I'm going to start this (the last, I swear) post by mentioning just how much I hate Illinois. Every darn state I had to drive through had something about it to dislike.
New Hampshire has crazy twisty-turny roads. Massachusets is just, well, toll-happy. New York is boring and the Berkshires are just mad. Pennsylvania is long and boring. Cleveland is in-f-ing-sane. Ohio is long and boring and there's nothing to see. Indiana is duller than an empty hatbox. And Chicago, ohhhh Chicago. From Gary, IN to the Wisconsin/Illinois border that whole stretch of 90westbound is just gross. And I meant it. Gross. Just gross. The amount of factories packed into one region makes the whole place just stink to high heaven. And I do mean stink. We stopped at a tollbooth just south of Chicago's sky bridge and when I rolled down the window I nearly gagged. The air was so toxic it literally, and I am not kidding you, smelled like sick. We changed the car's air intake and sped on, barely gazing as the city spires loomed out of a smog cloud so thick we couldn't even see them until they were directly in front of us.
As we drove this road I found myself thanking what gods I knew of that Emmy and I live in the fresher, cleaner Madison, WI. Sure, Wisconsin has it's faults too: cows, corn, and tree farms are all you'll see when driving around here, but at least it doesn't smell like 2-day-old mini-bar baked under a hot sun.
So on the way back I'm afraid we didn't eat much of anything interesting. All the food we had packed was used up, though we did devour the rest of the maple candies and some of the fudge. Just about the only food I can remember is what we ate at the Marriott hotel in downtown Cleveland. How we got to the Marriott is an interesting story.
About 30 minutes outside of Cleveland we set the GPS (Annie) to find us the Day's Inn. A cheap but decent national brand, I thought. After exiting the highway far south of the city, we drove past three car dealerships and several (as I thought at the time) bars. They weren't bars. Turned out we'd driven into the skeeziest area of town. Strip clubs and adult superstores everywhere. The hotel might once have been the Day's Inn but now it was the "Airport Plaza Hotel", $55 a night. The "club" attached to this "hotel" was rocking some bass music so loud I could feel it in my jaw several hallways away. There was even a sign behind the counter that warned pool-goers that half the pool was walled in glass "For the entertainment of the club patrons".
Ew. Just. Ew.
Now in my defense, we had just gotten off a 12 hour drive spanning 3 states and it was 11:00pm. We were bushed. Completely exhausted. Upon getting to the room we discovered that the fire alarm was hanging out of an enormous hole in the wall, the sheets had cigarette burns all over, the bathroom tile was cracked and limey, the carpet was gross, there was another huge hole in the bathroom door, the alarm clock didn't work, and both dressers were broken. I turned to Emmy and said "If we stay here, darling, my car will be stolen by morning. Let's go."
55 dollars I'm never going to see again. Oh, well. Sometimes safety and peace-of-mind is worth a little extra. We packed up all our gear once more and sped out of there like we were being followed by demons. After another GPS-kerfufle, which involved Annie leading us through the sketchiest part of Cleveland's dockside imaginable, we turned up a hill and suddenly found ourselves surrounded by glitz, glam, and some very sleek-looking buildings. Somehow we'd landed in the heart of Cleveland itself.
Marble floors. Huge Christmas trees. Wall-to-wall wreaths larger than me. Marble columns. Uniformed staff. People in suits and ball gowns everywhere. I had left Emmy in the little drop-off circle and so I approached the front desk.
"How much for two adults?"
"One bed or two?"
"It doesn't matter."
"We've got a double queen on the 22nd floor for $220."
"Oh. Ah, alright, do you know anywhere nice in the neighborhood for around $150?"
"We can do it for $149."
"Sold! Give me the room."
I ran out to a sleepy Emmy and she bravely gaurded the car and waved the room keys at her. "We're staying." "How much is it?" I told her the original price and I swear she paled down to this sort of grey color. I told her I'd gotten it for less and that we were going to the hotel's secure underground parking garage, where Baby would be safe all night. "Over there." I waved across the street to an enormous statue and fountain that literally took up a whole city block. "Under that."
We parked right by the elevators and enjoyed the beautiful, clean room with all our hearts. Dinner down at the bar, where a wedding party was camped out, determined to get drunk but equally as determined not to ruin there clothes. The new husband sort of looked like a tool. Emmy and I passed the time before our cheese pizza came Sherlocking the bar patrons, trying to guess their professions, likes and dislikes. Between us that pizza was gone in about five minutes. Breakfast was waffles, strawberries, scrambled eggs (E), and bacon. Smothered in maple syrup.
On our way out we tipped a young man (Josh? Jacob?) who helped us find an obscure ATM and left a tip for housekeeping as well. Emmy might have felt intimidated by our ruffled appearance and the granduer of the hotel, but we'd spied a couple other people in jeans and I knew that even if you can't tip much, you just tip. It's the right thing to do. Baby took a little roaring to get started (fixed now, thank god), and we were off to Wisconsin!
And so ends the account of our journey to New Hampshire and back again.
