MS150 report: summary, a little bit about Saturday, and why Best Western is now dead to me
It's over! I survived! And I actually feel pretty okay. The entire distance ended up about 172 miles(~106 Saturday, 66 Sunday)...I say "about", because there was so much going on at the finish on both days that I didn't think to mark the distance on my computer. Ditto on the total times, and the average speed. I can say that we averaged right around 16 mph the first day and something like 14.2 on the second. With stops...well, let's not talk about our with-stops averages, k? I was on the road for over 9 hours on Saturday, and over 7 on Sunday. Remember when I was worried about getting into La Grange 3 hours before the shuttles started running? Oh, was that a steaming pile of wishful thinking. I got in about 20 minutes before the shuttles started running. It was sort of a moot point, though, since I bummed a ride with a friend (thanks Jarrod & team!)
Nothing was really much like I expected. The Woodlands start was good, and some other members of my team actually started there as well, so that was cool. I didn't ride with them, but I did talk to their support person and she hooked me up with directions to the team lunch stop. I ended up riding with the same two girls from the club both days, the first day deliberately, the second day by fate. (More on that in the Sunday recap.)
La Grange wasn't at all the way I pictured it...I don't know, I guess I thought there'd be more open space, more people milling about and not every square inch of the place covered in tents. I also expected that my team's tent location would be on the posted maps, but it totally wasn't. I'm glad that the coordinator did send an email with landmarks (on Thursday), or I may still be wandering around that place right now. As it was, I was able to get to the tent in about 10 minutes (but not without being bumped by a SAG wagon when I stopped to ask directions!), park my bike, grab a burger, and get out to the road to catch my ride. That was all of the La Grange experience I wanted, now or ever. Well, I suppose I could have done with a massage, but since I was already 2-3 hours later than I expected, I didn't want to make my ride wait any longer. That, and I was exhausted, disoriented, and kind of in fight-or-flight mode in that tent full of strangers who all seemed to know what they were doing. Also, my cell phone was beeping about low battery, and I wasn't sure how long I would be able to even call him before the thing went completely dead. (Answer? About 4 hours.)
The ride to the hotel was uneventful, but things went rapidly downhill on arrival.
Desk clerk: "Hi, can I help you?"
Me: "I have a reservation for Joy ----."
DC: [looks at her checkin slips, checks computer] "We don't have a reservation in that name."
Oh, no she di'nt. See, I've called about this reservation 3 times. In November, I asked about my credit card, since the one I used to hold the reservation had a March expiration date. Then I called again in February when I got my renewed card, asking if I needed to provide my new information. Both times, they found my reservation, and told me that they don't charge the card until arrival, so it was no problem. Then, I called on Friday to confirm that I had a reservation with them. I did. On Friday. This Friday. So, sometime between 2:00 pm Friday and 6:15 Saturday, my reservation disappeared. Incensed does not even begin to describe how I was feeling at that moment. Thankfully, I had printed my confirmation, they had vacancies, and it all worked out after a little bit of bitchery back and forth. Well, moreso on my end.
But it was totally deserved...dude, this hotel sucked so hard. I paid an insane rate for the room because it was an event weekend, right? Then they lost my reservation, so they tried to give me a different room (two doubles) for $20 more than my reserved rate. When I insisted on the room I had reserved (n/s king) at the price I reserved, they didn't have any. I still refused the doubles, so they ended up giving me a king suite at my original rate. Fine--one issue down. Then they asked me about a wakeup call, but I was so flummoxed at that point that I just waved my hand and babbled something about letting them know.
When I got to the room, the toilet was dirty. Not, you know, filthy...just maybe someone was not as diligent with the brush as they could have been, you know? And if you can't be bothered to make sure there aren't cling-ons in the bowl, it kind of makes the whole rest of the housekeeping sort of suspect. I was too tired to care, though, so whatever.
After I showered, I weighed my options on calling Rob. I could use my nearly-dead cell phone, or I could use my hotel ripoff-rate room phone. Since I left the wall charger for my cell in WI the last time I went and haven't gotten around to getting a new one (I know, totally stupid, and I'll be picking one up tomorrow), I decided to conserve my battery as much as I could while I had another phone to use. As long as I didn't have marathon conversations, it wouldn't be so bad. So I followed the instructions on the phone to make a long-distance call. Which didn't work. I tried again--fast busy. The hell?
After looking both on the phone itself and in the (useless) welcome packet in my room for the number for the front desk, I tried to call the standard local number. Local calls didn't work either. Awesome! So I threw on some shoes and slogged down to the front desk (did I mention that this was a traditional motel, with all doors open to outside?)
