Trip Log: Danville, Virginia

Innkeeper Motel North in Danville, Virginia

   
       As I write this I sit in a dingy motel in Danville, Virginia.  It's Friday night and most of the motels in town are filled because of the NASCAR races as well as college students coming with their families to get ready for the upcoming school year.  This is a small town with quite a few motels.   Few of the hotel chains where I'd normally stay are located here and the ones that are have no vacancies for this weekend.  Thankfully I'm only here for one night before I move on toward my next destination--New Jersey.

       It's been a long time since I've stayed in a place such as this.  We used to stay in similar or even worse places sometimes when I was touring with the roadshow on which I worked.  Eventually after I started managing the show we upgraded to better places like Marriott Hotels which made touring much more of a pleasure.  Tonight I feel like those old days when we tried to keep expenses down by staying in the cheap places.  This dingy Innkeeper Motel is like those except that it is not all that cheap.  

       The temperatures today have been in the humid 90's.  It was a good day for driving though I only had a rather short 150 mile trip.  After a period of a few weeks of staying up late night after night I'm pretty beat.  A good night's sleep would be welcome.   Hopefully I'll get an okay sleep to get me ready for what could be a long day tomorrow.

        Then to beat all, for dinner I had this really dumb craving for Kentucky Fried Chicken.  The absurdity of my visit to that fast food establishment might be worthy of an entire blog post, but I won't do that.  After bringing my meal back to my motel room I ate maybe half of it.   I don't think I'll be going to KFC again for a while.  At least not this one in Danville and not this motel either.  Let's face it, so far this Danville stay is nothing to write home about or a blog post for that matter, yet that's what I've been doing so far.

       On Thursday I had a great day.  Even though I was dragging after a late night and an early start, my trip was pleasant.  There was only one traffic delay as I drove I-40 through the mountains on the way to Asheville, North Carolina, but after that it was a very nice drive.  I arrived at my destination for that day, Charlotte, North Carolina at about 1:30 PM.

       My first stop was the headquarters of Morris Costumes Wholesale, the company I used to work for.  It was good to see old friends who work at that location as well as members of the Morris family.  Philip and Amy Morris, founders of the costume company, took me to dinner and then we visited the Morris retail store.  This is one of the finest, cleanest, and most organized costume stores in the United States.  If you live in the Charlotte area you probably know about this store, but be sure to visit if you've never been there.

        Later, Phil and Amy took me to their son Scott's mansion where I'd be spending the night.  What a fantastic place he has!   The massive home sits on a prime location overlooking Lake Norman.  The home was constructed from high quality materials delivered from all over the world.  It was almost like staying in a museum or some historic chateau in Europe except that it was a homey and welcoming place.  Too bad I was only there for the night.   Scott and his charming wife Denise were tremendous hosts.

        Also visiting for the night were some other gentlemen in the costume business.  These were guys whom I had already known from associating with them at Halloween trade shows in the past.   We had a great visit that evening even though we'd all been traveling and welcomed our beds when it was time to turn in.

        Now that visit seems like a fantastical dream as I sit in this darker nightmare of a motel room.  Really, I guess it's not all that bad.  I've stayed in worse.   I doubt that I'll ever stay here again.  I'd rather be at the Morris Mansion on Lake Norman.