Hotels and Motels

Just returned from an awesome vacation to the state of Arkansas.  Great state parks and Hot Springs was awesome, but I will post on that later.  It has been a while since all five of us have gotten together for a spur of the moment vacation.  Usually we rent a condo on the beach or we go camping, but last week it just so happened that the stars and planets aligned with each other perfectly and all five of us had a week off at the same time.

Hurriedly I closed my eBay store and online store, just down my Netflix movies and started getting together everything that I thought I would need.  Mistake number one, although it is ninety degrees in Texas and the first week of May, doesn’t mean it is hot everywhere else. 

I pulled up my Expedia account to try and find a hotel room.  Since this was spur of the moment we decided to stay in hotels and motels instead of camp.  Most of the hotels we pulled up were not for families.  Honeymooners and rooms for two adults were available everywhere but nothing for a family of five.  Most of the hotels did not even offer that option.  The majority of the hotels and motels offered two double size beds, I don’t know about you but I haven’t slept in a double size bed since I was in college and that has been quite awhile.   I can not even imagine my husband and I sharing a double size bed. (shutter deeply).  I do not know when hotels got so expensive.  We have always stayed at the Holiday Inns, Hamptons and Fairfield Inns but usually they were with my work and they were paying for it so I guess I never really paid that much attention to the prices. 

My son had gone camping through Arkansas a few years ago and highly recommended it to us.  It isn’t that far from where my three kids are going to college.  So the three of them sort of planned the vacation.  I think the plan was to drive until we got tired then find a room, get up and go hiking and continue on in that manner.   That is pretty much what we did, I haven’t done that in probably twenty to twenty-five years.  All our vacations have been planned, the “I’s” dotted and the “t’s” crossed.  I know what meal we are having and when.  So this randomness is quite a big deal for my husband and I. 

Comfort suites did come to our rescue though.  They offer a room that will sleep five people.  On our whole vacation they are the only line of hotels we found that would sleep all of us in one room.  Not the comfort inn, but the comfort suites have two queen size beds and a sofa bed.  They also had a hot breakfast every morning which came in pretty handy before we hit the trails to go hiking each day.

If you are planning or decide on a whim to take off on a vacation with three full grown kids, I highly recommend that you check them out.   They have heated indoor pool and spas that were much needed after a day of hiking.