When I travel I never try to find cheap lodgings. I want to stay in good hotels. Why not treat yourself to good accommodations? The only complaint I could make about some hotels was noise from revelers coming in late at night or early in the morning. A large hotel we once stayed in Seattle a few years ago had loud booming music coming from the floor below us for most of the night. My companions complained about that when we checked out and management gave our stay for free.
Last week Monday, two buddies and I drove down to Norwich in southern Ontario to bring back an eight-row corn head for their combine. The plan was to drive back at around 50 km an hour on two-lane highways as we were hauling a header wagon with a wide load. We certainly didn’t want to be driving on four-lane highways with traffic flying by us. And we’d surely be pulled over by the cops if we ventured onto a four-lane highway.
My buddies had experience hauling farm equipment behind a truck and knew the route to go zig-zagging some of the way. They had hauled home a 30-ft grain combine head this spring and grain wagons last fall.
We decided to stop at Woodstock on the trip home and find a hotel where we could get in, park overnight with our long load, and get out easily in the morning. We saw a large chain hotel on the outskirts of the city and thought it smart to park along the side of the road and check out the parking lot. It was just what we needed — a huge parking lot behind the hotel that had some transport trucks and construction vehicles. There was adequate room to turn and to be able to get out early in the morning. And a big flashing sign by the hotel entrance said “WEEK DAY RATES FROM $60. It didn’t say if there was a vacancy or not. Sixty dollars a room was a certainly a deal, but maybe a gimmick to get us in and charge more.
I went inside to the reception desk and said we needed two rooms while the lads went for a coffee across the street. Are there rooms available, I asked? The young woman at the desk said they were still some and started filling in the registration form. Curious about the rate she was charging as it could well be $135, I asked her. She said it was $95 plus tax.
“The big red flashing sign at the entrance says $60, what is that about,” I inquired.
“Oh, you can get the rooms for $60 since you mentioned it,” she said. “I just can’t tell you about that promotion.”
And so we got the rooms for $60. The rooms were on the first floor and two and three doors down the hall from the reception desk. Right by the door. They were perfect rooms, clean, spacious, good beds, good washroom with shower and bath, microwave and small refridgerator — many hotels don’t have microwave and fridge anymore in the rooms. Also included was a continental breakfast with coffee, bread, baked goods, hard-boiled eggs, milk and cereal, and some fruit. It was a great place to stay but if I had not asked about the $60 rate, we would have paid $95. That was peculiar.
We made our way to New Hamburg, Wellesley, Arthur, Orangeville. Stayner, Orilla, Kinmount, Haliburton, Bancroft and home. It was a great way to see the countryside and check out the crops.
