STORY TIIIIME. The last time we lived in Colorado Springs, the Army decided that we should move to Georgia when I was 37 weeks 6 days pregnant (with red) in the middle of a snowstorm. We made it about 3 hours down the road- maybe 2- maybe even less. It seemed like a million bajillion hours pulling our car with our two knocked out toddlers and listening to Garfield on repeat in the DVD player lest they wake up and scream when our buttholes were already sufficiently puckered. We finally stopped for the night even though we didn’t make much headway because we figured we needed sleep more than we needed miles under our belt. The only hotel around at this point (midnightish) was a motel that probably housed at least 3 serial killers, a dozen or so crack dens, and enough scabies to make all of Monaco scratch off their skin. They had one room left. We took it.
Well, that one room was BOILING when we went into it. The thermostat was one of those with a needle/lever on the top and someone shoved it all the way to the right and then snapped it off. I don’t remember what the thermostats’ upper limit was but I believe it was 90. In addition to the thermostat being snapped off at boil your insides hot, the thermostat was directly by the window- that was broken and wouldn’t shut but also wouldn’t open more. It was opened just a crack so that the freezing cold air blew onto the thermostat and kept that baby cranking out grill level heat all night long. I have been in some hot places, doing some hot things, but I have never ever in my life been as hot as I was that night.
I am always very hot when I sleep. Throw in a nearly fully baked redheaded internal heater and a belly that was as big as people full term with triplets and hot doesn’t begin to describe it. Now. Put the Michelin man in a room with a heater on 90 that won’t stop running and a snow storm outside but a window that’s only open a crack and a door we can’t open or we’d probably die and you have a disaster. I was so hot that I gave up and went and filled up the bathtub with cold water and slept in it. It was still very hot but not as hot as it would have been in the bed.
Last night in the hotel was just as hot. We had 2 rooms but decided to all cram into 1. Mistake 1. We had 2 queen beds and each bed had a little girl, a preteen, and an adult. I think that the heater in this room was also broken and running all night long. We did get 2 box fans that Jerry tried to turn into an evaporative cooler with wet towels around 1 am when most of us still hadn’t slept. There were signs EVERYWHERE that bears were very active and so we didn’t dare open the backdoor in case any were thinking about climbing into the already overcrowded bed. If that had been a spin on Goldilocks, the bear, himself, would say “this room is too hot!” Jerry did open the door at one point and stand guard to try and let some of the hot air out. Jerry sleeps with the covers up to his nose every night and doesn’t mind sweating in his sleep and even HE was too uncomfortable to sleep. I think we all dozed off around 2. I was up off and on about every 30 minutes until 6. Rough.
Everything was booked up on the reservations except for axe throwing which we did manage to get reservations for. Around 945 when I realized we had to stay awake and not lose it for 4 more hours, I implored Jerry to reconsider. The kids were nonplussed. If we had stayed until after axe throwing, we wouldn’t have left until 3 from Estes Park and probably encounter a ton of construction traffic. Also, since everyone slept like hot dookie, they’d nap in the car from 3-6 and at like donkeys when it was time for bed. Hard pass. We ended up leaving right at 12 and were home a couple minutes before 3. We didn’t encounter any traffic at all and the driving was easy.
As for Estes Park: we discovered Homer Simpson mountain today. Do you see it?
Let me help.
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