The best laid plans.....

We spent last week in Utah visiting our daughter Maleen, her husband Tyler, and there three and a half daughters. We had a wonderful time, but it was a tough drive down as I had fallen and hurt my leg just minutes before we left. We drove straight through (15 hours) and my leg had really stiffened up by the time we got there.

We had originally planned to drive straight through on the way home, but after thinking it over, we decided it would be best to split the trip up, with a good night's sleep in between. Therefore we left Saturday night and drove for about 5 hours to Jerome, Idaho. We had a reservation at the Best Western there.

We got there shortly before 11:00 and by midnight we were all in bed, snoozing gently away. And then, at 2:00 am, every fire alarm in the whole hotel went off. The noise was incredible. I am usually pretty groggy when woken up unexpectedly, and I was still trying to figure out how to turn of the alarm clock, when Bill informed me it was the 'fire' alarm instead.

We both hurridly got dressed (once I had extricated myself from my CPAP machine), and Bill went to work trying to wake up Timmy (who had incredibly slept through the noise), while I decided to go up to the front desk to find out what was happening. When I arrived the official looking firemen (lots of them!) quickly shepherded me outside. I could only hope that Bill and Tim would find their way out as well.

I ended up sitting on one of the steps of the firetruck, next to a lady who had been on the second floor (we were on the first). She said that she had heard her grandchildren coughing, and one of the hotel employees confirmed (later) that the problem had started on the second floor. The same hotel employee went off to the other entrance to see if he could find Bill and Timmy, so we eventually were reunited. I was highly amused to notice that although Tim had gotten his shirt and shoes one, he had forgone his pants and grabbed his bag of GameBoy stuff instead. He had a baby's blanket wrapped around his nether parts and looked cold and scared.

Shortly thereafter all the hotel guests were herded towards the back of the building to the large conference room. It was still pretty cold, but at least we had chairs to sit in, and tables to lean our weary heads on. Some people opted to crash on the floor, with kids in and around them. The head fireman was walking around and around testing the air. A few of the people who were still coughing were ushered out to be examined by someone with medical credentials, and I later heard that a couple with asthma actually went to the local hospital to be checked out (they were OK).

The fireman was very patient and talked with anybody who wanted to ask a question. One of the little girls asked him a few questions, and he put on his gas mask so she could see what it looked like. I don't know how we got on the topic, but it turns out he is quite the hunter and he was telling me which wild game meats are good. He says the best is mountain lion (wow - I wouldn't have guessed that!). Although he has never eaten bear himself, he warned me that it is even fattier than pork and has to be cooking on a grill where the fat can drip down onto the coals.

Shortly before four they announced that we could return to our rooms as the hotel had been aired out. The rumor at that time was that one of the guests on the 2nd floor had released some sort of chemical. Apparently there was a big rap concert in town that night, and lots of dubious characters had flocked into town. There were several arrests (earlier than our incident), and they thought this was connected.

We wearily settled back into our beds, and just after I got to sleep again, the phone rang. It was the management making sure that we had turned off our air conditioner so we wouldn't get any circulated air into our room. Thanks!!

Needless to say, we weren't all that rested the next morning. Further questioning elicited the fact that the problem had been a truck parked next to the hotel that had been leaking ammonia. Since ammonia is very light it had risen and been sucked into the vents at the top of the hotel, causing problems in the upper rooms first. They asked the truck to move (duh!)

The only good thing that came out of this is that the hotel did not charge us for the night - so we stayed there for free. Not only that, but this is probably a story that we will talk about for years!