DAY 80 SUNDAY 25th NOVEMBER 2007

Chattanooga to Huntsville, AL (Miles to date: 9750)

What a night! When we arrived at the Best Western Heritage Inn one of the things we noticed was a school bus in the car park, which immediately suggested that there might be a load of kids in the hotel. As Karen was checking us in it was confirmed there was a group of children from a soccer team and their leaders staying there, and they had already been warned and were being threatened with eviction. The reception desk team were a mother and daughter team who were intellectually challenged – the mother sitting on a towel… perhaps an incontinence issue here?

Fortunately, or so we thought, we were given a room at the other end of the hotel. First thing we found was that the light in the bathroom did not work and nor did the heating. We were too tired to worry about these things until the morning so we crashed into bed. Not long after there was a commotion out on the balcony. Karen got up and checked. She was greeted by three creatures of the night – judging by their sagging butts and pendulous air bags they were female. Obviously angry these women were having a full blown shouting match, using a wide ranging (or narrow depending on your perspective) vocabulary.This seemed to go on forever, just as we thought they were calming down it started again. We decided to call down to reception who said they would call out security. An hour later (by now it was about 1am) and all hell was still breaking loose outside so we called reception again to find out that security was on its way but the firm was based in Cleveland – Tennessee not Ohio – but still 30 miles away. The fact that the on site security was two less than able women and the cavalry was not just over the hill did not fill us with a secure feeling.

One lesson here is the choosing of hotels. Typically we have been using Holiday Inn Expresses, and whilst they do not offer a wide range of services, they are consistent and generally have a business people as their clientele. Of late we have been using some online sites to book hotels as some get very good room rates. On this occasion we had booked using Hotwire which does not tell you the name of the hotel until after you have booked the room. Unfortunately we had been booked into a Best Western in Chattanooga. The problem we have found with Best Westerns is that whilst they are cheap they are not consistent and sometimes attract a different clientele – which can on occasions means issues with unsociable behaviour.

We had planned to stay another night in Chattanooga but our experience of the night before had put us off considerably so we decided to do an extra night in Huntsville, Alabama. So as soon as we could we left the hotel and headed off. Today, in sympathy with our mood, was grey and overcast. Low clouds covered the surrounding mountains and hills – which supposedly makes a wonderful setting for Chattanooga. One of the things we had planned to do was to visit Lookout Mountain – but unfortunately on this day you could hardly see the bottom let alone the summit. We did a quick drive through the downtown, which looked a pleasant town, but with the bad weather set in for the day we continued on to Huntsville.