Trip Report: Dayton to Chicago to SA - Almost...

I have a long history of insomnia and this is compounded when I travel. Late is never an option, so like a lot of people, I tend to wake up every twenty minutes looking at the clock to make sure I haven't overslept. Not likely.

This morning was no different so by 3:30am, I was flipping through channels on the TV in my room trying to find something besides an infomercial. By 4am, I was up, checking e-mail and it occurred to me to use Google Maps to locate a place near the Dayton Airport to put gas in the rental car and grab a bite to eat. Turns out that Dayton has the Waffle House, so by 6:15am or so, I was on my way.

If you aren't familiar with the chain, they are a staple of the south (and apparently the north, too). A 24 hour place to grab breakfast or a steak. Maybe not as classy as your Denny's or IHOP, but certainly a lot better service.
I opted to sit at the counter and order two eggs over-easy, some grits and an order of bacon. My breakfast normally consists of fruit and yogurt, so this was definitely a splurge.
I love me some grits and these were nice and sticky with just a dollop of butter added for good measure. Some people throw in cheese and such, but I didn't want to push the cholesterol envelope.The two ladies working had quite an operation going. One lady was running the grill while the waitress bounced from customer to customer, filling coffee cups and taking orders. In some places, the waitress takes the order and either the ticket is passed to the cook or it goes into some sort of computer so the cook can see what to cook next. Not these ladies. The waitress seemed to be calling out partial orders so as to keep the timing of the food worked to have everything finish at once. As she was calling out the egg order for one customer, she was calling out my bacon order. That sounds easy enough, but then she started going into serious Waffle House lingo, and the lady doing the cooking never even as much as looked up or nodded. She simply took in the various menu items coming her way and threw down the food on to the grill as it was called out. The surprising thing was, the food all seemed to end up on the correct plates.

The Waffle House contained a variety of characters, all of them addressed as Honey, Sweety, or Sugar. Most of them seemed to be regulars, although I guess since I was also referred to as "Sweety" and "Honey", they may have been in for their first time as well.

I love a place quick on the coffee refill and tipped accordingly. As I finished up, the waitress asked me if I'd like to take a cup of coffee to go and I did. No charge.

So, I went across the street to fill up the rental car, and even though it was still dark, it occurred to me that the fog on the road was really thick. There was some road construction so I had to take a really round-about detour in order to get back on to I-70 West. The detour took me way off through some sort of industrial area and the further I went the worse the fog got. Accordingly, the folks on the radio were reporting school delays of two hours and more.

Suddenly, my idea of not trying to go back to sleep wasn't seeming to be such a great idea. I was already at least an hour and a half early for my flight (Dayton is a really small airport - you can get your luggage checked and be at the gate in 5 to ten minutes), and no doubt, the flight departure would be delayed.
Sure enough, my 9am departure for Chicago was going to be closer to 10am.
While I was waiting in the airport, I found a seat near a power outlet; for those of you who have a laptop with a crappy battery, you can appreciate such a find. Several seats away from me, an older lady was seated reading a book when all of a sudden, the relatively quiet airport, only occasionally interrupted with TSA announcements, was disrupted by a man with one of those Bluetooth style phones. For some reason, you have to yell into the air in order for the Bluetooth device to pick up what you are saying - or at least that seemed to be this guy's situation.

I have no issue with people having private conversations in public, as long as I'm not involved or they aren't interrupting a movie or something. I am also not so easily offended that the occasional slip of a profanity for emphasis in a conversation will cause me to blush. But this guy was suddenly ridiculous.

He seemed pretty upset that someone was trying to screw him and his company over, and he was more than F'ing mad about it. Enough F'ing mad that he was screaming into the air for everyone in Dayton to hear. I looked up to assure myself that there wasn't another person near him that he could be yelling at, but sure enough, it was just him and that Bluetooth device. What an ass. He was oblivious to the fact that everyone in the terminal had turned to watch him walk circles into the carpeted floor as his arms and hands flailed about his body.
When the older lady put up her book and walked away from the area, I felt almost tempted to get up and ask the guy to chill out, but I opted not to. Instead, I had visions of the older lady flipping the guy off. When the guy abruptly ended his call, and saw several people looking at him, I think he got the point and slunk away to the men's room.

