I had an epiphany today, each day I'm going to try to post about something that isn't bigger in Texas. Today, in the EHB grocery store, we bought egg nog. We bought 4 half-gallon containers because they don't have gallon containers like they do back home. So egg nog is not bigger in Texas.
I have to tell you about this place we're staying. I've been here about a half hour and I couldn't go to bed without iterating through them.
First impressions are: not so bad. It wasn't too hard to find (it's quite close to the freeway, actually). Second impression: the night clerk was really helpful and nice.
The room was on the second floor. I attempted to commandeer a luggage cart, but the night clerk told me it wouldn't roll up the stairs—the elevator was out of service. This would have been an easy trip with a working elevator.
When I opened the room, the first thing that caught my attention was the smell of paint. It's quite strong in here. Probably covering up some bloodstains was my first thought about the smell.
The door doesn't close all the way by itself, you have to push on it heavily to get it to latch. I'm going to have to tell my wife that when she gets back from picking up her parents at the airport.
There is no closet, but I found a short bar near the window that someone imagined would be good enough to hang stuff on.
When I turned the shower on, I got cold water (that's a good thing when it's 75°F outside and you're used to 25°F at this point. But, when I turned the sink on I saw very brown water come out of it. Just for a few seconds, though, then it turned clear. I bought two sodas from the vending machine down the hall because I was thirsty. Water would have been fine, but the machine doesn't have any, and I'm not drinking from that sink.
The shower was nice, the towels were small (what hotel doesn't have small towels??). I brought my own shampoo as I've come to realize you can never count on it being there for you. There is, actually, a shampoo container on the sink ("sunflower and grapefruit essences", in case you were wondering), but I have my doubts whether it will be replaced during our 9-night stay.
The Internet connection here is secured, but I didn't check us in and my wife doesn't think to ask about such things, so until I get the WEP key I'm writing this in notepad.
The air conditioner works pretty good, it's been on about 15 minutes and has cooled the room significantly from what it was at when I arrived. I did, however, have to yank the housing off it to get to the controls and switch it on. It looks like it's going to fall off, and yet it remains hanging there, as if to say "I'm going to wait until you fall asleep before clanging loudly to the ground."
There is a seam in the flooring right down the main walkway of the room, between the beds and TV. I know this because I have to walk along it, and it is most woefully un-level. They say everything is bigger in Texas, and I can certainly testify that the difference in heights of their floorboards certainly are bigger than anywhere else I've stayed.
And now for the good news! Fortunately, I'm not really having to pay for any of this. Just the tax on the two rooms: one for Lorien and I, one for her parents. They are members of some kind of business barter system called Itex, and are using some of their "Itex money" so all of us can stay here and not be exposed to 9 children at 7am (or 5am on Christmas!). So for about $160 we've got two rooms for 9 nights. I love my wife's family, but I'm very glad to have a private place to return to every evening now.
The time change (from GMT-8 to GMT-6) isn't too bad, and surprisingly enough I got up real early this morning, so I'm trying to keep myself awake by writing this and so I can let my wife kDnow about the non-latching door issue. Local time right now is 1:45am, but the Coca-cola in me says that's just fine.