calherewecome

On Saturday Paula, Mary and I drove up to Visalia to attend the OES Grand Chapter Installation of our good friend Roger Nieder as Worthy Grand Patron. Visalia is about 200 miles north of San Pedro in California’s central valley. We usually do a rest stop about half way. This time we stopped for lunch in Gorman which is just about at the north end of the Grapevine.
 
 Normally we would have gone for the entire grand chapter session but that would have been too much for Mary to do. (Us too.) We have to be constantly watching her to keep her from falling. She has graduated from the walker to using a cane.
 
 So she moves oh so slowly. We try to have someone on her arm with the cane on the other arm. All it would take would be one bump from someone to knock her over. She has this idea in her head that she eventually will be able to ditch the cane. We tell her your PT person told you that you will always need a cane. She of course doesn’t remember any of this. She also thinks that someday she will be driving again. I don’t think so, Tim. Our constant answer is “We’ll see about that.”
 
 So we were staying in one room at a Holiday Inn (more on the hotel later) in Visalia. We would have loved to have the privacy of one room for us and one room for Mary, but we learned the lesson back in June that she needs to be closely supervised.
 
 It has been incredibly stressful for Paula and I to be constantly on guard with her especially in an unfamiliar environment and in crowds. The risk of a fall is ever present.
 
 So the installation started at about 7:30 PM. We had plenty of time to rest up for the event.

(l-r) Mary, Shawn Donahue (Sr Grand Deacon), and Paula
 
 

Roger Nieder, Worthy Grand Patron
 
 So we had a great time with no visits to any ER’s along the way. We arrived home on Sunday at about 3:00 PM after about a four hour ride.
 
 Now about the hotel. We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. Room was comfortable but there were so many little faults that made to stay less than acceptable.
 
 1. They tried to put us in a room that hadn’t been cleaned. That meant that Mary stayed with Paula while I went back to the front desk to get our room changed.
 
 2. Coffee maker didn’t work.
 
 3. WiFi credentials didn’t work. Not that it matters much. Usually my cell phone data is faster than hotel WiFi. Never seen hotel Wifi much faster than 1 Mbps.
 
 4. Desk chair was broken.
 
 On the plus side, they had a decent restaurant with a decent breakfast buffet. We ate there on Sunday morning before we left.
 
 The list goes on and on. I expect hotels (even budget hotels) to take care of the little things. There are plenty of other budget hotels to choose from that do take care of them. We won’t be staying there again.
 
 We are trying to get back to doing “Date Night” again. Next Thursday, we have tickets to see the play “The Trip to Bountiful” with Blair Underwood and Cicely Tyson up in Downtown LA. Just the two of us. Sometimes just going shopping together seems like a date together.
 
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