your car then talk to my manager. We let her check the car in, now we had officially returned the car even though Jackie and all of our stuff was still sitting in it. She then said that her manager would not allow us to take the car at our price so we would either have to pay extra or take an intermediate car. We explained that all of our stuff would not fit in an intermediate car so we asked if we could take our Suburban to the hotel to unpack first. We knew by saying this that we may have had them because since we had returned the car already there was no way they would let us take the car away. So she went back in to talk to the manager, came back out and asked us if we were staying local. We said we were so they let us take the car we already had under our intermediate contract. This was good. Now we would only have to do this one more time at the end of the week when we returned the Suburban and rented something else for the return trip to NY. We didn’t think we would have any luck based on our most recent experience so we would have to come up with another plan to get our chimeneas and other stuff home, but we had a few days to think about that.
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| our trip today |
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