On our road trip we stayed in a combination Holiday Inn Expresses and Hampton Inns with a Sleep Inn & Suites thrown in for good measure. The only place we stayed that was not part of a chain was the Blennerhassett Hotel in downtown Parkersburg, West Virginia and it was definitely a step up. The price was really not that bad, about what the average was we paid for all the rooms on the while trip.
When checking in we asked to be away from the elevator and ice machine, our Guest Relations Representative assured us that even though we were not that far away, we would not hear either and asked if we wanted to see the room to check for ourselves. We said, “Sure.” At this point is where the clerk gives us a key, but not here, she hands the key to James the bellman who leads to the elevator and escorts us up. The room looks kind of small with a king bed in it, but it is furnished very nicely. The GRR was right and we head back down to finish the check in process.
They ask if we need help with our luggage and we of course decline, we are after all in the Miata, our luggage consists of 4 small bags, a laptop and a purse. The bellman/doorman does get to hold the door open for us though, both on the way out and again when we come back in.
The very best thing about the place were the towels. Used to the thin rough things you normally get at some chains, these things were a revelation. Normally post shower I grab the hand towel and use it like a squeegee to brush as much water off as possible before getting mostly dry with the bath towel, but here I get almost entirely dry with just the hand towel. These things are like water magnets. Soft? It feels like you are drying yourself with an Angora cat, the same breed that inspired the song Soft Kitty that Sheldon Cooper likes sung to him when he is sick.
I make note of the name on the tag and search the interwebs. One of the hits that come back is an Amazon link to buy them. $200 seems high at first, but it is for 6 bath towels, six hand towels & 6 washcloths, we vow to buy them when we get home.
We do, and they arrived last Friday. Best move ever. Knowing that new towels need to be washed separately, boy do they, we run them set through a cycle. Because these things are so big and so fluffy we have to break it into 2 loads. When load one comes out of the dryer the lint filter is completely covered about a 1/4 thick. When I get them in the house and are ready to hang them up, they are still covered in a bunch of balls of lint. They need to be washed a second time. I start saving the lint because it is prodigious.
What you see above is all the lint from the four dryer loads squeezed like a stress ball into something about the size of a regulation major league baseball.