I’m just going to present the facts of our visit to The Resort in a series of short posts. I’m actually challenging myself not to editorialize.
It’s a list. Just list them, Trace. A dry-as-possible list. Don’t embellish.
This is the first one.
Let’s see if your responses are the same as ours were.
~ Before we arrived, Resort Dude had sent us an email: Looking forward to meeting you. I’ll put you up in one of the cottages when you get here. Great. If, at some point, you have typed in the link I half-gave you here, clicked on the “gallery” link and clicked on “resort grounds,” you’ve probably had the chance to click through the photos to see what the cottages look like. They’re nice. Cute. With a separate bedroom. A sleeping loft. Compact kitchen with a gas stove. Large bathroom. All extremely clean and well-kept. A couple of them have decks right on the riverbank. So, based on the photos, I was looking forward to that.
~ The day we arrived, we’d been on the road for eight hours, having spent the night with friends in San Luis Obispo. Actually, we visited them on the way up and the way back and that turned out to be the best part of the trip, even though it added hours to the drive. Totally worth it. So we arrived, early evening, we were tired, numb, bleary eyed. We met Resort Dude and he immediately said, “Oh. The cottages are all rented out this weekend, I’m going to put you in The Dorm.”
~ “The Dorm” turned out to be an office space, basically. A mostly empty room with a bland seating area and those long fluorescent lights that all offices have. And a cot. A single cot.
~ There were two bathrooms in The Dorm. He said, “Please don’t use the other one. I don’t want to have to clean it.”
~ At bedtime, he showed us where the other cots were. They needed to be assembled or something, as I recall. I was collapsed on one of the chairs in the seating area and wasn’t paying much attention at this point. MB set up another cot. Resort Dude left.
~ We needed linens and toiletries — we had underpacked — so we went into the attached storage room and scrounged around for sheets, pillows, towels, soap, shampoo, etc.
This whole episode was Strike One for us.
Wait, he knew you were coming up and STILL rented out all the cottages?!
BTW, I’ve stayed at places while doing mission work that sound better than your accommodations.
“Please don’t use the other one. I don’t want to have to clean it.â€
ding ding ding ding WRONG ANSWER.
What a fine pillar of the community! What integrity!
Yeah, um… “I’ll put you up in one of the cottages.” So he should have considered that cottage RENTED.
And you had to set up your own cot? And you had to sleep on cots?!
And the bathroom thing…
And no toiletries?!
Counting through here, I see 5 strikes, girlfriend.
Yeah, I surprised you guys stayed. I’m not sure I would have.
Not much “wooing” going on there, IMHO.
JFH — To answer your question: There’s more to come on that.
To address your point: Uh, me too.
sheila — Ding ding ding ding ding, WRONG ANSWER is totally what I was hearing in that moment. Was that you calling to me across the space-time continuum??
sarahk — You are so cute. I won’t lie: I’m going to enjoy working you into a froth with these. And I’ve emailed you on some of this already! Hahahahahaha.
Cullen — Honestly, at some point, we had to decide it was just anthropologically interesting to stay.
Kate P — NO wooing! None. Come on, dude. Whisper in my ear. Well, I mean …. metaphorically. But in a literal sense, you know, get away from me.
I’m with Cullen – out the door I go. And I hope that by anthropologically you mean blog-worthy.
Oh, I’m frothy, sista.
And a BIG STRIKE it is Tracey!