I never did tell you about our sleeping outside.
As I said before the heat was so horrible and it made our bedrooms so uncomfortable that we ate dinner and watched T.V. outside on the screened porch, but even my sister said that her house was too uncomfortable to sleep in even with all the fans on.
Doyle as practical as ever brought up the sleeping cots that I have just in case we have an overflow, (mostly my Brother's gang of 3 boys), so Sis and I slept on the cots and Doyle and Brian slept on air mattresses out on the back porch, we did have access to the bathroom off of the Kitchen, night lights are always a blessing.
Weiner and Bella decided to sleep with the men folk, I called Bella a little traitor but she just looked at me with a practical look like "If you think I'm going to sleep on that tiny thing and fall off, think again, lady."
And without further adieu snuggled onto the blankets on the mattress, and I have to say we all slept very soundly and with a certain amount of comfort.
We woke the next morning to the smell of coffee and bacon Doyle taking upon himself to cook breakfast, it felt like we were camping in a way. And with that Sis and I reminisced about camping with our parents, and the time we were traveling and had a hard time finding a motel that had a vacancy sign.
We finally found one but it was still in the midst of renovations, but we were so tired and the gas station across the street had closed for the night, after all it was nearly 9 p.m. and Dad said we were down to an 1/8 of a tank of gas, I don't even remember where we were going to for the vacation, Oregon I think to visit distant relatives, but Dad had the camping gear but we couldn't even find a camp ground.
So Mom said "Motel" and we started looking. It was an old motel, with individual cabins, the owner was apologetic about everything but he did have a cabin with kitchen that had two double beds, so Dad and Mom had one bed, Sis and I had the other and my brothers slept on this couch that folded out into a bed.
There had been heavy rain an hour before and we found ants in the door way, the owner gave us a can of Bug Spray, again saying that with the work being done and the rain a lot of things were not up to par, and he and his wife were kind enough to have dinner for us, it was Meat Loaf, but it was good, so good my Mom asked for the recipe, which flattered the owners wife, and they gave us coffee, sugar and milk for the next day so we could at least have coffee and milk and they said they'd cook breakfast for us. Dad offered to pay, but they wouldn't have it, but Dad snuck $10.00 under their telephone.
The next day Mom was perking the coffee as we kids got cleaned up when all of a sudden we heard Mom yell, and hopping out from the kitchen area was a frog!!! Dad was laughing but got a used face cloth and captured the little thing and took it outside to release it in some bushes, the Motel Owner came running after hearing Mom scream and he and Dad laughed over the tiny frog as Dad put it under a nice damp bush.
The owner told us that there was a near by creek that had frogs and this one must have wandered in somehow. Mom said she heard a sound under the sink and investigated only to be startled by the frog, our brothers wanted to keep it but Dad said it wasn't fair to the frog.
Afterwards we had a nice breakfast and Dad again snuck some money under the telephone, and then gassed up the car as Mom packed everything. Thanking the owners again for their hospitality we continued on our way.
It wasn't until about 3 years later, we were traveling again to visit our relatives in Oregon and Mom said let's stop at that Motel and stay overnight there, well we were there but the Motel wasn't, instead we found old burnt out buildings and a sign saying that it was going to be demolished.
The gas station was there so we knew we were at the right place, so we pulled in and Dad asked if there was another place to stay remarking about the Motel across the street, the Attendant said there was and even called ahead to see if there was room and there was so Dad talked to the clerk on the phone for reservations.
Then Dad came out and asked about the Motel across the street and how we had stayed there 3 years before.
The attendant shook his head and said "it was a bad thing." He explained that the owners were very nice people, had the place renovated and was doing good business, even paid for a billboard so people would know about it.
The wife had a brother who wasn't, as the attendant said "right in the head", he came to stay for a week, which was fine as it was in January a very slow time, and the owners were installing new mattresses, so the brother helped out with that. But late one night they only had one "guest" in the cabin next to their office home, and he heard yelling and screaming, then it stopped, the guest didn't think too much about it, and went to the bathroom in his cabin, then he smelled gasoline, he became alarumed grabbed his suitcase and stuffed his change of clothes into it grabbed his keys and shoes and threw them into his car, just in case, he was in his bathroom and was walking towards the office to complain about the gasoline smell, which he said smelled stronger outside, when suddenly the office exploded into flames.
According to the attendant, the guest jumped into his car and drove across the street to the phone booth that was there at the gas station and called the fire department. As he was calling the fire department the other cabins exploded into flames one by one. The attendant said he only lived a block away and heard sirens and saw the flames and came running to the gas station thinking it was on fire.
When he got there he saw the man in his bath robe and the police and fire fighters, they were hosing down the buildings and looking for the owners when between the burning cabins the "crazy brother" as he called him comes running out and was yelling that they were evil and burning in hell all was hell and poured gasoline on himself and ran into one of the cabins before anyone could stop him.
The next day the found the bodies of the owners in the office part, and that of the brother in the burnt out cabin that he ran into. Piecing it together it seems that the brother had stabbed the husband and wife to death, and then burned the motel. It was known that the brother was "off" always claiming that he was being followed or that his sister stole things from him, now a days it would be called paranoid schizophrenia.
The guest said that he heard a man's voice yelling that "you're poisoning me!" and "I'm not going back," and a lot of other things that he didn't hear very well. The miracle was that the yelling woke him up and then smelling the gasoline warned him something was wrong, it was found that one of the locks on the pumps was busted and there were about a dozen burnt gas cans found at the scene.
I remember Mom saying out loud, "they were such a nice couple," and the attendant agreed, they had helped a lot of folks. The motel that we did stay in was nice and very modern, and had a café next door, but it wasn't the same Mom said.
I reminded Sis about those two trips and she remembered it as well the funny part about the frog and then the sad part what happened later.
Then she reminded me about the trailer that Dad borrowed from a friend that we went camping in, a real vintage piece, but that is a story for another time.
You know Darklings, I haven't been back there for ages, after that last trip our Oregon relatives moved to Arizona, so we traveled in a different direction---as a matter of fact that was the one we had the travel trailer. But that is for another time.
Tonight not so hot but we'll have grilled shrimp salad for dinner tonight and again on the back porch, dinning al fresco, then "Gotham" and "Sleepy Hollow" followed by "Blacklist" as we record "Castle".
Later Darklings
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