I take back my denigration of Abilene, Texas

Yes, I take back my thoughts as I drove out of town this morning about the paucity of decent restaurants, the hopeless tangle of discontinuous potholed streets, and how I lamented the forlorn downtown area void of any accommodation for visitors in the way of quaint dining rooms with atmosphere, the absence of historical sights or night life.

I take back my execration of the narrow spectrum of radio stations, my grief at especially high obesity rate, my consternation at the beer selection in the hotel lounge.  How the sushi restaurant was in a converted Dairy Queen, how the few small college campuses were unsung and essentially invisible, how the one familiar city sight/sound of pounding bass hop-hop vehicles managed to interrupt my erstwhile quiet evening.

I take it all back because of an unheard of privilege granted silently to me by the motel patrons.  I speak, dear reader, of the Whitten Inn of Abeline Texas. Where the motto is, "sleep at the Whitten and you'll purr like a kitten."  Deer and antelope play nearby. The sun sets late, unobstructed by mountains, mesas, rocks or rills, yea, of landscape of any sort.

But when I stayed the first night at the Whitten, room 165 on the C wing, I noticed not a single car other than mine on the entire wing. I had the entire wing to myself. Dozens of other travelers stayed at the Whitten Inn, but none were on my wing. Why? I wondered.  It was wonderfully quiet.

As it turned out, I stayed at the Whitten Inn the following night, indeed tonight (I type in the past tense though I am writing this blog using the free wireless internet connection provided. Maybe I should switch to present tense). When I checked in, I asked the girl behind the counter, "Was it coincidence that my wing was empty last night, and that you are putting me there again tonight?"

She replied, "We are careful about who we put in the C Wing.  Truckers and stuff, we put in A and B, but business customers we usually put in C."

Am I, newly employed, to be the happy recipient of this decidedly non-democratic lodging scheme?  It is 9:00 here, and again my wing is EMPTY except for me.  What La Quinta or Best Western would do such a thing?

To make things even better, the gave me vouchers for 1 free drink from the hotel lounge, and a free breakfast - not continental, a real eggs-and-bacon breakfast.  And the rooms are spacious, clean and smell good.

I gripe plenty about bad things in the world, but let me praise the Whitten Inn, where I get all this for $62 per night.