In a lot of ways, Dear Husband and I are mirror images of each other. His idea of fun is people and activity. Mine is quiet and relaxation. Many of my most relaxing memories are times when I’ve rented a cabin deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, brought a stack of books and my dogs and all the groceries I’d need for a week, and just… chilled. Slept when I wanted, ate (mostly eggs or tuna on toast or peanut butter and apples or something hassle-free like that) when I wanted. No TV. No sounds at all except nature. Read books, looked at the stars… rinse, repeat. It’s what a friend of mine calls “a whole lotta leave me alone.” That’s my idea of pure bliss.
I suspect that kind of trip would drive DH absolutely nuts, but I’ve taken several of his type of trips, and as I’ve mentioned a few times, I’ve been under a great deal of stress lately. So this trip was to be mine, mine, all mine. (I’m so lucky to have someone who is willing to sometimes fall on the vacation sword for me. Thanks, DH.) I was looking forward to this mini-break, Barb-style.
I booked a cabin in the middle of nowhere, on the other side of the state, during the Perseids meteor showers. It would be great to be in an area with no light pollution so that we’d really get to see the show. (That’s another area where DH and I are opposite. He wants the outdoors to be lit up. I actually feel safer, and it feels more natural, when it’s dark. Your eyes can adjust, and you can assume that animals are behaving the way nature intended them to, not the way we’ve forced them to with our unnatural lights. And studies have shown that lighting does not reduce crime, so it’s just obnoxious.)
I found a place on VRBO (and this booking was before we had our VRBO nightmare in Sorrento, mind you), and it looked lovely. It was a cute little two-bedroom, two-story rustic cabin on 19 acres. It was dog friendly, had no neighbors nearby, there was a beautiful crystal-clear creek running through the property (the area is known for its fishing and hunting), a nice deck, an inviting bathtub, air conditioning, Wi-Fi, and best of all, it’s 10 reviews gave it an average 10 out of 10 score.
I had visions of the dogs romping in the fields as we dipped our toes in the stream. We even packed a kite to fly if the spirit moved us. I imagined barbecues and stargazing on the back deck, taking long, luxurious baths, working on puzzles with DH at the dining room table, and reading, reading, napping, reading and reading some more. Perhaps watching a DVD every now and again so that DH didn’t lose his marbles entirely. It would be a chance to decompress. A chance to maybe get my feet back up under me. I was excited.
The cabin was a 5-hour drive from home, and the further into the back of beyond that we got, the more beautiful the country became. I can just sense less tension in the air when there are fewer people per square mile. It gives me room to breathe. I don’t breathe in the city. (Well, I mean, I do, obviously. But not the kind of breathing that relaxes your body and feeds your soul.)
The cows, sheep, donkeys and goats began outnumbering the humans, and that’s always a good sign. We also saw a mule deer and several whitetail deer as the number of cars decreased. Things were starting to balance themselves out. You often don’t realize you’re off balance until you regain your balance. It’s funny how that works.
We came upon an intersection with about 50 mailboxes lined up like little dilapidated, rusty soldiers. There wasn’t a building in sight. That’s when you know you’re really nowhere, in the best possible way. And we still had a half hour to go.
We pulled into the yard just as the sun was sinking low on the horizon. Still, I could see a huge pile of scrap metal, a collapsing chicken coop, and a barn that seemed to be patched together with particle board that had fallen off the back of someone’s pickup truck. Both structures looked like a strong wind would blow them over. The “Barn-icle” had a row of horseshoes nailed to it which, in retrospect, probably served some structural purpose. They were facing downward, so the luck was pouring out.
“Well,” I told myself as I stepped over all the dried cow patties in the yard whilst unloading the car, “this is the country, after all…”
We were told that the lockbox was on the porch, and quickly discovered as we went up that the railing was barely attached to the steps. Hmm. Well, the lockbox worked, anyway.
The place was rustic inside, but then I wasn’t expecting the Taj Mahal. The living room furniture was comfortable, but there was perhaps too much of it for the space. But hey, we could work with it. One of our dogs ensconced herself on the beanbag chair in the corner and pretty much stayed there for the duration, so she was quite content.
The carpet on the stairs wasn’t attached to the steps. That seemed more than a little foolhardy. Do they want to get sued? We had to be extremely cautious every time we went up and down.
The two bedrooms upstairs were kind of claustrophobic, but again, we could work with them. By putting the queen bed at an angle for ambience in the “master” bedroom, they greatly enhanced the toe-stub-ability, and indeed, I stubbed my toe about 15 times during our stay. And that floor plan was totally unnecessary, as there were ways to a arrange things to maximize the space. This place was definitely not built with comfort in mind.
