A fun time at the Econo Lodge -- in person and online

Coming back from a recent trip to Montreal, we stayed at the Econo Lodge in Woodstock, New Brunswick. (If you've clicked that link you'll have seen that it goes to a "coming soon" page and my bet would be that it's been up there for years.)

I have to confess that we were warned off the place by friends -- but they said they'd stayed there five years ago and we thought a) how bad could it be? and b) maybe it's changed since then.

It was an all-around awful experience, made worse when I came home and tried to complain via the Choice Hotels website. After filling in all the form fields and hitting "Submit" I got a message that I needed to fix the errors in red. I looked as closely as I could at the page and saw no errors in red. I double-checked all the required fields and saw they had been filled in. I switched browsers in case Choice Hotels does not play nice with Firefox, but I had the same difficulty with Explorer.

Finally, I gave up. I emailed a complaint about my inability to complain (via a different web form) and thought I would share the complaint with all of you, since Choice Hotels doesn't seem to want it. (Maybe they are embarrassed by the hotel; I tried to look it up on their website, but they say it does not exist.)

I would have gone on longer (and have, at TripAdvisor), but Choice limits you to 1,024 characters (which, apparently, you're not allowed to submit anyway). So here's what I had to say:

The room toilet had a very poor flush and the bowl almost immediately became blocked. I called the desk, and the person on duty (Joey, I think) said he would find me a plunger and would call back soon.

He never called back.

Later, I went down to the desk and found somebody new on duty. He said the previous person had not said anything about the problem, and he hadn't left any notes either.

The man working the desk then offered to help, walked past a family who had just arrived at the desk (without acknowledging them at all) and disappeared. A few minutes later, he came back and walked across the lobby with a plunger in hand. He then proceeded to hand it to me.

The night was marred by rowdy youths who spent hours yelling, shouting, running around and tapping on other patrons' windows. The staff seemed unconcerned. (At one point I called the desk to complain, and the noise level went down very briefly.)

Staff seemed not very competent, and our stay was not worth anywhere near the cost of the room.

Apparently the Best Western five minutes away is quite nice.

A week near Waterville, Maine

Back from a week in central Maine. First time there. Things that made an impression:

• Water fountains everywhere. Here we are fighting to bring them back. There, they don't seem to have ever gotten rid of them.
• Vanity plates. Seemed like they were on every other car. Way more bumper stickers too. The day we went to the farmers' market in Waterville, you could definitely figure out the demographic from the cars parked nearby. "Obama 08" bumper stickers on every other vehicle. Licence plates like "COMPASN".
• Almost no yellow ribbons or "We support our troops" magnetic ribbons or stickers on cars. We have far, far more of those here in Nova Scotia.
• Just about every small town had a library. It might be a tiny library, but it's still a library.
• Much bigger spread in the cost of food at supermarkets and convenience stores vs farmers' markets. When you can buy eggs for 99 cents, paying more than four bucks at the market is probably less appealing. In general everything at the markets seemed quite pricey (compared to here). Six bucks for bread. Sixteen to buy enough sausage for dinner. We bought there anyway, but it made me understand some of the arguments I'd read in American books about local food being less affordable.
• Self-storage. Everywhere. Out in the middle of rural areas. One after another. People just bought too much crap and had nowhere to put it.
• Sugar in everything. When you're palate's not used to it, it's shocking.

Bow-wow-wow

I was in St. John's for work this week, and stopped in at the Candy Bouquet. (Actually, stopping in at the Candy Bouquet was part of the job -- it's a long story.)

I can now report that if you are ever in St. John's and want candy, there is probably no person nicer than Jackie Rice of the Candy Bouquet to help you find what you want -- or what you didn't even know you wanted. And she manages to say "Have a sweet day" in a way that's genuinely sweet, and doesn't make you cringe.

Ways I am glad my tax dollars are being spent

(This post has been updated.)

Via Rail spent years fighting to not make its trains accessible to people in wheelchairs.

Because adapting the trains would be too expensive.

Via lost. Now they've spent oodles on the fight and they still have to do the right thing and make the trains accessible.

Note to people in wheelchairs: I'm glad you won, but let me tell you, you haven't been missing much until now. The train is uncomfortable, more expensive, and slower than flying. Yep, it really does have everything going for it.

And those Renaissance cars? They're the worst.