"Hi, what's the number to call you guys from my room?" I was being much more pleasant now.
"Just dial 0."
"Ok, also, my cell phone's dead, and I was trying to use the room phone, but I just get a fast busy when I try to make a long distance call."
"Oh, you can't make long distance calls."
"..."
"You have to put down a deposit." And you didn't mention this at checkin...why, exactly?
"Ok, how much is the deposit?"
"It depends on how much you plan to use it." This from the other front desk guy.
Sigh. Aaaand there goes my patience. "Ballpark it for me."
"$10-20."
"Fine, can you just put that on the same card as the room?"
"Sure."
The girl pipes up. "And if you need anything else, you don't need to come down here. You can just dial 0." So, I may have been all extra sensitive, but I kind of took that as "Leave us alone, you high-maintenance bitch." Fair enough. But maybe if you printed the words "Front desk: Dial 0" ANYWHERE IN THE DAMN ROOM, you wouldn't even be seeing me now.
When I got back to the room, my line was activated. Yay! They did something right! I called and talked to Rob a couple minutes, let him know I was in safely and that my cell phone was nearly dead. After I hung up, I realized that I forgot to confirm the La Grange shuttle times for the hotel. So I called Rob back and asked him to check the MS150 website. It said 4:30, 5:30, 6:30 for Bastrop hotels, but to ask the bus driver about exact times. Great...except that I didn't ride the bus to the hotel. So I dialed 0.
"Front desk."
"Hi, Do you have information about what time the MS150 shuttles run from here to La Grange in the morning?"
"No, I'm sorry, we don't have any information about those." From her tone, I'm pretty sure she didn't even know what the hell I was talking about.
So now, to recap: Lost my reservation, tried to charge me more for a different room, the room they put me in was less than clean, and they have no information about an event for which they triple their room rates every year. But it gets better!
I resolved the shuttle time issue myself by staking out the front of the hotel until the next drop-off and asking the bus driver. After that, I was feeling a little peckish, so I went back to my room and got money for the vending machine. Whose dollar slot was broken, so I got to go harass the front desk kids some more.
"Hi, I need change for the coke machine--the dollar thing doesn't work. Also, do you have a food machine, or just drinks?"
"Just drinks. But there's gas station down the road by the Comfort Inn."
"How far?"
"About a half mile." Well, it's a good thing that I didn't bike over 100 miles today, or I'd really hate the thought of that ten-minute walk through the ditch along the side of the highway at dusk to get a damned snack. Oh...wait.
And just for good measure, and since the room had no alarm clock at all... "Thanks. Also, I need a 4:00 wake up call."
"[My room number]?"
"[My room number]."
And that was the end of my dealings with the front desk for the night, thankfully (on both sides, most likely). I walked down to the gas station and got snacks, came back, read a little bit, set 2 backup alarms, and went to bed.
I'm happy to report that the wake-up call did work, and only 1 minute behind my other two 4:00 alarms. (Since I'm hardly Ms. Atomic Clock, I figure that's close enough.) After calling Rob and working out a tentative game plan on my phoneless and most-likely-solo day two, I headed for the lobby, since I couldn't see the shuttle stop from my room. I figured I could check out, then hang out on the couches there and wait. I walked around the building to the front door...and it was locked. Oooookay. I went around to the rear door, where a sign was posted "This door locked between 9:00 pm and 6:30 am. Use front door." Back to the main entry. I went to the night window, peered in. Didn't seem to be anyone back there. I knocked on the window, called hellooooo...nothing. Well, this was par for the course, I guess. A couple more people came by, I apprised them of the situation, they tried the same tactics with the same results. Just as I was beginning to picture some kind of horrible "robbery-gone-bad" scene in the back room, the guy came out of hiding and let us all into the lobby. The other guys were pissed that there was no coffee, but I was so beyond that point. I had my chair, my coke from last night's gas station trip, and my drastically lowered expectations. Five minutes later, the bus came and the Bastrop Best Western was out of my life forever.
So, to summarize, last night I stayed in a motel with no restaurant, a drinks-only vending machine (that didn't accept dollar bills), in a room with a dirty toilet & no alarm clock. I paid the same price for this experience as I did a room at the Westin at Christmastime. Including the room-service breakfast.
That said? It was still 100x better than camping at the fairgrounds. If I ever do the MS150 again, I'll be hotellin' it all the way.
Just not that hotel.
Posted by Joy at April 22, 2007 09:07 PM
