Heads up Keystone State

I recently went to Pennsylvania for a business conference. The flight was fine and my travelling companions were great. We landed in Philly and had to drive a few hours to reach our destination. Everything went just fine. Until we got to the hotel. It was called Microtel. I'm guessing because the amenities it offered were microscopic to say the least. When was the last time you were in a hotel/motel that did not have shampoo/lotions in the bathroom. Not this place ! No coffee maker either. There was an unbelievably icky hair dryer hanging from the wall of the bathroom as was the tattered and smoke stained wallpaper. The wallpaper was my particular favorite...each morning when I took a shower, the steam caused all of the nicotine to run down the walls like hundreds of tiny yellow rivulets, puddling onto the tiled floor. My pillows, blankets and comforter reeked of smoke, what was a gal to do? I opened the window as far as it would go, and hoped that I could grab a breath of fresh air, not to be, as directly below my window, the security guy was chain smoking and the wind blew it directly into my room.

Did I mention that only 10% of the rooms were non-smoking? And that members of my company who stayed in them, thought they were smoking rooms? Amazing! I said to myself, just 2 nights, that's it...you can tough it out for just 2 nights.

Equally amazing to me, throughout our day-long meeting (held at the local country club), we endured the second hand smoke coming from the country club's staff, and the smoking room which was adjacent to our meeting room. I thought that was a nice touch. Even the restaurant that we chose for dinner had an open bar in which customers could smoke...which had smoke wafting throughout the rest of the building.

As a former smoker, I never thought I would be like this, but the amount of smoking was unbelievable! Everyone seemed to light up, except the out of towners. It is almost as if PA is living in another era. When I arrived home I immediately unpacked and the business clothes went to the cleaners and the rest went into the laundry.

If you ever go for a visit to PA, my recommendation would be to pack a lunch, get dinner via a drive through and book a hotel in NY.

If the smoking doesn't get you, the fried food frenzy will.