Super 8 Ain't Super!

Baby Mason and Papa Bob napping. So sweet. My dad sounded so much better last night when I talked to him. I slept better last night.

Speaking of sleep ........ there is no bed as restful as your own. The first night of our adventure was spent in a Drury Inn south of Atlanta. It was great. A suite with a king bed. The bed felt extra roomy, even though I was sharing it with my daughter. No dogs snuggled up next to me. The sheets were crisp and clean, the bathroom pristine and the price very reasonable.

Jill and I shared a double bed at my dad's house. It was a bit too cozy. My child snores!! She informed that I did, too. We slept in shifts. I would lay very still until I knew she was asleep, then try to get to sleep myself. In doing so I would wake her ........ and again ......

On the way home we were thinking we would have another good nights sleep. Jill drove while I fretted about my dad going to the hospital and planned how to get back quickly. Both of us were emotionally drained and achy. We stopped for a break at an outlet mall. Jill was on a mission to address her mother's wardrobe.

After we walked and shopped what seemed like several miles we got back on the interstate, thinking to make great time heading north. We crawled along, stopping, then creeping forward. A call to my son-in-law, Nick provided an explanation. A wreck ahead.

We finally made it through that and changed drivers. You can't use the cruise in stop and go traffic and we encountered more of the same as we headed north. We didn't get as far as we wanted and were both exhausted. A Holiday Inn Express loomed in the distance and we pulled in ...... and right back out. They wanted $200 for a night's stay!

I saw a Super 8 right next door and although the doors to the rooms were outside and Jill did not like that, we decided we could handle it. I promised to shove a chair under the door handle. The clerk was nice and friendly and I presented my AAA card for a discount. We opened the door and Jill proclaimed it to be "cute". First thing she wanted was a shower and while I cleaned the TV remote (Matt Lauer would have been proud) she took over the bathroom.

The look on her face when she came out wrapped in the towel was priceless. She told me I could not have a shower. The shower curtain was nasty and we discovered used towels hanging in the bathroom! Gross!! I decided that brushing my teeth and washing my face would suffice and we would just get some sleep. Jill was already settled in her bed and we had already removed the bedspreads. I pulled back my covers, prepared to get in and saw blood on the sheet!!!!!

Jill leapt from her bed and actually exited the room. While I called the front desk, she called her husband (like he could fix our situation). The clerk asked how much blood was in the bed. Really. "Well, it doesn't look like someone was slaughtered here, but does it matter? The sheets were obviously not changed and I will not sleep on them." She pondered this and said she could either change the sheets or move us to another room. I chose the sheet changing. Who knows what may have been lurking in another room. I could inspect and watch the changing of the sheets. I told her I wanted both beds changed.

The same clerk that checked us in arrived with hot, fresh from the dryer bed linen. She pulled all the bedding and redressed the bed with a top sheet and a clean hot comforter. No bottom sheet? Nope. But it was clean.

We got in bed, sandwiched between the clean sheet and comforter. That is when Jill's friend, Sue decided to text with instructions to check for bedbugs, even including a picture. Thanks, Sue. I felt imaginary bugs crawling on me all night!!

To add insult to injury, although there was a safety device on the door, the door frame was so loose we could have yanked it off. The lone chair in the room that may have helped was too low to provide any extra security.

We left very early the next morning, after a fitful sleep we headed home. This room cost almost as much as the Drury Inn. Nothing around to explain the inflated prices.