But the first “Oh hell no” thing we discovered was that the “air conditioning” was a micro-window unit in the master bedroom, surrounded by more particle board, which blocked out the rest of the window. And since the place wasn’t insulated at all, (and we knew this because the hatch to the attic did not completely cover the hole) you had to keep the AC cranked all day, even though you weren’t up there, so that you weren’t sleeping in a hot box at night. Even so, the noisy little thing struggled to keep the one room cool.
Maybe that’s why they arranged the furniture so awkwardly in there. That way, if you had other people traveling with you, and they were annoying kids or adults who snored, you had a legitimate excuse to prevent them from sleeping on your nice air conditioned floor. You could say, “So sorry, there’s not enough floor space. How about dragging your mattress out on the back deck?” And under the circumstances, you wouldn’t sound like an ass.
Downstairs, since the weather wasn’t that bad, we used the fans and opened the windows and the screen door occasionally. We couldn’t leave them open all the time because there were flies. Everywhere. And all the screens had holes in them. And the screen door, which was part of a sliding glass door set up, was bent, and therefore wouldn’t close all the way.
So you had to make a choice: cool air and flies, or stuffy warmer air and fewer flies. And the host did not even provide fly swatters. But they did hang sticky curls of fly tape on the kitchen cabinet handles, right above where you prepared the food. That way the fly-encrusted tape got maximum rage of motion while also being a menace to your hair and clothing every time you opened one of the cabinet doors. How thoughtful of them!
Even though there were a few padlocked closets where one assumes cleaning supplies were kept, it became quite evident that this rental was not cleaned between renters. There were dead flies all over every single windowsill. The fridge smelled like sour milk. For added fun, I had to reverse all the vinyl cushions on the patio chairs because they were covered in bird droppings.
To escape the worst heat of the day on our first full day there, I decided to ascend to the air-conditioned “level”, resist the urge to lock myself in that room and never come out, and instead take a cool bath. I probably wouldn’t even need to use any hot water. And yet I was still looking forward to the experience. The photo of the bathroom on the VRBO site showed a glimmering white tub with a bubble bath, and a wood board across it, with a book and a lit candle on top.
It became all too clear why the photographer used candlelight to illuminate his bathroom shot. I guess I hadn’t looked closely at the bathroom the night before. I thought the shower curtain was opaque. Actually, it was transparent and covered in lime deposits. And, you guessed it: there were dead flies in the tub, which, by the way, was also covered in lime deposits and more soap scum than could be rationally explained. There were two holes in the wall where the towel rod used to be, and while they provided towels, they were old, frayed, mismatched and bleach-stained. They must have been someone’s castoffs.
At this point I was grateful that there was no wall to wall carpet anywhere, because I’d bet the hind leg off a hippo that it would be sticky. Or it would make squelching sounds when you walked on it, or give off puffs of mold spores. If I could think of a logical motive, at this point I would have entertained the idea that the host was trying to kill us. This place was a health hazard.
The fly tape kitchen demonstrated this nicely. The kitchenware looked like it had been picked out of a dusty, wet, cardboard box that had been pulled out of an attic and wound up at some swap meet. None of the lids fit the pots and nothing came in a set. I know that probably sounds snobbish, and Lord knows I’ve had to buy such things myself at lower points in my life, but I still had standards. I would never have charged people these prices (or any price, for that matter) to use them.
I felt the need to rewash everything in that nasty kitchen before use, and even so, I never did find a cup that made me feel completely comfortable to drink out of. The glasses were mason jars, which would have been rustically cute, but you got the impression that these mason jars were actually once used for food and were then thrown, unwashed, into that aforementioned cardboard box, and left there to increase their bacteria colonies for decades, like some twisted science project from the very bowels of hell.
And did I mention that the water smelled funny? Not like sulfur. It would have been a relief if the smell were that identifiable. We had to drive an hour to buy water to drink and cook with. Oh, and all the hot and cold water taps were reversed. That’ll keep you on your toes.
And then there was the greeting note that said, “We are aware that some of the electricity doesn’t work. Thanks for your flexibility!”
Uh, you’re… welcome?
They weren’t kidding. The other bedroom had no power at all, and the outlets? Maybe, maybe not. Some lamps only worked because long orange extension cords had been snaked in from other rooms, adding yet more trip hazards to the growing list.
There was power to the TV and DVD player, but when I texted the host to ask where the remote to the DVD player was, he said a previous guest had lost it, so just use the buttons on the machine. Okay, I get losing it amongst the couch cushions, or accidentally leaving it on the kitchen counter when you go to get a beer, or dropping it and having it slide under the coffee table, but lost lost? Moot point. we were remote-less, it seemed.
