Just got back from 4 days of traveling to North Carolina and Virginia Beach. Last Tuesday night I booked a hotel near Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. We drove down Wednesday, stopping to gawk at the ghetto of New Bern, NC, eat at Bojangles, and have drinks from Sonic.
When I was a kid, I lived in Cherry Point, NC about 20 miles or so from New Bern for a few years. My dad would always take me and my brother on the weekends out to Atlantic Beach where he would fish and we would generally build sand castles, collect shells, and play in the water. I have been wanting to go back down there ever since I moved back to the east coast but hadn't gone until now.
I was surprised at how small and unpopulated the towns along North Carolina's coast are. Not at all what I remember. We looked it up, and apparently 2/3rds of NC's population is in the center of the state (why??) with Charlotte as the biggest city. On top of that, NC has more people than Virginia (I had no idea!). The coast seems to be where a lot of older people go to retire, plus there is a lot of military there.
Probably the funniest moment of the trip was when we tried to check into the hotel in Pine Knoll Shores (which is next to Atlantic Beach). I rolled up to the front desk with bag in tow and the woman behind the counter proceeded to stare at me. I generally expect them to say something, like "Hi, how can I help you?" or even a simple "Hello" will do so that I can initiate the "Hi, I'm checking in." but this woman just stared at me with a blank expression. "Yeah, hi, I'm here to check in." "Name?" "Timmerman". She types in the last name, types in a few more things, then stares at me again. "How do you spell that?" So I spell it for her "T-I-M-M-E-R-M-A-N". She types it in, stares at it for a few seconds, then looks back at me "Yeah I can't find you in the computer." Argh, and sure enough, that morning, Chris told me that I should print out the reservation just in case. I calmly explain to the woman that "I just booked the room last night, I booked it with Amerisuites using American Express."
Again with the very vacant expression, and then a lightbulb goes off in her head (a very damaged lightbulb). "Oh, well this isn't an AmeriSuites." As she says this to me, my brain starts to churn as I attempt to process this information. I think to myself, "did I misread the sign on the hotel, am I completely insane?" and as I chew on this, my eyes slowly gaze over to the logo attached to the wall behind the very serious, but empty expression on the hotel employee's face. This is what I saw:
"Uh, what?"
"This hotel was sold off, we're not an AmeriSuites anymore. We're Ameri-KA-Suites" she asserts. Apparently Hyatt bought AmeriSuites a while back and had recently sold off some of the properties to another company. HOWEVER, the logo on the hotel as well as all the signs around the hotel all still clearly say "AMERISUITES".
A slightly older, and obviously MUCH MUCH more intelligent employee who has heard this whole conversation finally walks out from the back room and says "What was your name again?" "Timmerman," I repeat.
She glances down at a paper printout of the guest list, and immediately exclaims "it's right here, it's misspelled as Tinnerman." Relieved, we check in and go up to our room. The running joke the rest of the trip was "Oh, this isn't an AmeriSuites." followed by a blank stare.
Any ways, more pictures later.
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