Please don't make me sleep in that bed

After spending a couple of days with my brother and his family, we drove to Carlsbad, NM. But if you've never been to West Texas, let me just give you a tour of what you're missing.


On the road from El Paso to Carlsbad, you see miles and miles and, well, miles of desert. We did see this animal. I'm not an expert in wildlife, so I'm not sure if that's an antelope, elk, deer or a buffalo? I'm kidding, I know for sure it's not a buffalo, I'm not really sure what it was. It was on the side of the road trying to find some food in that desert land. We drove some more and we saw this. What would you call them, mountains or hills of dirt with weeds growing on them?

But wait! I think I see something other than dirt. Yes, it's some sort of rock formations.

And look! We even have some mountains. The Guadalupe Mountains to be exact.

Let's take a closer look shall we? They are pretty neat to see. To know that our God created all of that is amazing.

Now you know what the back road from TX to NM looks like.

We arrive at our destination. We had reservations, but the nice people (I say that with a hint of sarcasm) wouldn't let anyone check in until 4pm. So we waited with a bunch of other people, who were also hot and cranky, in the cool gift shop.

When we had decided to take the boys to the the Caverns, we decided to stay here. I had looked at the pictures, read what they had and decided that it would be a nice place to stay at. It was up the road from the Caverns, it had a water park for the boys to play at, there was a restaurant there, what more could we want.

Well, we finally formed a line at 3:55 in order to check into our rooms. Our plans were to get in the room, get in our swimsuits and go to the water park. We get our room key and drive over to where our room is located.

When I used to travel, I used to carry my own sheet and pillow and blanket because the thought of sleeping on something that was unsanitary just didn't appeal to me. Now that I have kids, we carry our pillows and some blankets.

When we got in the room, I had this weird feeling. I went straight for the bed that I was going to sleep in and pulled back the covers. I gagged. Now bear with me because I'm going to describe what I saw. If you are grossed out already, then skip over this. I have never stayed in a hotel room that was this nasty. I saw some dried mucous on the sheets and the pillow cases. Then there was some dried blood on the the pillow cases as well. I walk over to the other bed and find hairs all over that one. I told Hubster that we couldn't stay there. He said he was going to call the front desk. AB said, "well, you need to tell them that there's a problem with the shower." Since we hadn't taken showers yet, I couldn't understand what the problem was. I walk in there and find a used rag draped over the shower head in the shower and the sewer seemed to have backed up into the tub. Hubster was talking to the front desk and they said they would send housekeeping and maintenance over. I really don't think that would have helped us at that moment.

At this point, we are totally disgusted. We decide to go stand in line again and get our money back. We got our money back and went into town to look for another hotel. When we did find one, we looked the sheets over, as well as the bathroom. Everything was cool.

We assumed that the same people that owned the nasty place owned the caverns and since we were already thoroughly disgusted, we didn't even go near the caverns. I'm sure they were fine, but we weren't going to go through that again.

So next time you stay in a hotel, don't just go by the pictures, inspect the sheets first. You just never know what you might find. Or better yet, carry your own sheets.