Road Trip - Day 1

Earlier this summer, my mom, little sister and I decided that we wanted to take a girl's road trip to see Mount Rushmore. Now, I know what you're thinking. "That's a whole lot of driving to see one thing!" And if you're thinking that - you're right. But the drive itself was half the fun for us. We took lots of scenic roads and small highways and we never ate at any restaurant we'd ever heard of before. We planned our route with a map and a highlighter. We got to spend lots of time together in the car just chatting, listening to The Chronicles of Narnia, and just spending time together while it's still so convenient and easy to do so (i.e. before this baby comes!). The trip was SOOOO much fun!

We decided that we would fly to Denver and rent a car from there since the drive from Salt Lake to Denver is pretty long and we've already seen most of the stuff along the way there. Plus, that would give us more time in the Mount Rushmore area to see fun things we hadn't seen before. This turned out to be a really great idea. It turns out Wednesday morning is a GREAT time to fly out of the Salt Lake Airport. There was absolutely no line through security, and hardly any people or crowds. The flight was just over an hour, and we landed in Denver before we knew it. Once we got our bags though, we had a few problems getting the rental car. Mom had reserved an economy car online that said it seated 5 people, 2 large suitcases and 2 small suitcases. Well, when they brought out our "economy" car, here's what we saw:

A stupid Chevy Spark that only fit 4 people and 1 small suitcase. This wasn't going to work. We only had three people, but our suitcases would take up the rest of the room in the car, leaving no room for anything else, which would make for quite an uncomfortable 7 days of driving. So, after almost 2 hours of mom trying to complain and get our car upgraded and frustrating all of the rental car employees, we finally got a better car.

A much better fit for us!

Mom looking very frazzled and frustrated at the counter.

One nice thing about the whole ordeal though, was that they gave us free pizza! Isn't that weird!? Weird, but awesome. 

Lesson learned: If you're looking to go on a nice road trip, don't reserve an economy car and be prepared to wait for at least 2 hours past your reservation time. :)

Our plan for the day was just to drive until we felt like stopping for the night. We stopped to take a few pictures along the way, too.

Yep. There is an Egbert, Wyoming that we of course HAD to drive through. 

See that teepee in the background?? That's about all there is in Egbert. :)

We hadn't made a reservation for a hotel that night since we weren't sure exactly how far we wanted to drive that night, and we thought that we could just drive into town and find a place. Turns out this wasn't a really great idea. We pulled out our map and decided that we wanted to stay in Scottsbluff, Nebraska that night. None of us had a smart phone so we couldn't look up the numbers for any hotels. So, we had to call home and ask Dave and my dad to research a few places for us. Dad gave us the number of what he thought was the Holiday Inn Express. Mom called the number and it turned out to be a 3rd party booking agency. The guy on the phone said that there wasn't any rooms available anywhere in Scottsbluff except for a room at the Sportsmans Inn. He also said he needed to get our information right away so he could book it before it ran out. Mom was a little hesitant about this, and said he could only book it if it was a nice hotel, since we hadn't ever heard of it before. He said, "I guarantee it is a nice place." So - we took a chance, and booked our room at the Sportsmans Inn. 

We decided to eat before we arrived at our hotel, at a little Mexican place that was showing these awesome Spanish soap operas in the background. Talk about ambiance. :) After we finished our meal, we headed to our hotel. We were starting to get a little nervous when it was pitch black and our hotel was not anywhere near the center of town. It was totally on the outskirts. When we pulled up, there were a bunch of cronies just hanging out around the laundry room laughing and drinking beers. Classy. But - the man said it was a nice place, so we went to check in. When we walked into our room, let's just say that we were beyond grossed out. Here are a few pictures to give you just a small taste.

First - imagine the mustiest smell you could ever imagine, and then times it by 10. That's what the room smelled like.

The door to our room

A close-up of just one of the cracks that were all over the walls

This is what did us in. These were the blinds in the bathroom - literally an inch thick of dust. Have you ever seen something more disgusting?? There was also a sign above the sink that I forgot to take a picture of that said, "Please don't lean on the sink or it will break." Yikes.

The bathtub

 Now, my family was never raised to be hotel snobs. We've stayed at some pretty cheap hotels before, and we are totally fine with that. We don't need a lot of luxuries or comforts. But this!? This was beyond what we were capable of. We looked up a few reviews about the place online, and could only find 2. Both had ranked the Sportsmans Inn as TERRIBLE. One lady said that her husband got head lice from bedbugs there (TOTALLY believable after you'd seen the room) and another said that the blaring train horn kept them up all night long. As if on cue, a train drove by and honked its horn, and I couldn't even hear what my mom was saying 2 feet away from me. Mom said that there was no way we could stay there. She went to work calling that stupid 3rd party company and getting her money back, and Steph and I went to work researching the next closest town that had a decent room available. Luckily, Mom was able to get her money back and we were able to find a hotel room in a town about 20 miles further.When mom went to return the keys the lady said, "Oh wow. You had better luck getting your money back than the last people. At least you got through to them." So apparently this had happened before, and she wasn't surprised in the least. We just couldn't get over the whole situation. 

When we got to our next hotel, we felt like we were in the Grand America by comparison. We said many prayers of gratitude and thanks that night that we were able to get our money back and find another hotel room. After we were all settled and ready for bed, we just couldn't stop laughing about how funny the whole thing was, and how we almost had to stay there. Needless to say, we slept like BABIES that night, in clean sheets with a clean bathroom, and no train horns to be heard. :)