It’s (Nearly) Always Something

We were a week into our recent trip when the phrase “it’s always something” popped into my head. As most of us have experienced, no plans ever go exactly as expected and that seems especially true when you’re traveling.

I started to make a list of some of the “unexpected” that The Husband and I had run into as we meandered through a few of the New England states. Sure, there were the rain showers that seem to materialize out of thin air (the weather app had shown clear skies earlier in the day) and an establishment or two that was closed either temporarily or permanently. None of the “unexpected” we ran into truly amounted to much of any inconvenience but nonetheless, they can throw you off your game if you let them. Sometimes, the unexpected works out better than what had been planned.

For instance, when we arrived in the late afternoon at one of the large Indian gaming resorts in Rhode Island, we were told that there were no non-smoking rooms with a king bed available. Apparently, such preferences cannot always be fulfilled even if stated when making the reservation. After expressing our displeasure, the registration clerk went to speak with someone. While she was gone, The Husband and I agreed that the priority for us was a non-smoking room as long as it had two beds if not a king. When the clerk returned, she said that she could put us in an N/S king room but there would be a wait because it had not yet been cleaned. The length of this wait was unknown; it could be as short as 15 minutes or over 2 hours. Seeing little recourse, we agreed and headed over to the Bell Capitan desk to see about storing our luggage.

As we approached, the guy working at the Bell Capitan desk greeted us with a routine “how are you doing today?” to which The Husband replied, “it could be better but it is what it is”. After finding out that our room wasn’t ready for us and wouldn’t be for an unknown duration, the guy asked us to wait while he made a phone call. After a few minutes, he told us that a room was ready for us and to go to the VIP services desk where we would be further assisted. Turns out that this guy was a department director and we’d been upgraded to a two-room suite. Not too shabby.

Another of our stays turned out to be not so sweet. 9 out of the 12 nights of our trip we stayed at Hampton Inns which tend to be similar in accommodations and amenities. For this particular stay, the room was adequate and the bathroom was large with an exhaust fan that worked well. However, around the time we were getting ready to go to sleep, we realized that the toilet was backed up. Not wanting to deal with having someone come into our room to fix it that late in the evening (or moving to another room), we simply left it unflushed for the night. When leaving the next morning, we were baffled as to why the call buttons for the elevators didn’t stay lit and why we didn’t hear either of them moving. It wasn’t until several minutes later that someone from housekeeping passed by and told us that the elevators weren’t working. Mind you, there was no warning note about this situation and we were momentarily stunned by this news. The Husband just had his backpack with what he needed for overnight but I had my full-size suitcase which weighed about 45 pounds. I wasn’t looking forward to either of us wrestling with it on the stairs even though it was just one flight. Fortunately, the guy who told us about the elevators being out offered to carry my suitcase down the stairs. The Husband spoke with the manager when we checked out and we were offered a 50% refund for the inconveniences.

A bit later that day as I was checking my emails, I saw one that I’d gotten from Patti over at Not Dead Yet Style letting me know that she’d published a new blog post, IT CHANGED MY LIFE: TRAVELS ABROAD. In this post, Patti shares eight new insights that she acquired during her latest four-week adventure in foreign lands. Her first regarding “letting it go” really resonated with me considering the toilet and elevator issues we had just experienced.

However, it was her third insight that caused me to sit back and really think. Simply put, she says “Wear whatever the heck you want. Nobody notices. NOBODY notices.” Patti shared that she wore the same dress for nearly 10 days straight and she experienced such a sense of freedom in doing so. Of course, she’s right. Anyone you see one day, you most likely will never see again and if you did, they wouldn’t remember what you were wearing. Unless you’re taking OOTD pictures to share in future blog posts which has been my dilemma.

I’d decided early on that I wouldn’t do a travel capsule post for this trip but I did still plan my packing on having mix-n-match pieces to create different looks for each day. I wasn’t overly diligent about actually getting an OOTD photo every day. The image at the top of this post was taken in Plymouth along the waterfront near the infamous rock. This was probably my favorite of my OOTDs and I could easily see myself wearing it several times over. However, the hem on one leg of the pants completely unraveled so that needs to be fixed. See, it’s (nearly) always something.

Another “unexpected” of our trip include finding out that the drop-off location for our rental car had permanently closed back in July. We’d picked up the car in Newark and would be returning it to a location near Logan Airport in Boston. (This would avoid an extra drop-off fee that we would have had to pay if returning it at the airport). The last two days of the trip were in Boston and after realizing that we could get to where we wanted to go without a car, we decided to turn it in early and save a little money on that cost. It was when we tried to look up the hours of operation for the return location that we found it was closed. A customer service representative told us we could return it to any other location which we did. Still, we are at a loss of understanding why the closure hadn’t been communicated to us. If we had returned the car on the day of our departure as originally planned, we’d been scrambling to figure a last-minute solution.

And last on our list of “unexpecteds”, we had close to a 2-hour flight delay out of Logan. Not such a big deal for us because as retirees, our time is our own but this delay occurred after the plane left the gate. The delay was due to weather conditions over the middle of the country and there were difficulties with ATC setting up an alternate route. The pilot provided periodic status updates as the plane sat on the tarmac which was great; however, it still made for a much longer overall flight time. But all’s well that ends well, right?

I’ll be sharing more about our trip in an upcoming post but there’s other thing I’d like to mention as I end this post. On this day 31 years ago, a certain guy earned the title of The Husband. It was a rather warm late summer afternoon when we exchanged our vows, promising to love and honor each other “until death do us part” with so many of our family and friends bearing witness. It’s been a fabulous ride so far and here’s hoping that we have at least another 31 years ahead of us. I’m looking forward to more of the unexpected with The Husband by my side.

Be well and let’s stay in touch! Subscribe, tweet, follow, friend, pin … all options are available. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

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Note: This is an unsponsored post; however, some or all of the links to clothing items are associated with an affiliate program where I earned a few cents for each click.

Photos: MMPerez