Hotel Adventure

If you spend much time with our family, you will soon discover that we are merely waiting for another adventure just around the next corner. In other words, we seldom have any dull moments.

Three weeks ago, Stan called a fine hotel in Colorado Springs to set up arrangements for our trip earlier this week. Normally, he calls Hotel.com to do this but we had recently heard that the nation's economic crisis has really put motels/hotels into a tight crunch. Because of this, people are finding out that many times if you call the motel directly, your room rates will be considerably less expensive. The rumors were correct, we got a great deal on our lodging. Our daughters and I were sitting in the same room as Stan when he set up the reservations. We heard him ask the hotel manager if pets were allowed. The manager told him that pets were welcome there.

I guess that I need to back up just a wee bit. A gorgeous Chinese Crested joined our family in April. In case you are not familiar with that breed, I'll give you a brief description. Chinese Cresteds are considered to be hairless although they do have some hair. Our baby, Chloe, has very long hair on the top of her head and down part of her spine. It greatly resembles a horse's mane. Then she has a bit of hair on her legs and a powder puff on the end of her tail. The rest of her body is naked. (Oops! Did I say naked???) Correction, the rest of her body is bare.

Well, Chloe and I are very close. We hardly ever spend any time without each other. That is great except when we do such things as travel. Though the rest of our herd stays home while we are gone, Chloe just cannot be away from us. She becomes EXTREMELY nervous and finicky. Therefore, we were all greatly relieved to know that we could take Chloe with us.

So, Sunday afternoon, we arrive at the hotel. Stan goes into the office to fill out paperwork, etc. My mom, the girls, Chloe and I remain in our van. Stan returns to the van with the room's keys. We then go to our room. After we had a chance to unpack and unwind abit, we leave for one of our favorite restaurants in the area. Since it is cool and comfortable, we decided to take Chloe with us as she can safely and comfortably await us in the van. After we enjoyed our meal, we drove around and then eventually returned to the hotel for the night.

We had to wake up the following morning at 5:00 so that we could head to Denver right away and beat the rush at the courthouse where we needed to pick up Abigayle's birth certificate personally. Before, we had sent a momey order in order for the officials to send the certificate to us. However, they chose to keep the money but never sent the birth certificate. Since we were also planning on spending the day at Water World, we thought that Chloe would be much better off just waiting for us at the hotel.

Chloe was left in the bathroom with a towel and the shirt that I had worn the previous day so that she could be "close to my scent." We also left her a bowl of her favorite food and fresh water that we brought from home for her so that her delicate biological systems didn't have to get "used" to foreign waters. (See how spoiled our Chloe is???)

Anyway, when we returned to the hotel before dinner, we were shocked to find that our room keys no longer allowed us access to our room. We couldn't imagine why we couldn't get in. While the rest of us remained in the hallway next to our room, Stan went to the innkeeper to find out what the problem was.

As soon as he introduced himself to the employees there, he discovered that they were mighty upset with him for leaving an animal in the room when we "had not" notified them that our dog would be traveling with us. As Stan tried to explain to them that he had relayed that information to the manager, they told Stan that they frown on people who leave their pets in rooms with no food and/or water, etc. Stan assured them that Chloe was well taken care of. The employees continued to say harsh things to Stan. They then demanded to enter our room so that they could see how much damage our tiny little Chloe had done. Stan had no problem with that. The only mess that she had made was with a box of kleenexes that were kept in the front of the bathroom vanity. While we were gone, Chloe had ripped each and every one of the kleenexes out and then shredded them all over the floor. When I had seen that, I picked them up and flushed every last shred down the stool. Um...I wouldn't be surprised if their plumbing clogs up somewhere down the line. Wallpaper hung from the celing to the floor. We were very relieved to find that in her temper tantrum, she had refrained from shredding it.

When the employee accompanied Stan to our room and saw for himself that all was in good condition, he relaxed. That was when we found out what had prompted the locking of our door. Other guests had complained of terrible noises coming from our room. As a matter-of-fact, two guests had just come to spend 6 nights at the hotel. The noises were so horrific that they demanded their money back and moved to a different hotel. Eventually, the hotel's employees made the discovery that our little Chloe was responsible for the problem. (Chloe really doesn't bark when she talks. She just has a high-pitched voice that says "Hi, hi, hi, hi" over and over again.

Since then, the employee apologized to Stan and Stan apologized to him for this inconvenience. And, yes, the hotel has agreed to let Chloe return with us another time only then, we will have to stay in a different part of the hotel where pets are much more appreciated.

Our advice to you is that when you check into a hotel, make sure that you remind the employees that you are travelling with a furry friend. It may save you ALOT of trouble somewhere down the line...VLE-B