When we told Marc's oldest daughter we were traveling to the Great Basin National Park over Spring Break, she said, "Why would you want to go there? There's nothing there!"
We told her we wanted to visit the Lehman Caves, that we'd never seen it and wanted to visit more of America's national parks in our retirement years.
To do this, we had to plan a fairly lengthy road trip down through Delta and into a teeny tiny town called Baker.
On the internet, we found a roadside inn that charged a reasonable amount and booked it.
When we pulled up to the place, however, I was a bit taken aback.
It was literally four rooms on the side of the highway.
The manager gave us our key and showed us our room.Double beds. That's good.
Fresh towels. Also good.
Not so good, the bathroom was a shower and comode with a sink and mirror outside the room. And the shower head leaked and sprayed all over. The hot water wouldn't get hot.
There was an ancient furnace unit in the wall, no thermostat anywhere, a closet cut into the wall.
We deposited our luggage and went to eat at one of the only places available.
When we came back Marc tried to encourage the furnace to heat up the room.
We asked for blankets and tried to settle in, watching TV on the tiny set provided. We shut the curtains.
It was about then we noticed a smell that I recognized as obnoxious, a smell that prompted me to return a bedroom set of furniture from China a couple of years ago.
I tried to ignore it and go to sleep — which worked well until about 4 a.m. when the carbon monoxide monitor went off with a shriek!
"Warning! Carbon Monoxide! Warning!" said the alarm.
We looked at the furnace. Could it be the problem? Were we in danger?
Marc finally disabled the alarm and pulled out the batteries which we figured were about dead. That would explain the malfunction.
Yeah, sure, that was the problem.
We tried to go back to sleep.
In the morning, we left a note and asked the owners to call us.
When they did, the guy apologized and then said, "Our propane guy told us it was clogged up and dusty. That may have been the problem."
What? So it could have been a real alarm? What?
"I'll refund half of the cost of staying with us," said the owner. "Then if you want to stay here again, we'll be friends."
I don't think so, thanks.
