FINDING A PLACE TO STAY, FIRST EVENINGWe were quite familiar with the nationwide, discount chain that "archy's arms" belongs to. We'd stayed at their motels many times and were generally quite pleased with them. We'd grown accustomed to this chain's bare-bones austerity, but they were generally clean and well managed. After all, we rent a motel room for a place to sleep. We don't really need the mint on our pillows or the price tag that goes with it. Thus, when we began looking for a place to stay we automatically gravitated toward archy's. It turns out that there were several of them in Austin, we chose the one closest to the airport, called them and made reservations for the first evening. |
FLOP HOUSEThis motel's condition came as a bit of a shock to us. We were stuck between a rock and a hard place because of the scheduling of our flight and were willing to accept even these accommodations because it was only for one night. But, generally we'd recommend planning to arrive a little earlier to allow time for finding other accommodations in case your first choice proves to be a clinker, as this one was. The other option would be to reserve a somewhat more expensive room in the first place, knowing that you wouldn't have time to find another and wanting to be fairly certain that you wouldn't have to bid the roaches "Good night." This experience goes under the heading "Win a few, lose a few!" We survived in spite of it all. |
GOOGLE, AGAIN!If you don't understand that Google search string or you need to know some simple tricks for whittling back the number of hits, visit our Google Search Tips page. Otherwise, you'd better put on another pot of coffee! |
We're going to refer to the motel in which we stayed that first night as "archy's arms." No, the lack of upper case letters is not a typo. It carries a hidden meaning, see the link below. We're doing this because we have some rather harsh criticisms of the place and don't want to be sued. The motel chain, on the other hand, may see this and get the point. Those of you who live in or travel to Austin, Texas may use the information to avoid the place until some big improvements are made in it's upkeep and patronage.
The motel was a member a of popular discount chain at the intersection of Oltorf street and Interstate 35. Even as we drove up to the place we were not terribly impressed. It looked a tad well used, even run down. But, it was nearly midnight and trying to find another motel with a vacancy this late on a Saturday evening would be most difficult. We decided to take it anyway. Finding the office required one circuit of the grounds, finding the room required a second. During these trips we decided we needed to keep all our possessions, right down to the road maps, in our room (not left in the car overnight) with the room's door locked, chained and bolted. Talk about a seedy clientele!
We prepared for bed (little more than shedding our clothes and falling comatose between the sheets), we said goodnight to each other and the cockroach (We called it "archy" - did you catch the link above - hence "archy's arms.") climbing up the wall above the night stand, turned out the light and instantly plunged into oblivion for eight or nine hours.
The second evening found us in Round Rock. We'd known that we had to go there for some time before actually leaving Calgary, so Stan had tried to make reservations at an "archy's arms" there as well. No joy. "archy's" didn't have a motel in Round Rock. However, a search on the WWW using Google with the search string
produced over 15,000 hits! We started to browse through them and eventually found a listing for a Red Roof Inn right on I-35. We called, their rates were reasonable, so we made a reservation for the evening of Sunday, September 28, 2003.
After spending the day with Mrs. Smith and the motorhome we hunted up the Red Roof Inn, approaching with some trepidation, especially after our experience at "archy's." We were checking in early enough that we could look for another if we had to, we simply didn't want the grief however.
No problemo. The Red Roof Inn was a very nice motel. The neighbourhood was merely open fields, the staff was courteous and most helpful, the rooms clean, the price was reasonable and there were no cockroaches!
By Monday evening, September 29, 2003, we'd already purchased the motorhome (no surprise, eh?) and decided to stay in it, partly to save motel expenses, partly as an effort to become acquainted with our new retirement home. Ah, life is sweet!
A GOLD STAR GOES TO THE ROUND ROCK RED ROOF INN!
A BIG BLACK MARK GOES TO "ARCHY'S ARMS!"
Click the "BACK" button to return to the page from which you came.
Jump to the top of this page.
Back to the Texas webpage.
Jump to the Motorhome webpage.
Jump to the Spiders, Calgary webpage.
Jump to the Index and Table of Contents for this website.
Communicating with the authors is easy. Just select here.
Copyright © 2004, Stanley A. Schultz and Marguerite J. Schultz.
Select here for additional copyright information.
This page was initially created on 2004-March-11.
The last revision occurred on 2005-December-19.