Well, apparently not. By the time the flight was ready to depart Dayton, Mr. Potty Mouth had already launched into a new tirade via his cellular phone and Bluetooth device. Of course, he left his luggage and laptop in the care of some disinterested guy sitting near him so he could move about, all the better to rant and gesticulate wildly. Some people must gesticulate wildly as they talk, simply because Gesticulate is such a funny word.

It was obvious by the time the aircraft doors closed (and thusly, Mr. I'm a Big Ass With a Tiny Phone had to end his call) that I would miss my connecting flight to San Antonio. I knew this because my flight in Chicago was departing as we were still learning about the safety features of of our regional jet.
Once in Chicago, I got my flight changed, called my wife and then called work. Then I decided to walk around the terminal I was in to figure how best to kill a three and a half hour delay. ((Oh, in case you were wondering, in the picture above, the man in the bottom right was not in fact urinating)). I did walk around looking for a a wall outlet that I might use for my laptop. The one I did find seemed to be perfect; located in an empty row of seats and waiting just for me. Unfortunately, there was no power to it. When I put my laptop back into the bag, I noticed at least three other computer users giving me the Ha Ha look as they had no doubt tried the plug themselves, or were smart enough to own a battery for they're laptops that worked for more than ten minutes at a shot. Bastards.
As I continued walking about the terminal, I noticed that Chicago was pretty darn smart. They actually have some specific seating areas with individual outlets for people to plug in laptops, cell phones, PDAs and such. Of course they were mostly occupied.Next up, what I do best of course, eat. By now my breakfast was just a memory and I found a Chili's Too in the terminal. Chili's Too is like a regular Chili's, but with lots of small tables to accommodate people traveling alone or with one other person. In other words, they can pack a lot of customers in there without having huge tables holding only a single person.

Smartly, they don't put electrical outlets in the booths, or someone like me would spend the next three hours there asking for occasional refills of Iced Tea.
Instead, I was forced to bust out paper and pen to Blog the old fashioned way, but with much worse penmanship.
I had my standard Chili's fare of a house salad with Ranch and a bowl of chili. When a man sat down at the table adjacent to mine, he asked how the chili was and I told him "consistent". That's the good thing about Chili's. If you like it, then for the most part, wherever you happen to be, you'll be happy with it.I finished in Chili's and made my way back to a row of the seats with power. Kudos to Chicago O'Hare. This really should be the standard. I did notice this little kiosk that had a series of cell phone power cords hanging out of it.

Basically, you find the cord that fits your phone, swipe your credit card and pay about $6.00 a minute to charge your phone. Hmm, at some point, I'm looking for a pay phone if it comes to that.

But luckily, they gave up the laptop power for free and I appreciate it. Oh, and Internet for a small fee, hence my ability to Blog from Chicago about my flight home, before I even get there.

Hotel Report: Crescent Plaza - Downtown Proud...

On our recent trip to Wichita Falls we used Expedia to locate a hotel to stay at. The bad thing about using the Internet to find a hotel is, what little information you get rarely includes pertinent details like, "Nearby homeless people and vagabonds will hound you for gas money" or "Kind size bed was not large enough to share with roaches in room" or other such descriptions that would give you a hint. So, all you can do is look for the things that you specifically want or need, and hope they are on the list.

I won't make reservations in a hotel that doesn't offer free high speed Internet. In this, the information age, I view free Internet as a required amenity at a hotel no differently than I do air conditioning or little soap bars on the bathroom sink. It isn't even something you should have to ask for, it should be assumed.

I also believe that the majority of hotel rooms should be no-smoking and that in fact, it should not be on the non-smoker to ask for a no-smoking room, but the opposite - if you want to breath-in some stranger's second hand smoke in your cozy hotel bed, you ought to have to ask for that privilege (and perhaps pay extra). This paragraph brought to you by a former smoker.

So, with all that stuff in mind, I probably sound pretty picky, but then again, I am a self-admitted cheapskate, and though if the going rate for rooms is $129, I don't mind paying it; I'll definitely look closely at one I can get for fifty bucks. Which is what I did when we found the Crescent Plaza Hotel in historic downtown Wichita Falls.

