Okay, more about Fredonia.
The Grand Canyon Inn is a tattered little motel that's being run by a Grandma & Grandpa couple. I'm sure it was quite nice in 1950. Now... well, it's old. The sink had two separate taps, one for hot and one for cold. The hot water one squeals when you use it. However, although the room was tacky-cheap, it was clean - no bugs (we searched).
But, as I mentioned earlier, there was a grubby little trailer park right next to the motel, and when we drove up to our parking spot, there were people sitting and drinking on the back step of our unit. Uh... Do I say hello? Do I ignore them and just start unpacking? They are sitting two feet away from me.
Eventually, they wandered back to the trailer park while we unpacked everything in our vehicle.
The motel supposedly had wireless Internet, but it obviously needed a booster. Our cabin was at the end of the lot, and occasionally, my computer could briefly find the Internet. So, when I caught a blip of connectivity, I googled Fredonia to find out more about it.
It's a town of about 1,000, median household income about $30,000, and - oh hey, breaking news. What's this...? Scott Curley, resident of Fredonia, wanted for the murder of a sheriff's deputy. Apparently, on Thursday (the day before we arrived), he shot and killed the sheriff's deputy with a high-powered rifle. And he's very familiar with the area and may have caches of spider-holes around town where he's hiding out.
I suddenly realize that this is the same guy from the "Wanted" poster we saw posted on the door of the visitor center in Zion. At the time, we'd taken note of it only as a "huh, they still do that." Now, we realize we're sitting in his home town. =:-O
Meanwhile, the trailer park people are back, drinking and carousing on our back step. Maybe those are his buddies?
Great. We've got an armed & dangerous fugitive maybe in the area, and scary people on our back step. (Are they really scary? I don't know. Maybe they're just uncouth drunk people. But Stephen was worried that he'd wake up to find the tires had been removed from his vehicle.)
Paranoid now, we piled all of our luggage up against the door. (Yes, we really did.) Because nothing stops an armed intruder like a sticky door. Maybe he'd just shoot out the windows, then? Nothing we can do about that. We just close the curtains tightly. That'll slow him down. Now we'll just sit here in the dark and freak out...
I mean, we've all seen a movie variant on this situation, right? People from out-of-town check into dusty little motel in the middle of nowhere. Armed madman on a rampage? He's probably the motel owners' son, and he's going to come back tonight, and then we'll see something we shouldn't and he'll want to kill us. We'll run out into the night, pursued by the hordes of bloodthirsty locals determined to protect their own...
(What? You didn't see that movie? Maybe I've got to stop renting horror movies...)
Anyway, obviously, we survived, and no one tried to kill us. Or, if they did, they were thwarted by the pile of unpacked luggage.
Now, to be fair, by the light of day next morning, the people of Fredonia seemed friendly enough. When Stephen pulled up to the gas station and was about to fill up, they pointed out that he was at the diesel pump. No one tried to kill us. :-)
And, lest we complain too much about the tattered old Grand Canyon Inn: when we were driving out of Fredonia, we saw another motel, the Shiprock. Good lord! At that moment, I realize we just stayed in the Ritz by comparison. I'd have slept in the car before staying at the Shipwreck.
(I guess things can always be worse.)
:-)
The Grand Canyon Inn is a tattered little motel that's being run by a Grandma & Grandpa couple. I'm sure it was quite nice in 1950. Now... well, it's old. The sink had two separate taps, one for hot and one for cold. The hot water one squeals when you use it. However, although the room was tacky-cheap, it was clean - no bugs (we searched).
But, as I mentioned earlier, there was a grubby little trailer park right next to the motel, and when we drove up to our parking spot, there were people sitting and drinking on the back step of our unit. Uh... Do I say hello? Do I ignore them and just start unpacking? They are sitting two feet away from me.
Eventually, they wandered back to the trailer park while we unpacked everything in our vehicle.
The motel supposedly had wireless Internet, but it obviously needed a booster. Our cabin was at the end of the lot, and occasionally, my computer could briefly find the Internet. So, when I caught a blip of connectivity, I googled Fredonia to find out more about it.
It's a town of about 1,000, median household income about $30,000, and - oh hey, breaking news. What's this...? Scott Curley, resident of Fredonia, wanted for the murder of a sheriff's deputy. Apparently, on Thursday (the day before we arrived), he shot and killed the sheriff's deputy with a high-powered rifle. And he's very familiar with the area and may have caches of spider-holes around town where he's hiding out.
I suddenly realize that this is the same guy from the "Wanted" poster we saw posted on the door of the visitor center in Zion. At the time, we'd taken note of it only as a "huh, they still do that." Now, we realize we're sitting in his home town. =:-O
Meanwhile, the trailer park people are back, drinking and carousing on our back step. Maybe those are his buddies?
Great. We've got an armed & dangerous fugitive maybe in the area, and scary people on our back step. (Are they really scary? I don't know. Maybe they're just uncouth drunk people. But Stephen was worried that he'd wake up to find the tires had been removed from his vehicle.)
Paranoid now, we piled all of our luggage up against the door. (Yes, we really did.) Because nothing stops an armed intruder like a sticky door. Maybe he'd just shoot out the windows, then? Nothing we can do about that. We just close the curtains tightly. That'll slow him down. Now we'll just sit here in the dark and freak out...
I mean, we've all seen a movie variant on this situation, right? People from out-of-town check into dusty little motel in the middle of nowhere. Armed madman on a rampage? He's probably the motel owners' son, and he's going to come back tonight, and then we'll see something we shouldn't and he'll want to kill us. We'll run out into the night, pursued by the hordes of bloodthirsty locals determined to protect their own...
(What? You didn't see that movie? Maybe I've got to stop renting horror movies...)
Anyway, obviously, we survived, and no one tried to kill us. Or, if they did, they were thwarted by the pile of unpacked luggage.
Now, to be fair, by the light of day next morning, the people of Fredonia seemed friendly enough. When Stephen pulled up to the gas station and was about to fill up, they pointed out that he was at the diesel pump. No one tried to kill us. :-)
And, lest we complain too much about the tattered old Grand Canyon Inn: when we were driving out of Fredonia, we saw another motel, the Shiprock. Good lord! At that moment, I realize we just stayed in the Ritz by comparison. I'd have slept in the car before staying at the Shipwreck.
(I guess things can always be worse.)
:-)
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