Month: April 2010

Stranded traveler

Posted on by tumbleweedmotel

You’ve probably seen news reports about the volcanic ash that’s brought air travel to a screeching halt in Europe. Concern about the impact of the ash on jet engines (apparently humans aren’t alone in our tendency to wheeze when exposed to copious amounts of dust) has prompted safety officials to ground flights all over the place.

If you are a traveler trying to get home, this situation righteously sucks.

If, on the other hand, you are a female motel owner with a weakness for Shakespearean actors, European accents, and attractive middle-aged men … and if a veeeeerrrrry charming middle-aged Irishman who bears a striking resemblance to Kenneth Branagh happens to be stranded in a tiny New Mexico town where you own the only viable lodging option … and if you happen to be sitting outside with your dashing guest, sipping Red Zinger tea and snacking on fondant-glazed lemon-zest-and-poppyseed scones at dusk … and if the two of you happen to be watching a rare — and spectacular — electrical storm over Sangre Mesa … well, you might have a different perspective on the situation, mightn’t you?

God, I love my job….

— Sierra

New friends

Posted on by tumbleweedmotel

I got to meet Dr. Scherer’s wife, Joyce, this morning. They were on their way to Tucumcari to pick up groceries when they saw Joey and me outside, hanging out the sheets, and stopped to say hello.

Joyce — a very funny, down-to-earth woman who absolutely refuses to let anyone over the age of 17 call her “Mrs. Scherer” — grew up in Coldwater and actually worked part-time as a maid at the Tumbleweed when she was 16. She said Miss Shirley was as good a boss as you’d expect, and she remembered Joey (who is about four or five years her senior) as the “big kid” who’d rescued her from impending doom at the hands of a playground bully when she was in first grade.

We had a really nice conversation. Joyce wanted to see some of the rooms I’d remodeled, and we discussed my plans for the sign, the restoration of which is the next item on my to-do list. She and Dr. Scherer were amused — and pleased — to discover signs, printed in red magic marker on six-inch-high pieces of cardstock, labeling every object in the lobby as part of my effort to improve Joey’s reading skills.

Joyce told me some great stories about her own experiences at the Tumbleweed. She said Joey would always help her hang the sheets and towels out to dry after she’d washed them in Miss Shirley’s old Speed Queen. You can imagine the look on her face when I told her that the sheets we were hanging out this morning had just been through the same wringer she’d used in 1974.

Dr. Scherer has been the superintendent in Coldwater for almost six years. He’s originally from Las Cruces, met Joyce in college (they both went to NMSU), and spent most of his career in Albuquerque, but after a couple of decades amid the stress and hassles of an urban school district, he was more than happy to take Joyce’s suggestion and apply for a job as superintendent of Coldwater Public Schools. He said the lack of amenities in a town this size took some adjustment, but the slower pace, lower cost of living, and vast, open skies more than make up for the little inconveniences.

I couldn’t agree more.

— Sierra

Interesting visitor

Posted on by tumbleweedmotel

Joey and I were updating the map in the lobby this afternoon when an unexpected visitor walked in. Dr. Scherer, the Coldwater superintendent of schools, came by to request a room inspection. He said the high-school principal is retiring at the end of this year, and some candidates will be coming in from out of town to interview for his position.

Dr. Scherer wanted to see what I’d done with the Tumbleweed so he could recommend it to people who were coming into town for interviews. I showed him all the rooms and explained what I’d done with each. He seemed very impressed and asked a lot of questions about the history of the place and how much of the work I’d done myself.

I thought it was rather serendipitous that I had a professional educator in my lobby just as Joey and I were having our afternoon lesson, so I asked Joey to tell Dr. Scherer about all the pins in our guest map while I fixed him a cup of coffee. I came back from the kitchen to find them engaged in a very serious conversation about everything Joey knew about every spot on the map. I’ve never seen anyone take Joey so seriously. It honestly just about made me cry to see the way Dr. Scherer was talking with him — so patient, and he treated him with so much dignity. Nobody ever does that for Joey.

Dr. Scherer, as it turns out, was a special ed teacher before he got into administration.

Sometimes I think God just gets a kick out of opening up a hole in the sky and dropping blessings in my lap.

An hour after he left, Dr. Scherer came back with a school library card for Joey and a shopping bag full of books on various teaching methods for me. You have no idea how excited I was to find an old Glenn Doman paperback in the bag. Mom used Doman’s method to teach me to read when I was a toddler, and I’d been trying to remember the system so I could use it with Joey.

I can’t wait to get started.

— Sierra

Homeschooling

Posted on by tumbleweedmotel

Sorry I’ve been quiet lately. The sleeping giant that is Route 66 appears to have awakened from its long winter’s nap, because I’ve been at 100 percent occupancy all week.

Joey and I now have a system: As soon as the guests leave, he strips the beds, takes out the trash, and puts all the laundry in the utility room. I fire up the Speed Queen while he cleans the bathrooms (his favorite chore, as he is inexplicably obsessed with the Scrubbing Bubbles) and takes out all the trash. Once the laundry is clean, Joey hangs it on the clotheslines while I make the beds. It’s a pretty good system, and it makes the work go much faster than it would otherwise.

After lunch, Joey and I have school. I never imagined myself as a homeschooler, but I guess that’s what I am. There was no such thing as special ed when Joey was in school, so his teachers mostly just let him sit in the back of the room and color quietly while they taught the rest of the class. That’s a real shame, because Joey loves to learn new things, so I’m trying to backfill some of the gaps in his education.