A little background is surely in order. Apparently, back in the late 1970's, there was a huge tornado that went through downtown Wichita Falls and created some serious havoc. When the dust cleared, a lot of federal grant money and insurance and such made way for business owners to rebuild in newer parts of the city which, as you might imagine, left the downtown area full of empty old buildings. One such place was a Holiday Inn that was housed in the Petroleum Building on 8th and Scott Street. This hotel was pretty old to start with (mid to late 60's I'm guessing) and when it went out of business, supposedly, it stayed vacant for years - I think until the late 1990's. It was opened again for a brief time as a Ramada Inn but never made a come back. According to staff, the hotel was reopened earlier this year by a new group and as part of a bigger effort to bring businesses back to the downtown area, the Crescent Plaza is open for business. Hence, our $50.00 rate when all the other hotels in the vicinity were significantly higher.

When we first checked in, the lady at the front desk was extremely helpful and seemed ready to bend over backwards to help. The hotel lobby looked like an old hotel lobby, but very clean and some really nice furniture and such in the lobby. What gave us a slight twinge of concern was the fact that, even though there were four elevator doors, only one worked. I learned later that two of the elevators go to floors above the hotel rooms (office spaces for rent) and the second elevator for the hotel was being renovated.

As we walked to our room on the second floor, my wife commented on the fresh smell of Fabreeze and I have to admit, that gave me a little twinge of concern. Don't get me wrong, Fabreeze is a great product, but if it over powers you, there is usually some awkward smell being hidden.

Thankfully, the room was pretty nice by old hotel standards. It was spacious, the TV was new and probably 36". Limited on channels, but good reception. The Internet worked, the bathroom came complete with soap and little shampoos, and the bed was clean and comfortable. Plus, we had a refrigerator and a microwave oven. Hey, for $50.00, this was great.

I'll never forget staying at the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago about 10 years ago. The room was easily the cheapest, government per diem rate of like $225.00 a night, in a tiny 8 X 8 closet of a room, on a twin size bed and not even enough room to change your mind. It was one of these really fine, swanky places with real art work in the spacious lobby, attendants everywhere, and I kept thinking to myself, "I wonder if they would mind if I slept in the lobby?"

I'll take clean and spacious over swanky and cramped any day of the week.

So, I would be lying if I didn't say we had more than one miscue at the hotel. Nothing really so major that I was ready to check-out or anything, but I have to tell you that my report on this blog (and later when I do a feedback on Expedia) was almost a lot different. I even took some pictures of really silly things (like the return air vent in the room that was really just an air filter glued to the open hole in the wall), but it is so easy to look for flaws in things and not get the bigger picture - the fact that the place is still a work in progress and the cost was only $50.00.

I mean, sure, they did forget to send a maid the first day. So, we did the environmentally friendly thing and hung up our towels, not unlike what we do at home. I feel like Al Gore already. Except for the private jet.

We learned later (about 10PM at night to be exact) that our room was located right next to the hotel ball room. We found this out when some people from the party next door kept running up and down the hall yelling "Marco?" quickly followed by "Polo!". WTF?

The next day, before I could even think about complaining, the nice lady at the front desk asked me if we would be interested in moving to a different room because they were having a dance in the ballroom that evening. We definitely took her up on the offer.

On Saturday morning, we were treated to a parade on the street in front of the hotel. (I'll write about that later), and Saturday afternoon, we went swimming at the pool located on a deck above the parking garage. To their credit, not a single person yelled "Beached Whale" when I emerged from the awesome water and found a lounger worthy of sustaining my girth and weight long enough for me to relax and enjoy the afternoon sun. I told my wife that I hadn't felt this relaxed in quite some time. And in spite of the few flaws we could easily point out, the price and quality of the people we dealt with at Crescent Plaza prompted my wife to say that she would be happy to stay there again.

So, if you are in Wichita Falls, need a place to stay for a lot cheaper than the regular brand hotels but not nearly as seedy as the similarly priced hotels in the area, try the Crescent Plaza Hotel.