1st Choice Inn – 1904 E. Cedar St., Rawlins WY 82301 ($59.35 (inclu. tax) for a non-smoking room with two full beds; NB: with a coupon from a travel magazine we picked up at a rest stop).
At about 3:00 today Kory and I realized that we had had it with SLC. After an early dinner, we got in our Rav4 and headed toward Wyoming. We weren’t quite sure where we would end up, but were ready for a mini-adventure. During our drive through Wyoming, we decided to spend the night in Rawlins simply because it was the town at the end of our tolerance for driving. Earlier, we had picked up a brochure on lodging in Wyoming and it conveniently had a coupon for a hotel in Rawlins called the 1st Choice Inn. We called the hotel from the road and a ditzy, but friendly, girl named Kristina told us to hurry because there were only 8 rooms left! I advised her that we were 3 hours away and asked her if she could hold a room for us. I was ready to give her my credit card information to guarantee the room, but she curtailed that by simply asking: “how sure are you that you’ll be here tonight?” Apparently, I convinced her that our intentions were sincere — when we arrived at the motel at a little after 10:00 pm, she had a room waiting for us. After telling us that her OB/GYN was 90 miles away, she gave us the key to an inexpensive, but very acceptable, room. A clean room. Cleanliness is all I ask for when I am on fishing trips with Kory. I love the way people in small towns talk about their lives to perfect strangers as though it were the most normal thing in the world. After a long drive through Wyoming, I’m always entertained by a story about how difficult it is to get to your OB/GYN if you live in Rawlins, Wyoming. Part of the adventure. In any event, I am happy here in this cheap (but clean) room, in this tiny, strange town, drinking Limencello’s with my fiance who is adroitly planning tomorrow’s fishing adventure…. Infinitely better than another boring night in SLC with only Tim the mouse-decapitating-cat for entertainment!