Dropping Benjamins in Jackson

It was a 14 hour pull from Nevada to Jackson, Wyoming.  We limped into Jackson at about 9 on a Saturday night.  The grand plan had been to leave Fernley early and drive as far as we could and get a room for the night.  As far as we could drive turned out to be Jackson and Jackson apparently had no room to spare.  We drove past hotel after motel after inn and every one displayed that increasingly depressing NO VACANCY sign.  Uh, this was a problem.  My Jackson reservation was for the next day; at 3 PM to be exact.  I frankly had expected that we would end up spending the night in Pocatello or American Falls in Idaho but the allure of Wyoming and the Grand Tetons provided the adrenaline to keep me going.  Well, that and a river of Dr. Pepper. 

We drove the length of town and doubled back to find a Hampton Inn with no sign so we said a quick prayer and stopped.  The wife got out and inquired; no luck, try the Lexington in downtown.  Yeah, the Lexington waived us the big, red taunting NO. The wife suggested that we would have to just sleep in the car. “I think I screwed this one up,” I told the wife.  I’d made the assumption that with the kids back in school and the tourist season winding down we would have relatively little trouble finding a place.  She’d originally balked at that plan suggesting that we would be like Mary and Joseph. 

And so there we were and the Biblical reference was starting to look like a Biblical prophecy.  A stable was starting to look like a plan; much better than the car option.  Hell, we were in Wyoming and if any place in the world is going to have a stable it would be Wyoming.  I wanted to suggest that to her that she not mention locusts, plagues or floods please.

I was just about to turn the car back down the winding road to Alpine, the next town down, when we finally found a place that said VACANCY.  I pulled into the lot of a posh looking inn and dropped the wife off in front of the entrance.  “I’ll park the car.  If they have a room, take it.” I parked the car and as I walked towards the office two biker guys walked out shaking their heads followed by the wife looking very unhappy.  I could already feel the dull ache and stiffness in my back from spending a night in the car parked at some turnout on a 27 degree Rocky Mountain night. 

“They have a room but the man said it’s 339 dollars.”  Well no wonder the bikers left, I thought.  I told the wife we’d take it and before she could lodge the protest hovering on her lips I told her that I wasn’t going to take a chance on looking further down the road only to come back and find that the last room in the county was sold.  We were tired, we were depressed, we were hungry and we were sore but we also have a credit card with a 40,000 dollar credit line so hell yes we were taking the room. The alternative of spending the night in the car promised that the following day would be one in which we would check into our reserved room as early as possible and then sleep the day away.  I could get the money back but I could never get back a blown vacation day. 

We went into the reception area and I asked the man, “You have a room available for 339.00?” From the reception desk in front of us a humorless woman who was apparently the inn’s gunny sergeant corrected me; “That’s 389.00, not including fees and taxes.” Well, apparently the meter was running.  The wife rolled her eyes at the new price and I could see her temperature start to rise.  The look I shot at her warned, “Keep quiet I’m not going to piss off Sergeant Rock here.”  I didn’t know if I was being gouged or not.  What I did know is that I wanted a shower, a warm bed and some food in no particular order. 

The place was high end.  I suppose I could’ve suggested to the woman that at this late hour we needed a room and she would like to sell a room that might go empty so maybe we could come to a middle ground?  I could’ve suggested it but I didn’t because she was clearly not in the mood to play Let’s Make a Deal.  I would like to have suggested to her that if she was going to screw me she should at least be pleasant while doing so.  In fact for the price…well let’s not go there.  We got the “deluxe king cabin by the creek,” and after the woman recited a rote speech about all the amenities that all of us in the room knew we weren’t going to use we walked out with a dented Master Card and I apologized to the wife for being stupid in assuming a place like Jackson would have a vacancy.

The cabin was in the dark back, back reaches of the property.  We parked where sarge suggested and wandered around looking for our cabin.  We finally found the room facing a creek.  I wasn’t too tired notice a tepee on the opposite bank looking very out of place at a fancy swank resort.  Maybe this was where the help lived?  Nope, turns out that the tepees where well-furnished and comfortable; sort of like cabanas with a Native American flavor less the inconvenience of a surprise attack by Custer’s 7th.   

The room was nice.  I wouldn’t call it a cabin.  In my mind, cabins don’t have other guests in the “cabin” upstairs.  It was well furnished and had a lot of nice amenities including a huge flat screen that we didn’t bother with.  I did get a room service order of an elk bratwurst and a couple of beers.  Yikes, the tab made the ballpark seem like free food.  I haven’t even told the wife what that cost.  Yeah I know it was room service. 

In the morning we did take advantage of one amenity; the “gourmet” (as Miss Charm had described it) breakfast buffet.  To be brutally honest I equate triangle shaped cakes of hash browns less with gourmet and more with frozen Ore-Ida.  We got to the “gourmet” buffet about a half hour before closing and the staff was already putting the wraps on it.  The cranberry juice dispenser was about tapped out of concentrate and so what came out was pink water. The scrambled eggs were about gone and it didn’t look like they would be replenished any time soon.  Happily there was plenty of bacon.  Not too much bacon because there is never…ever, too much bacon.

I later checked the inn's website and found that indeed we had not been gouged.  Look we weren’t after an expensive room, just a place with a bed and shower that might be a step up from Motel 6.  In fairness had we gone in with the intention of spending nearly 500 dollars a night and sitting in a faux teepee sipping on martinis and supping on elk sausage with spicy mustard there would have been no complaints (in truth there is something a little creepy about a fancy cabana made to look like a teepee).  Check that, there might have been one complaint.  A year ago we stayed at the posh Willard in Washington DC and didn’t bat an eye at the cost (well, maybe we gulped a little bit).  The difference was that at the Willard we were treated like honored guests and not like a couple of tramps looking for a crash pad.  We left after breakfast with an expensive lesson learned. Never, EVER, assume that a tourist destination will leave the light on for you unless you’ve reserved a room.