Well, that meant we could play the movie, yes, but we couldn’t turn on the captions, pause, reverse, fast forward, or see the special features. If you had to take a pee break, you either had to leave it playing and miss a bit of the movie, or pop it out, and when you popped it in again it would start… back at the beginning. So we’d play it REALLY LOUD, run through fly tape kitchen into the downstairs bathroom (home of the non-working washer and dryer), leave the door open, and the other person would describe what was happening if the dialogue wasn’t enough to keep you in the loop.
And seeing the outside in the full light of day was eye opening. Yes, there was a nice creek running through the property. But to get to it, you had to walk past a stagnant pond, covered with a thick layer of green slime, which was located right off the back deck. Was that somebody’s attempt at making a swimming hole, or is that were they hide the dead bodies? I think this is a fair question.
And not only was there the slime pond, the scrap metal pile, the collapsing chicken coop, and the rickety barn (whose door seemed to sometimes be open, sometimes be closed, even though we hadn’t touched it and had had no visitors), but there were also large rusty coils of barbed wire here and there all over the property. So much for kite flying. And our dogs would not be romping here. Not at all. Poor DH had to walk them on leashes several times a day. I couldn’t help because my back is still in agony. The dog who found the beanbag chair didn’t seem to mind, but our husky/lab mix felt like she was on lockdown the entire time.
But, having said all that, you know, there was more to the trip than that. There was a lot to laugh about. It kind of felt like we were a young couple just starting out. And we did spread out blankets and lie on the back deck the first night and see a million stars. Unfortunately, only one meteor shot past, and it was while DH was walking the dogs, so he missed it, but still, it was beautiful. Also, being there reminded us to make sure we were up to date on our tetanus shots, and we were relieved to find out that we are.
The view of the mountains from the deck was beautiful. And if I was looking for peace and quiet, I certainly found it, once I acclimated to the buzzing of the flies and the angry hum of the air conditioner. Maybe one car an hour passed by during the day, and none passed by at night. I did accomplish a copious amount of nap-taking.
We put a 1000-piece puzzle together, once we pulled the extremely wrinkled and stained tablecloth off the dining room table. Puzzles are always fun. I have no idea why we don’t do more of them.
I did read. DH did go a little stir crazy right along with the dog. But there was wifi, so he got some work done, and he talked to humans on the phone. Hopefully one of his takeaways from this experience was that his world did not come to an end by being so isolated, despite the many health hazards we endured.
The highlight of the trip was having lunch with two dear old friends that I hadn’t seen in years. (Hi, Kevin and Paula!) It made me realize how emotionally abused I’ve been feeling at work, and how disappointed I’ve been by the lack of support from those whom I’ve always supported. Being face to face with people who actually like me just the way I am was like coming to an oasis after walking through a desert for so long that I’d almost forgotten how to speak. I hope I didn’t overwhelm them with my outpouring. It’s just that I’m so rarely heard. It felt so freakin’ good to actually be heard. That was the primary decompression of the trip, and I’ll be forever grateful for it.
You are probably wondering, and rightfully so, why we didn’t leave that hovel immediately and demand our money back. Well, when I say we were in the middle of nowhere, I wasn’t exaggerating. There was not an affordable rental that allowed pets within a 100 mile radius of us. (Maybe that’s why the host doesn’t prioritize maintenance and cleanliness. He knows darned well that the supply and demand scale is tilted heavily in his favor.) If we left, I wouldn’t have gotten to see my friends, and driving the 5 hours home that very same night would have been exhausting. In the end, though, circumstances unrelated to this silly disaster of a vacation caused us to come home a day early anyway.
Maybe this was the universe’s way of making sure that we wouldn’t be too disappointed by having to do so. If it had been paradise, we’d have been sad to leave, even though it was necessary. I promise you, we weren’t sad to leave.
Do I feel like I got my feet back up under me? Not really. But I reconnected with friends, made some memories, and spent time with DH and the dogs. And I was reminded that no matter what life throws at us, we can survive it as long as the four of us stick together. And when all is said and done, there’s nothing quite like a road trip.
I have no idea why this place consistently gets scored 10 out of 10, except that maybe people feel sorry for the guy. The place does have potential. If it’s not being renovated quickly due to lack of funds, that’s one thing. But certain things, like cleaning up fly carcasses and getting the soap scum out of a tub and hosing the bird plop off the deck chairs, are not only a lack of initiative, but also abysmal customer service.
Maybe we were the first people to stay there who weren’t hunters or fishermen. I can see a bunch of guys going here, popping some beers, skinning a deer in the front yard, scaling their fish on the back deck, and not even noticing the squalor. But I felt the need to give it an honest review with all the gory details. Since my review was an outlier, it only knocked the place’s score down to an 8.8 out of 10, and it probably just makes me sound like a whiny malcontent. But I didn’t want anybody to be able to say I didn’t warn them. It would have been nice to have been warned.
I tell you what, though: this will be our last VRBO. I’m not kidding this time. How much can one couple take?
Leave a Reply