Relapse

 

   People often say "I need a vacation from my vacation," especially if their vacation has involved long periods of travel. Why not just stay home like we did during Covid, but without the masks? We couldn't breathe during Covid. But if we stay home we'll see things that need doing and that's no vacation.

  After a vacation I need to rest and recover from the disorienting melancholy that awaits me inside the front door. There's the initial relief that the fridge is still humming and the basement's not full of water. There's always an odd smell, but that dissipates when the furnace is turned up.

  There's a big pile of junk mail and magazines. The suitcases sit for a day. Let them. A deep tiredness has invaded me after long days of driving. It seems ridiculous that I should feel so tired in body and brain. We used to put in longer days, but 500 miles is now our limit. That takes 8-10 hours depending on which roads we take and how long our lunch break takes. On this trip Teresa mixed up tuna salad for the cooler and with a loaf of bread we eliminated stops for lunch, mostly. A mid-afternoon DQ break provided the energy needed to reach our motel.

  When people traveled by horse drawn coach they would have spent the night in a coach house. The rooms were tiny, the beds uncomfortable and the food insipid. There would be a boring person at the common table and only the ale made it bearable. The wealthy had their own carriages and could be choosey about their lodgings. They might have popped in on one of their aristocrat friends for a night or two. That's how it was done.

  The car changed all that. After our long day on the road we can collapse in our private room. No need to interact with anyone except the check-in clerk. After a short rest we find a neighboring restaurant. Or else just have another tuna sandwich and call it a day. The wild card is the complimentary breakfast. Just how bad will it be. One time there was a chef making omelets. But that was only one time in fifty years.

  Teresa does a good percentage of the driving as long as there's no funny business with loop-de-loop freeway interchanges or downtown rush hours. By early afternoon we've determined how much further we want to drive. I'll settle back with my phone and begin the search for an appropriate room. With our price range in mind, I'll search the options in the approaching city or town which could still be two hundred miles away. At this late date the motel won't let you cancel a confirmed reservation. We will need to show up so we're very careful. 

  Once we find a possibility, I read the reviews. A brand name motel that has been good in one city could be a house of horrors in the town we're headed for. The website reviews give the motel an aggregated number. We want at least an eight out of ten. There should be lots of reviews and some should be recent. I don't care what reviewers liked about a place, I want to know what they didn't like. If there's more than a couple of complaints about noise, dirt or grouchy staff. I move on. I trust that the website that moderates these reviews has weeded out negative reviews by rivals of my target motel

  I don't care about complaints that the hot tub is not hot enough because I no longer visit hot tubs, or pools. A lot of people complain that a place needs an update. You know, ninety percent of the world needs an update. I need an update myself. I don't care if a place has too much beige. This review process can take thirty minutes or more. We want no surprises, no unpleasant scenes with management. Yes, we may have to change rooms if the tv doesn't work, but we're up to that. Check the tv before unpacking. And if there are no acceptable rooms in our chosen town, we'll just check out the next town down the road, or a closer one. What's another fifty miles in the grand scheme of things?

Motel Breakfast Nook Biscuits & G., by Chef Anonymous