"LaQuinta"

Ah. Hotels. What marvelous creations. The one we decided on for our brief stay in beautiful downtown Bay City was LaQuinta. It was comparable with the prices of other hotels, had a pool (which we never got to use because it was raining), and it had that other essential amenity - free continental breakfast.

We arrived pretty early Monday morning - around 9:00. Chris had several errands to run in preparation for the funeral, so I was going to crash at the hotel. Or so I thought. First of all, there was no one at the desk when I went inside. No one in sight anywhere. And not even one of those little ringy-dingy bells on the counter. I figured this must be how they do it in small towns. So I waited. After five minutes a lady finally came in and apologized. She was the only one around, so she was doing everything. Should have walked away right then. But instead I asked if I could check into my room reserved for the evening. Oh, no. Not possible. Check-in time is not until 1:00 p.m. Now it didn't matter that there was not a single car in the parking lot. We could not possibly check in before 12:15 at the earliest.

I was feeling good. It was morning, and Monday morning at that. I thanked her and joined Chris on her errand rounds. What fun. The errands I mean. The only good part about it was that I got to be with Chris.

We finally got back to the hotel at the proper time, and I checked us in. We had rooms for our group right on the first floor. Easy access. I got back in the car and we drove around to the nearest entry door. No problems getting the card to work in that outer door once I turned it in the right direction. But when we opened the door the smell was horrendous. Imagine cans of lacquer thinner and paint and the appropriate solvent removers for each all open in the same area. That was our hall. We stumbled into our room, and thankfully the smell didn't follow us.

So we decided to again be nice and get unloaded. About the time I brought the last load in, Chris asked me to call the boys and see where they were. And we had no service available. In our hotel room. That wasn't going to work. Chris was the point person for the whole funeral. People had to be able to contact her. I took my phone and walked into the lobby, periodically dialing a number. Always getting the "Service Unavailable" notice. The lady asked if she could help. I informed her that we had no cell phone signal. She asked who our provider was, nodding her head knowingly. Not a good sign. I told her AT&T, and the nodding stopped. She was stunned. "But our free wireless internet is through AT&T. You have to have service." I showed her my phone. And the apologies began again in earnest. "Let's try it in another room." No service. Another. No service. I got quite the tour of the new LaQuinta Bay City. We finally found a room on the third floor that had service, so she fell all over herself to offer it to us. I asked about the other two in our party, and she promised to move them as well. Only later did we find out that Kel and Nathan both had cell service in their rooms. But none in the halls.

And then there was the issue of no soap in the rooms, but that proved to be a minor inconvenience. When it came time for us to check out the next day, they happily extended out check out time by an hour. I think I could have gotten longer, but we had to be at the funeral home anyway.

More about the visitation and funeral tomorrow. We are home, and I'm beat.

Psalms 146:2 says, "I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live."

Father, thank you for safe journeys and dry lodgings. Amen.