Saturday, May 15, 2010

Cheap Hotel

This is the view from our hotel on our recent trip to Los Angeles.
Every time I plan a road trip I spend weeks on the internet agonizing over every detail.
One of the biggies is the hotel.
The hotel choice can make or break a vacation.
(well maybe that's a little dramatic but you know what I mean)
I drive myself crazy reading every review and trying to stay within a budget.
Not too cheap but definitely not too ritzy.
L.A. was really a hard one.
The bigger the city...the more options there are.
I asked Baby Davey what his thoughts were since he lived there for about 8 years.
I told him that I was considering a Quality Inn in Hermosa Beach
He said that it was a good choice.
The whole two days drive to get to LA I wondered and fretted over my choice of hotel.
We would be staying there for 5 nights so I wanted it to be decent.
And it was...
decent.
It had a view of the ocean...kinda
And it was roomy and clean.
I was proud of myself.
After we got home my husband received a phone call from our credit card company,
asking him to verify some charges that seemed unusual for us.
He starting listing some of the places that we had used the card.
"McDonald's in Fort Stockton Texas"...check.
"Hotel room in Demming New Mexico"....check.
"Welcome center in Willcox Arizona".....check.
"Cheap hotel in Hermosa Beach"......?
HUH?
My husband asked him to repeat the last charge.
"Cheap hotel in Hermosa Beach"?
Mr. T replied,
"Well I don't know about that...It wasn't that bad a hotel..."
"No Sir" the operate replied....cheaphotel.
"The restaurant."
C-H-I-P-O-T-L-E.
"Oh Mr. T. chuckled, Yes we ate there."

I was reminded of that story while I ate at Chipotle today with Mr. T. and Peanut. For some dumb reason EVERY one in my family LOVES Chipotle. I do not share their feelings. My feelings can be best summed up by a quote someone wrote on facebook about Chipotle.
"Why It's Overrated: Eating in a Chipotle is like grabbing lunch in a high school metal shop. The hard surfaces create an echo chamber that turns table talk into a hearing test. The chairs and tables, welded into place like a bus station cafeteria, aren't conducive to the enjoyment of a 1,250-calorie burrito the size of a bed and breakfast pillow."
Today was particularly annoying as they had the temperature set at about 60 degrees and packs of adolescents kept coming in "talking" at the top of their lungs. Add some really really loud jungle drum music piped in and you have the makings of a massive case of indigestion.
Happy Saturday everybody!!

3 comments:

Twins Squared said...

That is funny! Well, if you don't like Chipotle then you probably wouldn't like Mission Burrito or Freebirds either, but I will tell you, Mission Burrito and Freebirds have WAY better burritos!

Fort Stockton, now we stayed there at a cheap hotel once! We even smuggled in our meowing cat through the lobby and into our room.

At least your hotel was clean. We stayed at one once that I was afraid to close my eyes for fear something would fall on me. And the water we used to brush our teeth actually made our mouths feel worse than before we had brushed.

Hope you had a great trip! Oh, I had a run-in today. Maybe I'll get to share tomorrow. We'll see.

Anonymous said...

Stuart and I stayed in a cheap hotel in Green River where the blood red carpet had 2 inches of standing water. They claimed the carpets were just cleaned, but actually the laundry room next door had flooded it. Our socks were died red and Stuart started a week long migraine. Last weekend out before Miranda was born.

Unknown said...

Wow! Nice view! It is really relaxing to have the view of the ocean. As a traveller it is normal to book cheap hotel room to keep up with the budget. Last time I travelled, I just picked one place that I saw in a social networking web site . And the place was a paradise. I see that social networking sites are also now inclined with tourism. It is not a bad tool I guess.