A Woodchuck Roadtrip--Rollin' Down the Highway

Read the first installment, if you haven't yet.

And now, on with the show!

After we sold the walnuts and A. had changed his pants, I stated very firmly that it was now time for lunch. In fact, it was past time, and I am Not Fun when my blood sugar level gets low. So back into Buggy Town, USA, we motored, in search of sustenance. After rejecting several boring chain restaurants and some uninspiring cafes, we came across the Carriage Corner Restaurant. It had buggy wheels and oxen yokes on its fake front porch. Our kind of place. The food left much to be desired, but it had (fake) character, dammit.

So, satisfied if not impressed, we took off for Lewisburg, home of Bucknell University, which interested us not at all, and the Packwood House Museum, which at least interested me. This museum was better than I expected. We've been to many historic homes in New York that are now operated as museums. You know the sort--old houses with old furniture all laid out as if the family were still there using those bed warmers and bread bowls. I like that kind of thing, but after visiting a few of them, I realized that I was paying eight dollars to walk through a house not much different than our own. Not that Blackrock is a museum by any means, but we found ourselves pointing out embroidered chairs and ice tongs and remarking that they looked just like the ones at home. So now, I require something a little more unique.

The Packwood House was unique enough. The building itself is very old and has gone through several incarnations. The couple who had owned it most recently traveled extensively, and the woman was an artist, so there was a lot of art from China, as well as her own artwork on display. Our guide was kind of surly and rushed us through it a little too quickly, but the house is worth seeing. When you find yourself in Lewisburg. Because isn't Lewisburg on everyone's list of 100 Places To See Before You Die?

While wandering around the museum's gift shop, I picked up a pamphlet for a place called Colonial Candlecrafters, just a couple of miles away. I generally hate candle stores. They're always too cutesy, and the overpowering stench of hundreds of scented candles makes me retch. However, we were in desperate need of taper candles for our many, many candlesticks before the holidays. After a particularly disastrous attempt last Thanksgiving to blow out a Dollar Store candle that resulted in spraying red wax on our mostly white wallpaper, I vowed to never again buy cheap made-in-China candles. But finding good candles is kind of hard. Which is the only reason I braved the retching to pick up a dozen candles (only $22.78!). A. waited in the truck. A good decision.

After that arduous ordeal, it was time to find our resting place for the night. We don't do reservations, so the search was on. I should clarify that left to my own devices, I would make reservations. But now I'm married. To A. Who NEVER, EVER makes plans. He used to show up the night before classes began at college with no place to live. Can you imagine? My OCD-riddled brain shudders at the thought.

BUT ANYWAY.

No reservations, no idea where we might be sleeping Saturday night. The roads that A. tends to choose are usually lined with that relic of the great age of American motoring--the motel. Some of the motels are even still open. These are the sort of places A. actively seeks out. We've stayed in some real gems (insert heavy sarcasm here) in the past. But the one that will live in infamy is the place in the Adirondacks we stayed in a few years ago. This was the last room in town, because of the Lumberjack Festival taking place when we drove through. The room was being renovated. It was filthy AND it had no floor. No, really. The carpet had been ripped up, leaving the sub-floor with exposed studs. We won't even speak of the bathroom. The horror is still fresh in my mind.

BUT ANYWAY AGAIN.

After driving for a half hour or so on Route 15, we came to a nameless, characterless "town" that seemed to consist almost entirely of isolated houses and closed auto repair shops. And this is where we saw a motel. It was a fairly standard crappy motel: 10 units in a line, doors leading to the parking lot. What buildings there were near the motel, and there weren't many, were abandoned. There were no cars in the parking lot.

Kristin's Essential Traveling Tip: If your first words upon seeing a motel are, "Is it open?" you will not want to stay there.

But A. was tired, it was getting on in the afternoon, and maybe this place would be cheap enough to outweigh the negatives. So we pulled in. The office wasn't "open," per se, but there was a sign saying to ring the buzzer. So we did. A female voice answered. She said hello. That was all. A. asked if she had any rooms. She said yeah. And five minutes later, The Voice appeared. She was glassy-eyed and vague. Either she had been asleep, or she had been smoking some heavy shit. She showed us a room. It was about as depressing as she was. And the price? Fifty-five dollars. FIFTY-FIVE DOLLARS. For a shithole in the middle of nowhere. What with the lack of amenities and general air of Bates' Place, they shouldn't have been charging more than $20. A. said no thanks. And back in the truck we went . . .

Will our heroes find a place to sleep, or will they be forced to bed down in a hay field? Tune in tomorrow to find out!