We careful made our plans. We decided to stay for two days in Santee Copper, which would give us time to also look around.My husband got on the computer and he found this place that was close to the lake, real close. He gave me the number and told me the decision was mine whether I wanted to book a cabin or a room. I called I asked for a cabin, the voice on the other end asked if I wanted to cook or wanted room service. The voice mentioned that they had a restaurant located on the grounds.
Convinced I took the room, and thought I could relax, just in case my husband caught a fish and was tempted to cook it. In a room we couldn’t do that, okay I thought I felt smart taking no chances. Room service wow, this really is going to be a vacation, I couldn’t wait.
The day we headed down for Santee Cooper, the weather was perfect, we packed loaded the car and headed off. The ride down was fun we talked about the lakes and we enjoyed the scenery and by night fall we were ready to find our room and settle down to get rested up so that in the morning we would be ready to catch the big one, the fish you could go home and brag about, I had my camera ready to snap pictures.
We headed toward the lake both of us very tired; we turned down the road and found the place we would be staying. It was just getting dark out, but it was still light enough to look around. I suddenly felt a bit puzzled, what I was seeing was a run down hotel, with small buildings dotting the property along with trailers that looked deserted and run down. This was the place, my husband and I looked at each other and said maybe it looks worse then what it is. I reminded him the voice on the phone said they reserved the larger room for us; I was sure it looked worse then what it was.
We were told where I room was and with key in hand my husband I stood outside the door for a second we both looked at each other without saying a word. He placed the key in the lock and turned it, the door opened, he stepped in with me following right behind him. “Let’s leave,” he turned and said to me.
Knowing we were both tired and not knowing where the next place would be, I told him no, we would stay and this would be an adventure and a story we would one day look back and laugh about. When he went out to the car I immediately stripped off the top spreads on the beds, they looked yucky! The sheets looked clean I was grateful for that. I moved the mattress and looked all around for creatures. I could see that the room wasn’t cleaned there was a pile of junk between the bed and the wall including dead moths and beetles. It’s only for one night I told myself, pretend you are camping.
I used the bathroom which was just old, it could have been worse, but then I smelled it. What the heck, I thought and then realized it was coming from the water that I had turned on to wash my hands. It smelled like excuse the expression “farts”. There was no way I was going to take a shower, brushing my teeth I did with a one of the bottles of water that we had brought along.
My husband went out to the car to get another bottle of water and as he opened the door every flying bug that was out there came in. They were flying about and we were smacking them against the walls and then I was sitting in the middle of the bed with the sheet pulled over me smacking them on the bed. .The one corner on the bottom of the bed looked like a graveyard for the bugs that I was hitting all night. We had slept (barely) all night with the bright lights on. That’s right, on the ceiling there was two sets of industrial fluorescent light fixtures that had at least three lights in each.
In the morning we left early to go fishing knowing there was no way we would stay there another night. Fishing was great my husband caught more then a dozen fish, and cat fish are pretty big. Our fishing trip turned out great! The fishing guide was wonderful we had so much fun. Later when we came back we decide to use the room to go to the bathroom and then check out.
Reluctantly we entered the room, the beds were made the dead bugs that we smashed the night before that flew in were still on the walls. I picked up the corner of the bedspread and there before my eyes the bug graveyard remained intact. Shivers went down my spine, my husband and I left and found another place to stay the night and when we talk about out fishing trip we somehow manage to joke about the room from hell.
