The Down That Wasn’t Town...plus a very good meal
- Michael Jay Tucker's explosive-cargo
- Aug 28
- 5 min read
Okay, last time I left off with Martha and me just pulling into the parking lot of our hotel. I hinted that we had just had a surprise. As in...Oy! Or Ouch! Or Oy with an Ouch chaser.
To explain that, I have to go back to the fact that Martha’s a city girl. As she likes to put it, she grew up playing in the back alleys of Boston and when went to college she lived in an apartment across the street from a T-stop (i.e., subway). You’ll recall that this characteristic (dear as she is in every other way) proved a bit of a trial when we were looking for a house in Texas. She kept, you see, looking for towns that had a city center. A downtown. A place in the middle. With a city hall and shops and buildings and things. And a lot of suburban Texas communities don’t...have...stuff...like...that. They’ve got housing developments and strip malls and highways, yeah, sure, but downtowns? Surely you jest. Ha. Snort. Giggle. Chortle. Laugh. Etc.
Well, she also has a similar bent when it comes to hotels in cities. She does most of the trip planning which is good because I’m awful at it. Remember, I’m the guy who saw a brochure in a tourist bureau for the town of Victoria, Texas, and thought it looked great and we ended up staying next to an abandoned chemical plant famed chiefly for it’s production of adiponitrile (ADN) and hexamethylene diamine (HMD). Which is terrific if you’re into organic chemistry and nylon.(1)
So, she had the (good) idea of our getting a hotel in downtown Raleigh-Durham. As she told me later, she envisioned us being right down in the center of things, getting up the in morning, strolling about, finding a cool little bakery for breakfast, discovering fun little cafes for coffee, exploring picturesque little shops...(2)
That being the case, when she saw a hotel whose name was...well, let’s call it “The Downtown Dew Drop Inn”...she booked it. What could be better? she thought. It was downtown...it said so right in the name. The pictures of the rooms on the website were attractive, it had gotten good reviews on Yelp, and it was reasonably priced.
But...
ABOUT THE PHOTOS: As usual, three today. First, one of Vincent’s neighbors is the creator-artist Gene Dillard who has turned his home into a single, remarkable work of art -- the “Mosaic House.” Definitely worth seeing! The first shot is of Mr. Dillard himself, and the second is a view of his home.
Third, and nothing to do with the story (but I like the picture), here’s Martha on our recent trip to Corpus Christi. Yes, it was our 43rd anniversary.
When we got there, and pulled into the parking lot, we realized that the Downtown DewDrop Inn wasn’t, er, downtown. It was on the freeway. And if it wasn’t exactly out in the suburbs, it was a good thirty minutes’ drive from city center. I suppose it would have been possible to walk from the Downtown Dew Drop Inn to, you know, downtown...but only if you’re willing to spent a day or so doing it. Which I’m sure would be be great fun. If somewhat sweaty.(3)
We asked at the desk about it later. We were told...with perhaps more vigor than veracity...that we had misunderstood. “Downtown” was not a descriptor of the location. It was simply part of the name of the hotel. The way that, for example, The Savoy Hotel isn’t really in the former nation of Savoy. It’s in London. And Fantasyland isn’t anywhere near Fantasy. It’s real. And it’s in Disneyworld. And that’s in Orlando. So there, too, you nasty Karen/Keven with your obnoxious objections. And you can tell your troubles to Jesus.
Ah, the joys of travel.
Anyway, we checked in. We had a rest. (Why is airline travel so tiring?) Then we joined Vincent for dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant that he knew. It was quite good, really. I had their version of spaghetti carbonara. Not bad at all.
We spent a good chunk of that first evening in conversation with Vincent. We told him about what was happening in our lives. He told us about what was happening in his in return.
He was doing well, he said. He had made some changes in his house. He’s told us it felt both good and strange to live in a real house, instead of a tiny condo on Beacon Hill. He told us about his neighbors and friends. Vincent being Vincent, all his neighbors *are* his friends, of course. That’s just what happens with him.
Finally, we called it quits. He headed home and we returned to the hotel. All in all, a complicated day, but not an awful one.
And, we slept well...which was a good thing.
Because the following day was going to be very, Very, VERY busy.
Particularly since it would include
... grandchildren.
More to come.
Footnotes.
1. Actually, it wasn’t Victoria but rather the nearby unincorporated community of Telferner, which really was once the home of a vast DuPont chemical plant, since (alas) shut down. According to Wikipedia, Telferner has a population today of about 700. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telferner,_Texas
2. All of which, Raleigh-Durham has. And we would discover them. But not while strolling from the hotel.
3. I did a Google Map thing. According to it, you could, indeed, walk the distance...but it would 22.4 miles (just over 36 kilometers ) and would take you about 8 hours and 20 minutes. Give or take.
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