A weird experience

Yesterday I made a room reservation from the road through Expedia at the Midway Inn in Cedar Falls, using the iPhone. I had a confirmation email from Expedia, but I have had the experience in the past of making a reservation online and then arriving at the motel and finding they had no record of it. So I usually call the motel directly to doubly confirm the reservation. When I did that this time, I got a recorded message saying the line had been disconnected. This was not reassuring! After several attempts, we decided we'd try another place, but then we had no access to data from the iPhone, and that persisted right up to our arrival in Cedar Falls at about 10pm!! So much for that idea. The maps app was working in Cedar Falls, so I entered the motel address: 4117 University Ave. University Ave. was totally torn up with construction, and Ellen had to weave through endless lanes of orange cones with very poor visibility. (It had been raining and our windshield kept fogging up for some reason). We got to the address but there did not seem to be a Midway Inn. Then we saw what looked like an abandoned building down off the road. We drove down - there was no sign of habitation. It was mostly dark, and there were no cars around it at all. However, the office door was open, and a bare bulb was burning inside! I went in. The reception desk had a chained metal gate, but behind it was an empty chair, and a fan was running. No one was in sight. I called out repeatedly, "Hello, anyone here?" No response. The building seemed to be empty, yet someone seemed to have been there. It was creepy, believe me!

We found a room down the road at a Days Inn. It was supposed to be a non-smoking room, but it reeked of stale tobacco smoke. But we were too tired to complain. 

Shame on Expedia! And shame on Days Inn! 

         The abandoned Midway Inn building

  

                 The barred and chained reception counter