After nearly three weeks on the road, we’re just so happy to be back home.
My frustration with blogging from my iPad is significant. I have no clue why I could not upload photos (except a couple at the beginning of our trip). Only thing I can conclude is that the hotel/b&b/inn wi-fi’s I used just didn’t have enough bandwidth to up the photos to my website. But it’s extremely frustrating. I never had trouble with that when I was using my mini-laptop (Windows based). I know, you readers probably don’t care a whit about my upload difficulties, so sorry to bore you with this part. I was so hoping that on future travels I’d be able to do everything I want to do with my iPad which will fit in my purse. It requires very little equipment to go along with, too.
My DH and I had numerous frustrations with some of the places we stayed on this trip. (Sorry, you’re going to have to listen to a couple of rants). I’ve always preferred inns or B&B’s when we travel. I like the ambiance of them. The quaint rooms, the nice, wholesome breakfasts. The conversation and advice from innkeepers. And I try to book B&Bs where the room is on the ground floor. Alas, I couldn’t get ground floor rooms in nearly all the places we stayed on this trip. It’s no fun lugging suitcases up a flight or two of stairs. With my DH’s prosthetic legs, it’s sometimes a real trial for him. He rarely complains about it, though. My suitcase is always heavier than his – I usually take more clothes than he does, although we travel quite light by standards of some people. I take care of my own bag – ever since he lost his legs I’ve taken charge of my own bags. But I have to bring my good DSLR camera (heavy, awkward sometimes), the battery charger for the camera, numerous charging cables/cords for our variety of electronic devices as well. Then there’s my hair dryer and curling iron and cosmetic stuff. My Kindle. My iPod too. So I take a suitcase and a rollaboard (small, very small, in the shape of a large, deep briefcase) that will sit on top of the suitcase to flit around airports or into and out of the inns, etc.
But once we’ve checked into a place to stay, I’m peeved too often when I can’t find a plug to charge these darned things. My iPhone requires a couple of hours to charge. So does my DH’s. My Kindle only needed charging a few times on the trip. But my iPad required charging at least every night or two since I used it for reading Kindle books. In numerous places we stayed, the only plug available was in the bathroom, and sometimes one of the two receptacles were permanently wired for – say, a coffeepot, or a refrigerator. So that meant we really had just one plug to charge things. Many times I was down on my hands and knees trying to FIND another plug somewhere. Forget about it if it’s behind the bed, or a dresser. I’m not moving furniture to find a plug. I was also concerned about leaving my electronics in some rooms while we went out to dinner. I did do it several times, and always returned to the room and immediately checked to make sure my iPad was still there. Or my camera. Mostly I left the camera in the car, hidden as best I could under the driver’s seat. Not altogether smart, but necessary. We also had a brand new Garmin Nuvi 2350 GPS we took along (it was a lifesaver, I must admit, on numerous occasions), which required slipping it into a hidey-hole in the car throughout the trip. Fortunately, it charged in the car through the cigarette lighter. But that meant I couldn’t charge my iPhone there, even though I brought along the adapter for it.
I’m sure the economy has had some bearing on this next subject: uncomfortable hotel beds. I must be more particular than a lot of people because my back just isn’t very happy after a night on some innkeeper’s beds. At the posh hotel where we stayed in New Hampshire, they’d put some kind of 4-inch thick pad on top of the mattress, but once I rolled into it (it was a high bed to begin with, but with the pad it was high enough I had to kind of hop up to get on it), the center of this pad just sunk in. About the shape of a body, obviously. The edge of the bed was up several inches higher than I was, and when I tried it get up, it required a bit of maneuvering to get my legs over the edge to slide my feet to the floor. Maybe taller people have no difficulty with this, but I sure did. I’m 5’3” tall. The second night I didn’t even sleep on the bed, but chose the comfortable long sofa in the room. When you’re paying nearly $300 a night for a hotel, you sort of expect a good bed. A couple of places we stayed had no amenities except a bar of soap. Now that’s really Spartan. Most had more than that, but one inexpensive (yet highly rated Trip Advisor location) truly didn’t have shampoo, lotion or even a shower cap, if I’d wanted one.
After nearly three weeks of inns and B&Bs (and a week at a house in Maine – bedrooms upstairs, but we only had to schlep the bags up once, and down once), we stayed in a Howard Johnson’s in one city. That’s because staying in any of the nicer, view-type hotels in Newport, Rhode Island, were upwards or more than $400 a night. We’d already splurged enough on accommodations on this trip, so I chose a Howard Johnson’s there. The room was all right. Nothing to write home about. But clean, and the bed was better than most other places we stayed, actually. And we paid about $180 a night for that.
Our last night was at the Boston airport. You know when you’re going to stay at an airport hotel, you’re going to pay-pay-pay; the bigger the city, the larger the tariff for a hotel. And yes, indeed we did. The Hilton offered the best price, I thought, when I booked online a couple of months ago, and we paid $290 for the one night. But, it was a very large room. A really comfortable room with a big flat-screen TV, a large bathroom, and plenty of room to spread out as we re-packed our bags for returning home. And a fantastic king-sized bed. We didn’t regret one dime of the expense for that room.
My conclusion after planning out this trip is that in order to have a better room, you have to pay over $200 a night most places, and more and more the closer you get to or in cities. Sure, you can find some for less, but you get what you pay for. Lots of the inns have standard prices most of the year, then during leaf-peeping season they raise their rates about 25%. They do it because they can. For most of the trip we had a widow friend with us, and twice we stayed in a room that offered two bedrooms and one bath. She was fine with it, and we were able to share the bathroom with no difficulty. It saved money in both places and both offered a small living room area, which was nice to have.
So, does that adequately explain why we’re happy to be home? Home to our comfy bed. My lovely kitchen. Our patio area, where it’s still warm enough we ate outside last night. I reached into the freezer and grabbed the first thing I saw, a package of spicy bratwursts. There’s no date. I didn’t buy them, I’m certain. Where did they come from? No recollection! We had someone staying in our home while we were gone – maybe he bought them and forgot to take them when he left. Well, they were simple and tasty.
I uploaded 191 trip photos from my camera to my home (PC) computer last night, so I’ll be going through those and giving you stories and photos in coming days.
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