Tales from a Salt Lake Motel

First off, I thought I'd share the artwork that hangs above the beds in our motel room:



I don't know about you, but I think Tin Man looks just a little serial killer. I've been trying not to think about it too much.

Anyway, David has been coming to this show for a few years now, and every time has involved a bit of motel drama of one sort or another. One time it was an unidentified pill found between the supposedly fresh sheets; another it was a broken toilet that required a room change (no mean feat when every room in town is booked up); then there were fouled up reservations; and then the whole bedbug incident. Doesn't seem to matter where he stays - something always happens.

The current motel, creepy artwork notwithstanding, has been fairly nice - budget, but clean and with attentive staff. Yesterday morning, though, I was working in the room and heard fire sirens. I didn't think much of it until I heard people clomping around a little later and realized that I could still hear the diesel engines. Turns out there had been a gas leak at the water boiler, which prompted an emergency call, though the firefighters determined that it wasn't necessary to evacuate once the gas was turned off. So, no hot water for a while, but we weren't staying all day in the room, so no harm done.

I thought that would be the extent of the drama for this trip, but this morning I woke up to David opening the door to the room to get something. When he saw I was awake he told me that we had no running water, and that Christine, his production manager who left early this morning, had called while I was still asleep to tell him what had happened.

Around 1:30AM, the driver of a car was shot right in front of the motel. The car then veered off the road and crashed into the light pole and fire hydrant just outside the motel office. Police and ambulance were called, Christine went down and tried to comfort the very nice and gentle Asian woman who was working the desk, and the ambulance workers wrapped the dead guy up in a bloody sheet and took their time removing him from the scene (apparently they didn't know about body bags). Meanwhile, another guy shows up and starts pacing back and forth in the middle of the street screaming at the cops and accusing them of shooting his brother. This led to a standoff that ended with the guy running away with the police in pursuit, and then more gunshots.

David and I slept through all of it, but this was the scene in the parking lot this morning as the utility crew was taking down the light pole:



Crazy damned town. Tonight, though, we're hoping to meet up with Margene for dinner, which I'm very much looking forward to.