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Tuesday, November 23, 2021

Hashtag Travel Stories

Once upon a time, not all that long ago, we traveled to a place most notable for rain - not in terms of inches but number of days. But having once lived in this place, I can tell you it is also a place well known for its beautiful sunny days (when that happens), it's relatively temperate climate, beautiful water, and amazing seafood. 

This trip was over several weeks and we visited several locations. At one time, we stayed on an island, accessible by ferry. Tourists flock to the main town while the rest of the island is quiet, residential, and heavily wooded. We had been to this place before and knew its best haunts. This time we had a car so we decided we didn't need to stay in town and opted for a lower cost option instead. I won't mention the name so I'll just call it the Un-Quality Inn.

There was nothing really wrong with it, exactly, but there were several things that could have been more right, shall we say. It was a motel where the rooms all had one window with a heavy curtain facing the parking lot. Beneath the window was a through-wall A/C unit that, we soon learned, rattled. The motel advertised that it had been remodeled which translated to a fresh coat of interior paint (which didn't cover the smell of the pets who had accompanied travelers before) and a truckload of new air conditioning units that had been delivered but not installed (due to a significant labor shortage). 

We were not deterred and our spirits not dampened because, in this place, we could get fresh Dungeness crab - in my opinion, the best crab to be had. We secured our crab and a bottle of wine and proceeded to eat it at a bistro table and chairs arrangement which had been placed on the sidewalk between our hotel window the trunk of our car. The meal was romantic, not because of ambiance I assure you, but because we were in a special locale, generally speaking, eating exquisite local crab.

Before too long another guest pulled into the lot, backing his exhaust into our picnic dinner. Larry dropped the tailgate on the back of his pickup truck, opened a beer, and joined us by the fact that it was rather unavoidable. We learned he had been living in the room next to ours for the last two months while he was on a construction job building a multi-million dollar mansion on the island. 

Soon, another pickup truck parked across the way. This was one of Larry's co-workers, also living at the hotel but across the parking lot from us. He complained about the air conditioner unit in his room and said he had had enough. He was going to march right into the motel office and offer to install one of the new air conditioners in his room himself. He and Larry then argued about whether they should charge the motel for this service and, furthermore, offer their services to replace all of the units since they were staying there anyway.

All three of the men - Hubby included - trudged off to the office bolstered by their collective resolve to get this job done. Hubby did an excellent job of supervising while the young men carted a new unit to Larry's co-worker's room. 

Here arose a problem. Neither construction worker had any tools in their work trucks. Imagine.

Hubby came to the rescue in the form of a never before used screwdriver which was factory installed into a secret compartment in the truck of his German import vehicle. Larry and his co-worker found this fortuitous as well as amusing - not so much that he should have a secret compartment with tools in it but that it had never been used. (Hubby showed must restraint by not telling them that no self-respecting German import vehicle owner would be caught dead using the tools himself. Especially not on his German import vehicle.)

The next night, they repeated the story they told at work: Some dude in a fancy car was staying at the same cheap motel that they were. One worker responded, "At least he knows where to count his pennies so he can afford that expensive car." Hubby took pleasure in telling our hotel neighbors that his car cost less then their work trucks. They were astounded.

And, it came with its own screwdriver.

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