Anyone Know How to Work Dial-Up Anymore?

Save this image in your mind, for it's part two of the story and got deleted somehow.


We're in Bar Harbor, ME for the week while Den attends a conference. This is the first business trip we've gotten to go on with him since FLA last Sept. (you may recall Oct. was the month of Chicken Pox, right after our return home).

Den booked us in the conference hotel, the Atlantic Oakes, pictured here with the wood shingles on the outside. Their website was somewhat lacking in photos and information, promising only ocean views from every room, but we were still optimistic--I had visions of room service with Eddie on the nights that Dennis had to work and Eddie playing with the stones on their pebble beach. As you can see from the picture, rustic would be a good descriptor.

They had tried to do some updating--a new countertop and sink, newer furniture (inside anyway), but it couldn't hide the fact that this place had seen better days. And those days were a long time ago--in the days of shag carpet.

After check in, we tried to remain positive, afterall, Den would have the convenience of the conference hotel, and we did in fact have a nice view of the ocean from our room. It was about a mile from downtown. You can see the inside of the hotel, below. Now to be fair, this is after we had checked out, so the beds were made nicely when we checked in. Between each hitting our heads on the grab bar of the bathtub while bathing Eddie to the ant trap under the room refrigerator, the deal-sealer was when we discovered there was only dial-up internet. Five nights of dial-up when we had both planned to do work -- was more than we could handle.

Anyone who knows Den knows he is not one to change his mind, so I was shocked that he was even interested in switching hotels. While he put Eddie to bed, I did some research (thank goodness we brought the AAA book on Maine) and found hotels with high-speed internet in their listings (I know this sounds bad, but seriously, it would have been a whole week before I'd be able to post again to the blog). Two hotels looked promising and had rooms available, so we decided to check out and visit them the next day. By the way, Den will likely insist it was also the noise from the balconies above and that it took almost 1.5 hours to get Eddie to settle into bed that caused him to want to switch.


This is the room of the 'new' hotel we are staying in. The first picture is the exterior. Granted, the room is not mussed by a night's stay, but it is SOOO much nicer. Besides high speed internet, and day light coming through the windows, it is head and shoulders above the other place. The view is of the swimming pool, but we are barely a stone's throw from downtown--within walking distance of basically everything except the conference.

And the kicker is that this room is almost $20 cheaper than the other one. While it has youth on it's side--only 3 years old, the staff really treated us well, were friendlier and we didn't have to get in the car to go to dinner.

I'll submit another report if Eddie doesn't tucker me out too much tomorrow while Den plies his wares. Will have to post pictures of Eddie in transit and of his new mini-pack and play (fraction of the size and weight).