Follow the Isaac Family as they experience roadside turmoil and Motel experiences gone awry
Our trip through Florida to the Carolinas begins easy enough and despite heavy rains, we make good time.
However, late in the evening, a mere 10 minutes away from our destination of Florence, South Carolina, we notice a vehicle in flames up the road and traffic coming to a dead stop. We stop directly behind a gigantic semi with red blinking flashers that practically give me a seizure. The kids want to get out and see. But I don't let them. I want to see, too, but refuse to get out. Just as well since emergency vehicles are zipping by in the emergency lane. I’ve never observed so many odd-ball looking people as those who did get out of their cars. They amble past, looking dazed and confused, seemingly unaware of the ambulances until they are practically run down by them. Perhaps there was a tour bus of circus geeks behind us, I don’t know, but my mood befouled, I sit in silence behind those big flashing red lights. Seems like forever but it is actually only maybe 20 minutes and we are back on the road again.
We arrive in Florence. South Carolina. First Motel we stop at has no vacancies. Some kind of deer convention or something. A guy standing behind me, upon hearing that news, returns to his vehicle and drives off to the next motel, with us tailing behind him. We watch from roadside, waiting to see if he successfully signs in. My wife says, “Hope he doesn’t get the last room.”
Guess what?
Well, yeah, I go in just as he is finishing the paperwork and learn the sad news: that dude had gotten the last room. No vacancies. We decide to try the next town. It is about midnight, and I can’t help but think: had we not been tied up in that traffic jam, we would all be relaxing in front of the tube by now!
Onward we forge. Next town, Dillon, S. Carolina. First Motel, again, no vacancies. So we hit the Motel 8. Lobby is closed but there is a little sign-in window, in front of which 6 people stand in line. A slow moving woman, barefoot and sloth-like, signs in my fellow patrons. I dare not entertain the notion that someone immediately in front of me might get the last room.
Some 20 minutes later, with key in hand, I escort my family to the room, insert the key and turn the lock. It turns freely. Round and round it turns, but the door doesn’t open. I go back down and butt the line and get a new room with a lock and door that opens. Of course, on a whim, I try the door to our first room one more time and it, too, now opens.
As bad as this is, it is not as bad as our experience last year in Greenville, but it surely had the makings for disaster!
The next Motel, in VA, has a malfunctioning central air conditioner. First night is warm, but bearable, becoming freezing in the wee hours. The following night it is a blistering 85+ degrees in there, at midnight, so I go to the lobby and complain. Other patrons in front of me are there complaining as well. Some motel dude begrudgingly gets up from whatever he was doing (my wife suspects he was watching the Braves game) and he shuts off the main unit and turns it back on. Tough job. But it seems to do the trick. By the wee morning hours we are freezing again.
The next Motel, in Williamsburg, VA has a TV that when I try to turn up the volume, the channels change, and the remote does not work. Not having a remote is not such a big thing, as the motel front desk dude points out when I complain (“How did we ever get by without them?” he quips), but the commercials are 100 times louder than the movie we're watching and I don’t feel like getting up and hitting the volume throughout the film. It stays loud despite the late hour.
Then we notice a strange sound coming from the vicinity of the AC. “Sound’s like a fire alarm,” our 14-year-old daughter says. “Stupid AC,” I mutter to myself. It continues for, I don’t know, an hour or so. Finally I get up to check that blasted thing and notice, out our window, an abundance of pajama-clad people outside, milling about in the parking lot. Oh, and a fire truck and firemen as well. I open the front door and realize that yes, it was a fire alarm that our daughter was hearing, blaring above us from the second floor.
At least the AC works.
Fortunately, there is no fire, so I come back in and we continue watching TV. But at bedtime, when we turn out the lights, we notice a strange glow coming from our ceiling which quickly vanishes. “What the heck was that??” I hear our daughter exclaim. I quickly turn the lights back on and notice some kind of odd-looking bioluminescent bug clinging to the ceiling. It was like no firefly I had ever seen. Some kind of spooky glowing beetle thing.
Sixish, the following AM, we are awakened by another shrill and aggravating noise - this time coming from the TV. The alarm clock. Yeah, a TV alarm clock! I vaguely remember fumbling for the switch in my slumber stupor. Fortunately, my wife knows how to dispense with that in short order. And nothing weird happens when she hits the switch, which is a surprise since the volume knob works the channels, and the newly ‘fixed’ remote works only the volume, etc.
Onward to N. Carolina and our next Motel Experience. We get turned around somewhere en route, and end up heading the wrong direction on 221. Mainly because once on 221, there are very few signs that indicate whether you are going North or South. It is our daughter who notices the first sign and pipes up, “Why are we going North?” This adds an additional hour or so to the trip, but we get to see the bustling metropolis of Galax. Twice. My wife is impressed. She always finds a silver lining.
Unfortunately, we also now get to drive in the dark, down a dark winding mountain road, where we see a deer. This in itself is not so noteworthy. The fact that it is in the middle of the road, silhouetted against the headlights of an approaching truck is what makes it noteworthy. Fortunately, it manages to bound roadside before either one of us strikes it - or one another - dead, and as we whisk past we see it staring out from the darkness on the side of the road. It lives on to terrorize other hapless motorists.
Then we hit a rainstorm rivaling the Great Flood and the most horrendous fog, thick as a cotton bale, that I’ve ever had the pleasure to drive through.
In the dark.
On wet pavement.
On narrow mountain roads with steep cliffs.
At least I think they are steep, I can’t actually observe them what with a visibility of maybe 14 inches. With knuckles white I creep along while our daughter hyperventilates and our 6 year old son repeatedly intones, “I’m thoaasty.. thooaaaaaaaasty.”
Once through the worst of it, we stop at the first convenience store and get cokes and wine coolers. We continue on through the rain until we finally reach our Motel. I quickly secure two keys, hand one to our son since he really enjoys opening Motel Room doors, and we race through the downpour to our motel room. Although it is nearly midnight, we hear our phone ringing as we approach our room. Expecting a call from a college buddy, I quickly attempt to open the door.
Yes, “attempt”, for the blasted key will not turn!
"Son, give me your key,” I scream. A look of panic appears on his face.
“I left it in the van,” he replies.
This does not please me. Stressing from the horrific drive, and thirsting for those wine coolers, I march back out into the cold rain in search of the key. Fortunately, I find it and, miraculously, it works! The door opens and WE ARE IN!
Whew!
But, the AC doesn’t work.
And we keep getting phone calls from strangers.
Our room number is 265, which also happens to be the prefix for local phone calls. So every bozo who doesn’t dial a 9 first, calls our room. HA!
And I never do hear from my college buddies.
But aside from all of this - our vacation was great fun and next year we are trying something new.
Let this coming of age story of a boy named Bean take you back to a simple time. Set in a small southern town in the 1960's, encircled by a river and gleaming white cotton fields.
A wicked Cajun Fairy named Robes Pierre entered the impenetrable Magical doll land of Sha Bebe. Queen Faustina, the ruler of the doll land, thought she had destroyed him, but he's back! Will the doll land survive his evil ways?