A couple more posts to make and then a Christmas post in a day or so and I'll be all caught up before the new year! Yay!
xoxoxo,
Kim & Emmy
New Hampshire has crazy twisty-turny roads. Massachusets is just, well, toll-happy. New York is boring and the Berkshires are just mad. Pennsylvania is long and boring. Cleveland is in-f-ing-sane. Ohio is long and boring and there's nothing to see. Indiana is duller than an empty hatbox. And Chicago, ohhhh Chicago. From Gary, IN to the Wisconsin/Illinois border that whole stretch of 90westbound is just gross. And I meant it. Gross. Just gross. The amount of factories packed into one region makes the whole place just stink to high heaven. And I do mean stink. We stopped at a tollbooth just south of Chicago's sky bridge and when I rolled down the window I nearly gagged. The air was so toxic it literally, and I am not kidding you, smelled like sick. We changed the car's air intake and sped on, barely gazing as the city spires loomed out of a smog cloud so thick we couldn't even see them until they were directly in front of us.
As we drove this road I found myself thanking what gods I knew of that Emmy and I live in the fresher, cleaner Madison, WI. Sure, Wisconsin has it's faults too: cows, corn, and tree farms are all you'll see when driving around here, but at least it doesn't smell like 2-day-old mini-bar baked under a hot sun.
So on the way back I'm afraid we didn't eat much of anything interesting. All the food we had packed was used up, though we did devour the rest of the maple candies and some of the fudge. Just about the only food I can remember is what we ate at the Marriott hotel in downtown Cleveland. How we got to the Marriott is an interesting story.
About 30 minutes outside of Cleveland we set the GPS (Annie) to find us the Day's Inn. A cheap but decent national brand, I thought. After exiting the highway far south of the city, we drove past three car dealerships and several (as I thought at the time) bars. They weren't bars. Turned out we'd driven into the skeeziest area of town. Strip clubs and adult superstores everywhere. The hotel might once have been the Day's Inn but now it was the "Airport Plaza Hotel", $55 a night. The "club" attached to this "hotel" was rocking some bass music so loud I could feel it in my jaw several hallways away. There was even a sign behind the counter that warned pool-goers that half the pool was walled in glass "For the entertainment of the club patrons".
Ew. Just. Ew.
Now in my defense, we had just gotten off a 12 hour drive spanning 3 states and it was 11:00pm. We were bushed. Completely exhausted. Upon getting to the room we discovered that the fire alarm was hanging out of an enormous hole in the wall, the sheets had cigarette burns all over, the bathroom tile was cracked and limey, the carpet was gross, there was another huge hole in the bathroom door, the alarm clock didn't work, and both dressers were broken. I turned to Emmy and said "If we stay here, darling, my car will be stolen by morning. Let's go."
55 dollars I'm never going to see again. Oh, well. Sometimes safety and peace-of-mind is worth a little extra. We packed up all our gear once more and sped out of there like we were being followed by demons. After another GPS-kerfufle, which involved Annie leading us through the sketchiest part of Cleveland's dockside imaginable, we turned up a hill and suddenly found ourselves surrounded by glitz, glam, and some very sleek-looking buildings. Somehow we'd landed in the heart of Cleveland itself.
Marble floors. Huge Christmas trees. Wall-to-wall wreaths larger than me. Marble columns. Uniformed staff. People in suits and ball gowns everywhere. I had left Emmy in the little drop-off circle and so I approached the front desk.
"How much for two adults?"
"One bed or two?"
"It doesn't matter."
"We've got a double queen on the 22nd floor for $220."
"Oh. Ah, alright, do you know anywhere nice in the neighborhood for around $150?"
"We can do it for $149."
"Sold! Give me the room."
I ran out to a sleepy Emmy and she bravely gaurded the car and waved the room keys at her. "We're staying." "How much is it?" I told her the original price and I swear she paled down to this sort of grey color. I told her I'd gotten it for less and that we were going to the hotel's secure underground parking garage, where Baby would be safe all night. "Over there." I waved across the street to an enormous statue and fountain that literally took up a whole city block. "Under that."
We parked right by the elevators and enjoyed the beautiful, clean room with all our hearts. Dinner down at the bar, where a wedding party was camped out, determined to get drunk but equally as determined not to ruin there clothes. The new husband sort of looked like a tool. Emmy and I passed the time before our cheese pizza came Sherlocking the bar patrons, trying to guess their professions, likes and dislikes. Between us that pizza was gone in about five minutes. Breakfast was waffles, strawberries, scrambled eggs (E), and bacon. Smothered in maple syrup.
On our way out we tipped a young man (Josh? Jacob?) who helped us find an obscure ATM and left a tip for housekeeping as well. Emmy might have felt intimidated by our ruffled appearance and the granduer of the hotel, but we'd spied a couple other people in jeans and I knew that even if you can't tip much, you just tip. It's the right thing to do. Baby took a little roaring to get started (fixed now, thank god), and we were off to Wisconsin!
And so ends the account of our journey to New Hampshire and back again.
A couple more posts to make and then a Christmas post in a day or so and I'll be all caught up before the new year! Yay!
xoxoxo,
Kim & Emmy
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