The Travellers Inn

I know it's been a little while, and Matt and I were getting really good at updating every so often, but we had a bit of a mishap in Jonesborough that prevented us from blogging.

After New Orleans, we headed to Jonesborough, TN via Birmingham, AL for the National Storytelling Festival. We spent the night with a friend of mine from high school, Brydee. Then we went to Jonesborough to stay at a motel that Matt's step-grandmother bought for us. We checked in at the Traveller's Inn in Elizabethon, TN. Elizabethon is not that far from Jonesborough, and it was the only place with a room open. We had problems checking in, but that is really not important. It ended up being worked out. We went to our room, room 111 on the bottom floor, an easily accesible non-smoking room. As Matt was using the bathroom, I sat down next to the TV reading a brochure about the motel when I noticed a jumping black period sized dot on my hand. A flea. I looked down at my socked feet. Covered with fleas. I yelled for Matt, he came out of the bathroom and I by-passed him in, pulling the fleas off of me and dropping them into the toilet. Matt checked his legs and began pulling his off as well. We grabbed our things and went to the front desk to get our room changed. We were met with the manager from Hades.
"How do you know there are fleas?"
"Well, it jumped on my hand. Matt just killed one over there. I left them in the toilet in the room if you want to see them"
"Well, you have to understand that I'm really busy right now."
"Umm...ok?"
But she handed us our new keys. And although we discovered that the wireless internet was secluded to the lobby, only open until 11pm, and it was already 10:30pm, we passed the night rather comfortably.
As did our second night of our stay, although we did pass the cleaning ladies in the morning smoking cigarettes at the same time pushing their cleaning carts.
The third night in Jonesborough we were out late at the festival, attending the midnight cabaret. We got back to our room around 12:30am. Matt went to use the bathroom and came out, "The toilet isn't flushing". I went in to look at it. It sounded like the chain had disconnected inside the toilet, something that happened frequently at the res halls in Webster University. We tried to lift the lid of the toilet in order to fix the problem, but the countertop extended over the toilet seat and we could only lift the lid about half an inch. Matt disappeared downstairs again to speak with the manager from Hades. He returned, agitated, with a key in his hand. "We can use a bathroom in another room, but we can't change rooms. There isn't anyone here to be able to fix it tonight. She'll have maintenance in the morning."
We went to the room, but I couldn't get the door open. I went to get some more help. The woman met me at the night check in window, and started to talk to me with the window closed. I asked her to open it so that I could hear her better. She looked at me, and I said, "The key won't open the door"
"So what, you think I can call mainetnance now?"
"No, I don't. I just can't get the door to open"
"Is your toilet still broken?"
"Yes"
"How do you know it's broken"
"It doesn't flush"
"It doesn't work?"
"No. We even tried to fix it ourselves but we couldn't because the counter is in the way."
"You guys need to stop coming down here and complaining."
"I can't get the door open."
"Lift the door handle, not push it down."
"Oh."
"But don't touch the bed. If you touch the bed, I charge you $80 to your credit card. Don't make it look like you've used the room at all. I charge you."
And so I left, running, fuming up the stairs. It worked. There was a protective sanitary strip on the toilet holding the toilet seats together. I lifted them both, squatted and used the bathroom. Didn't want to get charged for taking the sanitary wrap off.
When we left the next morning there was a woman's purse floating in the pool outside. Matt told a worker, she said maintenance would take care of it. She was sitting right next to the pool.

Anyway, now that that is over we are at my sister and her husband's in Nashville. We went to the first day of the Southern Festival of Books today. I got to see two long lost friends, Linda Ragsdale and her daughter Jessie. Linda was there with her books she's just published, and her daughter went to a session of an author of a book she was just reading.

Can we have more information on the documentaries that anonymous said are out? We'd like to look at them to ensure that what we creat isn't what has been created.