"Oh my God, what is that smell?" Nebraska. Me, Emily and Beefy Boy Elliot were gasping for air. Yes siree, cattle lining the landscape are lovely to behold but, do not under any circumstances open the window of your car. For that matter just hold your breath across the state because even sealed in my little Honda going 75mph it was nasty. "Hold on only 700 more miles to Iowa," I choked out. Seeing as how we were in cattle country a big old steak was probably what we should have ordered at dinner in North Platte but by 7:00p.m. we had our fill of beef and ordered salad.
"Welcome to Iowa" was a welcome relief. The pancake flat landscape of Nebraska was behind us and we were joyful to see rolling hills and it didn't smell. We pulled into Iowa City in time for al fresco dining on the pedestrian mall. Beefy Boy loves outdoor dining but not Japanese food so he missed out on some really good sushi.
There is no LaQuinta in Iowa City so we were stumped as to where to spend the night that would also take Beefy Boy. We pulled into a Travel Lodge which looked ok in the dark. "Nope, no problem with the dog. I won't even make you put down a deposit," the clerk behind the desk drolled. Luck seemed to be on our side. We drove around to the very very very back of the motel to our room- a long creepy way from the front desk. We were on the ground floor and faced a swamp. Loud music was coming from a pick-up truck parked three doors down. Two guys sat on the back of the truck facing their open motel room. "Emily, what are they doing? Who sits outside the room?" It was just us, them and a swamp....in the dark dark night. As we schlepped our stuff from the car we continued to stare at our neighbors. "Gail, did you ever read "In Cold Blood?" "I saw the movie" I whispered. I was thinking more about a different movie however,"Psycho." We stood stone still in our room afraid to move. "We're the only ones back here," I mumbled and couldn't get Norman Bates off of my mind. "We have a dog, aren't people afraid of dogs?" I was desperate . We both burst out laughing watching Beefy Boy already sound asleep on the floor. "Elliot! Elliot up boy, guard the door." He opened one eye and then closed it.
There is only one option when you can't get Norman Bates off your mind. "Quick, Emily move that big chair over in front of the door." But we had two doors, curses! "I'll put the desk chair at the other one." Nope, not barricaded well enough we thought and eyed the furnishings. We quickly piled all our suitcases against the doors. "What about the dresser?" I thought that seemed logical. Uh oh, we had a window too - well at least we'd hear it break and could hightail it out a door...if we could unbarricade it fast enough. All the blood had drained from my face and the rash I developed on the closed interstate in Arizona started to itch again. Alfred Hitchcock and Truman Capote had ruined my life. I vowed to stop reading and going to movies. We eventually fell asleep because staring at the window became tiring.
We woke up the next morning.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
There actually was a case where two women checked into a lonely motel with a large golden. Frightened, they blocked the doors with every stick of furniture in the room. They toped the piles of wood and pillows with glasses from the bathroom so if anyone tried to break in the glasses would fall and break. That noise would wake them up so they could call the police.
As it turned out there were two serial rapists staying in the same motel that night. Both were dog whisperers.
It seems that goldens have extremely sensitive hearing and these dog whisperers had special, high pithed training whistles. They were able to train the dog to quietly remove all the furniture from the doors but were unaware of the precariously balanced glasses the girls had placed on the top.
Unfortunately, however the girls slept through the muffled sound of the plastic glasses from the bathroom hitting the floor.
Post a Comment