Tag: Travel Lodge St. Louis

Accommodations, DESTINATIONS, Road Trips, TRAVEL, United States

On to St. Louis

Jane Sadek

Travel There-Getting There

Finished with the Clinton Library, we pointed Wayz to the Travel Lodge in St. Louis and hit I-30. As had been true the day before, trucks dominated the interstate. In fact, the last hour of the drive on Wednesday had been maddening. I was so glad to be off the road, even the potentially worst Days Inn in the world looked good.

Thursday started off in much the same way, with trucks all around us. The only improvement was we weren’t mired down in construction, at least most of the way. I couldn’t put the peddle to the medal though, because the trucks set the pace. Finally, when we were almost to Memphis, we turned onto I-55 and things improved. Once we made the corner, we made a pit stop for gas, the potty and a snack.

I roared up I-55 as fast as I dared and we got into St. Louis just in time for rush hour traffic. Just as had been true the day before, the last bit of our drive was the worst, but this time it wasn’t the trucks or construction. I’m convinced the engineers who designed the roadways in St. Louis must have been high on something!

The right lane was constantly an “exit only” lane, so staying in the next lane was life threatening. As people entered the expressway, they had to immediately get in the next lane, so they wouldn’t be forced to exit again.

They also love to build both entrance ramps and exit ramps on the left side of the road, so the left lane was no safe haven. And God help you if you entered on the left side and needed to exit on the right – which Wayz must have thought was a lot of fun, because it didn’t hesitate to offer that up as our route.

Because the hotels and motels in the downtown area cost hundreds of dollars a night, I just couldn’t bear to stay there. I booked a hotel about 10 miles from the convention center. I’m from Texas, so 10 miles is nothing and it really presented no real challenge – except that in coming from I-55, you had to navigate 255, 270 and 170 to get there.

Once we made it to the hotel, commuting back and forth to the conference was no big deal, but to tell the truth, after that little drive to the hotel nothing would have seemed like that big of a deal.

Arriving at the Travel Lodge, we knew we weren’t staying in the lap of luxury, but we pretty quickly knew it was going to be better than the night before. I’m so grateful Deb was with me, because to tell the truth, if I had been on my own, there was a good chance I would have laid on the bed and never climbed back in the car until the next day.

Since Deb was with me, we unloaded the car, moved ourselves into our room and headed back out for the trip downtown. The commute was easier than the road to the hotel had been, but as soon as we exited, we were in gridlock.

Instead of getting out of the car, laying down on the asphalt and having a good cry, I tried to negotiate the traffic according to the directions Deb was giving me. By some miracle we came to a garage that wasn’t very far from the convention center and the price was decent. It was undergoing some severe renovations, but we climbed up the ramps to a parking spot.

Now, when we discovered the poorly lit section of the garage we’d happened upon was the BROWN level, we thought they had probably gotten the name right – just think of something brown that stinks! At least it was easy to remember where we had parked.

The hard part was over. I’d driven 10 hours from my home to get there. Now I was going to walk into a convention center full of women who loved the Lord. No way that was going to be anything but wonderful.

Come back next week and I’ll tell you about the Love Life Conference. It was pretty darned amazing!

Accommodations, DESTINATIONS, Road Trips, TRAVEL, United States

The Three Mistakes

Jane Sadek

TRAVEL THERE – WHY I STAYED IN AWFUL ACCOMODATIONS

When I am shopping travel accommodations I have three categories I work with: I just need a place to sleep, I’m going to live it up and this has historical significance.

The historical significant category is easy. I expect to pay more, as in whatever it takes, to stay at the Mena House next to the Pyramids or Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood. Places like these will have a strong demand in any season, the location is out of this world and it takes more money to maintain these places in their historically correct state. I say “whatever it takes”, but that’s only up to a point and the point is flexible, depending on what the going rate is in the area and how much of my travel budget I have already eaten up. In some cases, I may have to settle for having lunch there, like we did at the Grand Hotel.

‘I’m going to live it up’ is often coupled with historical significance, such as our stay at The Cecil Hotel in Alexandria, but there are other reasons I will open our pocketbook. Take the Sanctuary Beach Resort for instance, which is all about location, location, location. The rooms are huge, luxurious and your door opens onto the beach. You are so far removed from the every day that you turn your car in for a golf cart. Delightful! I am more likely to live it up when I’m with Bill, because we share a travel budget and I don’t like to hog it for travels without him.

When I just need a place to sleep, I can get pretty cheap. On this particular trip, I figured out how much was too cheap. In fact, I can only think of one time that was worse and that was a Motel 6 on Sunset Strip. Major mistake.

I will blame it, to an extent, on Covid. While I’m no longer sitting around pining for the old normal, the pandemic has made a significant impact on travel. I always thought if you stayed in a well-known, mainstream motel/hotel you’d be OK. In fact, I assumed the biggest concern was the neighborhood. For this trip, I chose Days Inn, Travel Lodge and La Quinta and they were all awful. Here’s what I said on Facebook when I got home:

The Travel Lodge was the best overall, but they allowed some homeless lady and all her belongings in the teeny tiny lobby, which was also the only way in or out of the motel. I felt really sorry for her and made an effort to help her, but management should never have allowed her to be there for hours on end. They claimed they didn’t know how she got there. How does a lady with a stack of belongings taller than I am, a tub of sodas on ice and empty pet crates get into a lobby and management doesn’t know how she got there? Is that what they are going to say when I’ve been chopped up by the axe murderer? And in this day and age, how do you have a multi-story hotel without an elevator???

Self Provided In Room Snacks at the Travel Lodge

The La Quinta was pathetic. Close to the Little Rock Convention Center, it had once been a very elegant hotel. You could tell by the marble floors and elaborate woodwork, but it needed a complete overhaul. Sliding glass doors that didn’t slide, lights out throughout most of the garage, ice machine didn’t work, dirty furniture in the lobby, an empty pool. Our free breakfast was a bowl of oranges and slices of bread. They put out a toaster, but it had an “out of order” sign on it. How ridiculous is that? Our room was OK, but everything else seemed to be falling down around us. As we left in the morning, it seemed as if the local homeless population thought the exterior areas were a great place to hang out.

And then there was the Days Inn! From the outside it looked OK, but our room was in total disrepair. It was clean. I will give them that, but there wasn’t even a rod in the closet to hang my clothes on and some dog had been locked in the bathroom which clawed off the paint and the door frame. How does that happen in a Wyndham Hotel? I posted a picture of the bathroom on Wyndham’s Facebook page and didn’t even get a sad face emoji from them! Then there was the covered pool with plants growing over it. Don’t get me started!!

Jane Sadek: Facebook 9/26/2022

That pretty much covers it. I was targeting rooms for less than $100 a night. In the future, that will be more like under $200 a night. I might have to cut back elsewhere, but I’m not doing this again.