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What happens when Larry demands a full refund from the Hell Motel in Oklahoma? ▲ Take a wet, white-knuckle drive through an electrical storm in the Allegheny mountains ▲ Ride out a hurricane and 4-day power-failure in the northeast ▲ Experience a seizure with Moose at 3 am in West Virginia ▲ Why does NYC still suck and who is responsible? ▲ Which has the pukier governor, NY or Wisconsin?▲ The journey continues!
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America is a pretty big place. Until you drive across it a few times. The more you do it, the more it shrinks. I guess it’s like the relativity of time. The older you get, the shorter the minutes, hours, days, weeks etcetera, seem.
This episode is part 2 of a loose chronicle of my journey – with 4/5 of my family – that would be me, my wife, younger daughter, Moose, the blood-thirsty 16 lb guard-dog and me, across America and back again. My older daughter couldn’t make it. She was away at school.
It’s a time unlike any other in our history – or for that matter – world history. A nation on pause, due to a virus manufactured in a laboratory in China.
Fact: It was manufactured. Deal with it.
This episode picks up where the first installment left off. Me standing in a motel shower in Weatherford, Oklahoma, soaped and wet, when the water just… stopped. Like Moses stretched his sinewy arm across the motel and said – cease!
But that’s not the meat of the episode, its the garnishing. The meat is what we saw as we drove from state to state, from truck stop to truck stop. (Flying J and Pilot are the nicest, but one in New Mexico – Russell’s – is the Ritz Carlton of trucks stops. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Russell’s is in the 3rd installment of this series.)
Here’s where we picked up in Weatherford Oklahoma. Torrential rains produced street floods. A damn mess, but not to kids. Kids are the ultimate makers of lemonade from lemons. Here they are splashing around in a storm drain. (No, Pennywise was not on the other side of the safety grating.)
Motel art is a realm unto itself. Most of it is hideous. I’ve seen a lot of motel art, but this is the first double – vision yet. The same shitty print over both queen beds. Somebody said “yes’ to that. Wonder what their home looks like?
Most motel lighting is also hideous. Primarily due to those corkscrew CFLs that give your room the sickly cast of a hockey rink.
With America closed, we couldn’t depend on roadside restaurants, so we packed the Coleman cooler with good grub. I’ve had the thing for years. It’s indestructible – plugs into the car or AC outlet and keeps drinks and food just a degree or two above freezing. Perfection. (Note Moose guarding cargo.)
I’ve stayed in many a Marriott, but never one this shitty. What could possibly say “we don’t give a fuck” louder than three bone-dry dead topiaries at the grand entrance? How about a sink that won’t drain? Broken security doors? Crumbling staircases and overflowing trash cans? Check, check and check. So we checked out.
Never trust online reviews.
All this pandemic shit has hoteliers telling us how clean they are. Shouldn’t they be cleaning this stuff whether or not there’s a Whuhan flu?
Never experienced a hurricane without precipitation – but here it is – just ferocious wind. This is not the mighty Atlantic – it’s Long Island Sound, Amazing.
The previous night was amazingly still — the calm before the storm.
America hasn’t been calm lately. But you have to wonder if there’s a much, much bigger storm in the not too distant future.
Keep your power dry. In the mean time, stay calm and look at this.
Stay tuned for part 3.
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