./monroec

The Quest for La Quinta

We were finally seated at the Cracker Barrel. For some reason, this one felt different. The waitress, skeptical of my order, kept verifying my “sunny side up” request. For me, it was the only sane thing about the last 24 hours. Dustin looks at his phone and says “I’m turning the GPS off, it’s a fucking waste.”

(You can read Dustin’s side of the story here: http://www.dustinbarbour.com/2009/10/leaving-houston/)

I knew I had forgotten something when I boarded the plane. I kept repeating “keys, phone, plastic, keys, phone, plastic” over and over again to try to figure out what was missing. The croissan’wich was settling in, and my eye lids grew too heavy. Whatever was missing could be dealt with in San Antonio.

Dustin picked me up at Terminal 1 and we were off. The drive to Houston is an easy one. Texas has the horrible characteristic of being flat. As we reached city limits, we focused all of our attention in spotting a La Quinta Inn hotel he had booked days earlier.

We must have missed it. That’s the only explanation. Loop after loop around the city, no sign of our destination. The frustration levels kept rising, and his phone quickly ran out of batteries.

We had:

a charged phone with no data service.

a broken Tom Tom GPS unit.

a data capable phone with no power.

a pc with no wireless networks in range.

no idea what our La Quinta reservation number was.

We pull over to a convenience store to check the phone book listings. Not a single one of them familiar to us. We call a random one and start working the Vegas charm. It couldn’t be…. No record of the reservation. If only we could find an open wireless access point.

We pull over again, but this time directly in front of two guys waiting on the bus. “Weezy” walks up to us speaking all kinds of jive trying to help us get to our location. His directions might as well have been from National Lampoon’s Vacation. “Maybe now you can help ME” he replied. And just like that, all the knowledge I picked up in Brazil came flying back. Redskins jersey was a hustler, and his pal was a spotter. Before I knew it, our car was surrounded by homeless transients. Feeling his Tupperware totes were in danger of theft, Dustin hands the guy four dollars, and we break out of there. We pull into a T-mobile store and borrow one of their power outlets.

I had used Google’s SMS 411 feature and obtained a list of La Quinta’s in town. Dustin makes a backup reservation just in case, and we go searching again.

6:53 PM - We turn on the GPS feature of the phone. Cell phone tower triangulation just wasn’t good enough for us. 13290 SM 1960 Roadwest. I wondered what kind of genius names their streets like that. GPS led us further down the spiral. We decide to try other locations: Greenway Plaza-Galleria-Airport — No reservation.

7:30 PM - We pull into a different La Quinta. This time, we’re able to jump onto an open wireless access point. Dustin pulls up his laptop browser history, the reservations were for a Baymont Inn Hotel. My brain goes into a state of shock, and my body starts running down the street. The level of madness is enough to make me laugh uncontrollably. I was drowning in nonsense.

7:53 PM - A mere seven minutes before doors open, we decide to get some food at Prince’s Hamburgers and check in after our concert.

12:00 AM - We head out looking for our Baymont Inn hotel, we pull in after GPS fails us a few more times. I had his laptop scanning for networks, I look down to see network “laquinta”. Am I delirious? I jump on Google to make sense of all this. July 15 2009 - La Quinta Acquires Baymont Inn Hotels.

No wonder. The conversion and branding process was still going on. La Quinta’s website never specified we’d be looking for a different name. It’s no surprise our reservation didn’t show, their systems are probably still not linked.

We walk inside our room. Dustin headed to the furniture, “I bet you these two bottom drawers are locked… HA!”. I take a quick shower turn on the Wi-Fi on my phone. All I wanted was a new day and some good breakfast.