One thing we do every afternoon is put pins in a big map on the lobby wall to show where our guests came from and where they might be by that point in the day. Sometimes we get out Route 66 guidebooks and try to guess where people went for lunch or what places they might have visited.

Another thing we do is count Joey’s tips. Joey is allowed to keep all the tips people leave for us, but he has to count them (with a little help from me if necessary) and write down the amount in a little ledger book. I make him keep track of what he earns, what he spends, and how much money he has saved. He is very proud of this and is getting pretty good at budgeting.

I guess some people might think it’s a waste of time to try to teach Joey anything new at his age, but I think everybody ought to have a chance to live up to his potential, and Joey really hasn’t had that opportunity.

Besides all that, I’m kind of bored now that the remodeling is basically finished, and it’s kind of fun to watch Joey learn.

— Sierra

Nice touch

Posted on by tumbleweedmotel

A friend of mine from Oklahoma gave me a great marketing idea today. She said she just received a postcard from a motel in Las Cruces where she spent a couple of nights during a business trip last month.

She said the postcard was very simple and appeared to have been printed on-site, but it had the name and address of the motel and a little map showing its location on the front, along with some clipart representing things in New Mexico. The back listed the motel’s amenities, and under that, the owner had written a little note, thanking my friend for her business.

I’ve never heard of a motel doing such a thing. My friend hadn’t, either, but she was utterly charmed by the idea. I was, too. I think I am going to swipe the idea and start sending thank-you notes to my customers. If I got a personal note from a motel owner, thanking me for staying at her business, I would go back there every time I was in town.

Little things like that make a big difference with me.

Based on the comments in my guestbook, I don’t think I’m alone. It’s not the big stuff I’ve done at the Tumbleweed — the room renovations or the painting — that really impresses people. It’s the little stuff: the line-dried sheets; the cappuccino in the morning; the chile ristras next to the doors; the homemade biscotti beside the coffee pot in the lobby; the big, fluffy towels in the bathrooms.

I think maybe the little stuff makes people happy because it shows that A.) you’re willing to expend a little effort to please them, and B.) you’re paying attention to the details. If you’re willing to hang out sheets and make espresso to order every morning, it’s probably safe to assume you remembered to bleach the pillowcases and disinfect the bathroom.

— Sierra

By the numbers

Posted on by tumbleweedmotel

Extra-large cups of shaved ice consumed this weekend: 3.
High temperature today in Coldwater: 84 degrees Fahrenheit.
Old mattresses hauled to the dump yesterday: 2.
Amount of money spent on furniture and decorative items for Units One and Two: $1,379.22.
Hours spent redecorating Units One and Two: 17.
Total guests last night: 9.
Total guests tonight: 11.
Total occupancy rate for weekend: 100 percent.

Not bad, considering tourist season doesn’t even really start until Memorial Day….

— Sierra

One Day More

Posted on by tumbleweedmotel

I’ve been humming “One Day More” from Les Miserables all day. You know why.

Weird coincidence: After I spent the whole day humming a song from a French musical, I glanced up this evening to see three French couples roaring down 66 on rented Harleys. They pulled up to the Tumbleweed just before sunset, which is an awesome time to roll into Coldwater. I told them I’d hold their rooms for them if they wanted to go out and watch the sun set over Sangre Mesa before checking in.

They were duly impressed. We had a particularly fiery sunset this evening, and our famous “blood mesa” really lived up to its name. They’d never seen anything like it before.

They were really nice, so I fired up my chiminea and sent Joey to the convenience store to get hot dogs and marshmallows to roast over the flames. We had a nice little dinner party.

On a completely unrelated note, Jesus’ contractor friend, Albert, did an awesome job with Units One and Two. They looked so good when he finished — three days ahead of schedule — that I decided to go ahead and have him paint them, too. I didn’t want to take a chance on messing up any of his beautiful new walls with my clumsy brushwork. He finished painting today. I might make a trip to Tucumcari tomorrow to buy furniture, linens, and decorations for the newly remodeled rooms.

— Sierra

Countdown

Posted on by tumbleweedmotel

Two more sleeps until Scout’s Yellow Snow opens.

Joey insists that Roadrunner Express (blueberry and vanilla, with a little splash of Coffeemate) is the best flavor, but I’m thinking more along the lines of white pina colada, with maybe a little splash of passionfruit syrup just to make things interesting.

What does it say about me that I am not only planning to get up extra early on a Saturday to make sure I am the first one in line for opening day at the shaved-ice stand, but I am blogging about it, as if anyone in this world were actually bored enough to give a rat’s butt what kind of snow cone I plan to order?

— Sierra

Simple pleasure

Posted on by tumbleweedmotel

When I was little, my mom used to take me with her to the car wash, where I would sit inside the car and watch as she hosed down the exterior. I used to love to watch the water as it hit the windows.

For some reason, washing the car seemed like a very grown-up activity — almost a rite of passage — and I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to help, because that would mean I was officially a grownup. Being a grownup was my only real goal in life. Grownups got to stay up late and do cool stuff like washing the car and cooking dinner.

I’ve never really lost my enthusiasm for the car wash. I have a whole collection of photographs of self-serve car wash bays from up and down Route 66. I guess that’s a weird thing to photograph, but it reminds me of time I spent with Mom when I was little.

Here in Coldwater, we have a two-bay car wash down the street from the Tumbleweed. I don’t use it very often (this is, after all, New Mexico, and I’d feel guilty about wasting water on something so frivolous), but the weather today was gorgeous, so I decided to wash the truck.

There’s not usually much grass in Coldwater, but you can see from the picture that there’s a little bit near the bays. I guess it grows there because the runoff keeps it watered regularly.

I love the car wash….

— Sierra