Suzy Says

Like many/most/all? of my plans, this one kind of backfired on me.

I really wanted to get away. I haven’t had a vacation in literally years, and the last time I left the Golden State was to go to a conference in Florida two years ago, which was a fiasco all the way around. I can’t remember the last time I went anywhere just for fun.

San Francisco is the kind of place, like New York and London, where you take $100 out of the ATM and it vanishes within a few hours, even if you haven’t been shopping. So that was out, and I figured Santa Rosa might be a more reasonably-priced, yet fun alternative. It might have been, if I had stayed somewhere like the Hotel La Rose in the historic district instead of the Motel 6 in strip mall-freeway hell, but price is most definitely an object for me. An objectionable one, in fact.

At the Motel 6, there was not only no coffee maker in the room, there was none on the premises. Usually even the cheapest motels have bad coffee (and sometimes stale doughnuts, completing the free continental breakfast) in the lobby, but in this case, I’d have to drive two miles to the nearest Starbucks while uncaffeinated, a public hazard far more dangerous than talking on a cell phone while driving.

I asked for an extra pillow, the one provided being the approximate thickness and texture of twelve damp Kleenexes wadded together by an incompetent five year old, and was told that they had none. I was so stunned by this assertion that I just went back to my room, where the WiFi was once again not working. I called tech support no fewer than four times in the five hours I was there.

Being there was more depressing than being at the scene of the crime, so I packed up the car and checked out. I was able to get the WiFi charge reversed, but not the cost of the room, so that was a total waste of money as well as time. My sister thinks I should call the manager and complain, but I doubt it will do any good, and I’m willing to bet that he’s heard it all before. Multiple times.

To try and salvage something from the whole experience, I stopped off and picked up some Thai food at a place recommended by some friends. Another case of extreme take-out.

As I headed home in the setting sun, the Giants game on the radio and the rolling Sonoma hills glowing, I realized that wherever you go, you’re still there. You can’t escape your heartache with a change of scene.