Inside the hotel, I encountered a line of people waiting. Most of them were looking for a room. I listened as the desk clerk turned them away. The hotel was fully booked and there were no rooms available in Rhode Island. She'd been turning people away all day.

When it was my turn, I gave her my name and she was very excited. She told me that I was lucky because I had great timing. She went on to say that all the rooms were booked for the night. However, one of the guests checked in, stayed a couple of hours, and then checked out. Once the room was cleaned, she listed it on Hotwire. Minutes later she tried to book the room, but it was gone. Yay! I won the room lottery! 

Gross ChairI was curious about why the people checked out so quickly. After a somewhat cryptic conversation, it sounded as though the room was used for a quicky. Hmmm....

Once I had the room keys, I went outside to find Matt. We parked the van near the back door and went into our room. At a glance, the room didn't look too bad.

That's when I saw a quarter on the floor. Where did it come from? Why was it there?  

Upon closer inspection, it didn't look like the room had been vacuumed very well. 

As I was putting my suitcase on the table, Matt told me not to sit on the chair. Gross! It was so yucky that I took a picture of it! The bathroom was equally yucky. There was mold / mildew in the shower and a ring around the toilet.

Ring Around The Toilet

Hair on the floor

And there was hair on the floor and in the shower. Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!

Since this was the last room in Rhode Island, I felt stuck. Plus, we paid for our room using Hotwire and the confirmation email said "All bookings are final and no changes or refunds are allowed". That seemed a little unfair.

Given the condition or the room, it seemed only prudent to do a thorough check of the mattress. We were thrilled that we didn't find any critters living in the seams.

Once the room lights were out, I kept imagining things were crawling on me. It's amazing what an overactive imagination can do! I didn't sleep very well.

As usual, I woke up early. After a quick shower, I went to check out the free breakfast. It wasn't anything remarkable, but I made myself a waffle and ate it while Matt was getting his shower.

Before we left the hotel, I went to the front desk with pictures from our room. I showed them to the desk clerk and she said she'd get in touch with the manager to find out what they could do for us. She asked me to come back in five minutes.

Matt skipped the free breakfast and had a blueberry bagel instead. I was jealous!  I wish I had thought of having a bagel! While he was eating, I went back to the front desk.  The woman advised me that they couldn't give me a credit because I purchased the room from a third party. She did offer a free night in their hotel. A nice gesture, but we wouldn't be coming back to Rhode Island anytime soon - if ever. I asked if I could use it at a different Best Western and she said no. GRRRRR!

It was 9:39 when we grabbed drinks from McDonald's. We were only 27 miles from the drop zone. Next stop: Boston Skydive Center!