Welcome to the Hiawatha!

(NOTE: THIS POST IS NOT FOR ANY READERS UNDER THE AGE OF 18!)

Hello everyone!

This past week Hubby and I trekked across Lake Michigan (literally...we took the SS Badger Car Ferry) and had ourselves a little vacation time.  I don't get out of Wisconsin terribly often, so maybe the following story won't surprise you world travelers out there, but I can tell you...people do NOT talk this way in The Dairy State...at least, not to perfect strangers who are also customers.

(It should be noted that I spent a good portion of my childhood and a tiny bit of my adult time in Michigan, and I think of myself as having grown up as a "Michigander.")

So after a few days on the road we reached the city of Escanaba, Michigan. Now, if you haven't been to Escanaba...well...Let's put it this way:  Much of the U.P. is super tourist friendly.  Clean, wooded roads, charming parks all along the lake shore, national forests every five feet, quaint little villages offering salt water taffy, fudge, and post cards to everyone. 

Escanaba...a little less so.

Escanaba is a city where people actually live and work and when people insist on living and working someplace, that place tends to get messy, dusty, worn out.  Sort of like my house because there are four people and five cats living here and I can't keep up with it all.  Escanaba is NOT a tourist town.  There's a charming park where boat folk can part their rides and children play on the shore of the Little Bay de Noc, and in that park is a lighthouse/museum (which has pretty short hours). We also had a lovely breakfast at The Swedish Pantry and picked up coffee at the most fun coffee place, "Joe to Go". That said, Escanaba is a city like most that really doesn't depend on tourists and therefore doesn't feel the need to maybe clean its windows once in a while.

Having just come through the Michigan Tourism Centers of Ludington, Mackinaw City, Cheboygan, and Manistique, I can tell you, Escanaba was a jolt back to reality.  Not so much in a bad way...but I will say this:  Stuff got weird when we got to the motel.

The motel we stayed at there, The Hiawatha, was a room we booked online, as we had all of our other hotels/motels/lodges.  I'd been utterly charmed by our selection of "no frills" places thus far, so pulling up to the Hiawatha was a bit of a jolt.  This looked a lot like a dumpy motel I'd worked at...in 1981...and it didn't look like it had been updated since.  But we don't judge a book or a motel by its cover. Besides, we were tired from walking along lovely lake shore boardwalks and shopping in quaint little places that specialized in cherry jam and candy.  We just needed a place to shower and sleep.

We discovered, upon entering the motel office, that this little hotel offers its own brand of entertainment for tourists.

Personally, I should have known something was up when we read a hand printed sign on the front door that said, "Sorry, we don't rent to locals."

I mean...

Anyway, this is how check in went:

Check in Girl:  So you're checking in?

Me:  Yes.

Check in Girl:  So one night?

Me: Yes.

Check in Girl:  Okay, you're in room 108.  (Pause)  Ooooh, hot tub room! Whoo hoo!

(It is at this moment that she does a little move I call the "whoo hoo dance.")

Me: Yes, we saw the hot tub on the website when we booked the room. (I'm trying not to blush. I mean, this girl is younger than my daughter and I'm certainly not about to get personal with her.) 
We've been hiking a lot and I tweaked my knee.

Check in Girl: Oh yes...that hot tub is going to feel good on...your knee.  (I swear, the girl winked at me.  Honestly!)

Anyway, I recovered from this blush inducing conversation and took our key (yes, a key...not a card...this place was a little old school!) and went to room 108, located...I'm not making this up, right in the crotch of the hotel.  Right in the corner where the two arms of hotel rooms meet.

Our actual room 108.

All I'm saying is that it's a good thing I'm a fan of mid century modern decorating.  Because the room's furnishings hadn't been updated since Don Draper took his first workplace drink.

But hey, the room was clean, the towels were plentiful, the water pressure was great, and YES, the hot tub was really good for my tweaked knee.

And if that's where it ended, I wouldn't be posting about this hotel.

But that's not where it ended.

The next morning, I went to check out. The check out girl was now a check out man.  And older guy, maybe ten years older than I am.  He was on the phone with someone when I walked in.

He had that low creepy voice that makes you feel slimy. You know the voice.  And he spoke slowly, drawing each word out like it was an ice cream cone he was licking.

Gross.

I figured he was talking to his wife or girlfriend or something, given his tone of voice.  I found out otherwise the minute he hung up and started talking to me.

Check out Creeper guy:  So, you're checking out of room 108?

Me: Yes.

Check out Creeper guy:  Did you enjoy...the hot tub?

Me:  Yes. It was good for my knee.

Check out Creeper guy: Oh...yes...your knee.

Then, for reasons I will never fathom, he asked me if I'd heard of a certain local artist.  He used that same sleazy tone of voice, so I had no idea what ring of hell I was about to view online as he clicked the web address in. But I'm a well brought up girl, trained to be polite, so I waited until the site came up. Fortunately, the artist did photographs of waterfalls in the area. Quite lovely. But Creeper guy kept looking at me looking at the pictures and he...smiled.

Is there a fetish I'm not aware of? Like, one where a guy enjoys watching a fat 50 year old woman look at waterfall photographs done by a local artist?

Anyway, I felt really slimy at this point, so I dropped the key on the desk and made my escape...I mean...left the office.  While walking out, I heard the check in girl from the day before as she chatted with another girl while they were cleaning rooms.

Folks, I am NOT making this up.  This is how that conversation went:

Check in girl: Did you hear about her?

Other girl: No, what?

Check in girl: Oh, she got chlamydia!

Other girl:  (giggles)

Check in girl: And it's worse than that. She got ....(word unintelligible)...because she didn't get the clap treated. And you know what they say, "Get the clap, then get (word unintelligible.)

Tell me you get this movie reference.

I was going to go ask what you got, because, well, I mean, as a writer I'm super curious like that. Plus, she used a word for when you get after the clap and it was a word I'd never heard before, like some sort of local slang for Pelvic Inflammatory Disorder (which is EXACTLY when you get, girls, if you don't get your chlamydia treated.)  But I didn't.  I got in the car and said, "DRIVE!" to Tom.

So, if you're in Escanaba (because remember, they don't rent to locals) check out the Hiawatha hotel. The staff is creepy, but the hot tub is A-OK.