9/27: nesting

Note to self: Appoint Jamie Official Hotel Picker.

I pride myself on being a low maintenance traveler, which usually means clicking on whatever Expedia’s cheapest deal is. This strategy has landed me in places

• where the hotel’s name is written in Sharpie on rag-thin towels that flatter themselves by implying their theft-worthiness

• where plumbing maintenance (and building-wide water shut-off) is scheduled during prime showering time

• where an inexplicable and wall-jolting THUMP—like an elevator crashing to the ground somewhere—jars you awake every hour.

Jamie, perhaps unnerved by my post-travel tales, put in a full 10 minutes of internet research and landed us at the comparably priced Robin’s Nest Inn, an infinitely more charming bed and breakfast. We were greeted by a wooden folk-art angel who hovered protectively over the porch of the rose-pink Victorian, by about a thousand mosquitoes (Houston is a tad humid) and by two envelopes that said, “Welcome, Cheryl” and “Welcome, Jamie.”

Three hours later, we still haven’t seen another human. Eerie? A little—but in the most awesome way. A Days Inn with a mysterious thumping noise is just creepy. But a deserted Victorian with a living room full of jungle plants, leopard print curtains and a lit-from-below painting or two is a mystery novel waiting to happen.