Friday the 13th...The Final Chapter / Part II

Our first six months of operation were not indicative of the financial struggles that lay ahead. First of all, Julie and I weren’t there to experience the experience; rather, we were relying on three un-supervised inn-keeping novices under the age of 25 to manage our life savings. The business still had a decent amount of money in the bank, and Julie and I both still had jobs and incomes. I’d sit down monthly to pay bills and payroll for the distant business without feeling much of a sting; I went along as happily as if I had good sense.

Things started to get a little hinky when we hired the previously-mentioned bar-tender/building contractor to redo our living quarters. Again, this was an instance of me ignoring the fact that I was all but being beat to within an inch of my life by red flags, as prior to engaging Irish Car Bomb Bob the Builder to tackle the big job of renovating our quarters, I hired him to redo our walk-in cooler that the State Department of Health mandated be redone. That job went 40% over budget and took two weeks longer to complete than promised; yet armed with this knowledge, I went ahead and rehired Farson & McBytemee for the living quarters. Their proposal seemed sound, and while at the high end of what we could afford, the numbers still fell within my worst-case budget for the project. There was one important little fact that the contractors held from us in their proposal; a fact that would play heavily into the project taking five weeks longer to complete than promised.

In fact, Farson & McBytemee, while tackling the Riverside renovation, were also in the midst of building a competing bar and restaurant in neighboring Tabernash, CO – their bar and restaurant. The plan was for them to have their place, The Tabernash Tavern, open by Memorial Day weekend, 2008 – the same Memorial Day weekend that Julie and I had intended to take up residence in our new living quarters, so we could manage our first, busy, sold out holiday weekend on site. This didn’t happen, as I’m strongly supposing that any extra of F&McB’s workers, time and efforts went to meet their restaurants deadlines; the fact that July 4th was the first night we were able to spend in our bedroom tells me my supposition is more than just such. I wouldn’t dare either insinuate that the 25% overage they hit us with in labor and materials would have been due to any bad accounting or misallocated costs from their restaurant project. Why, only a thief or a crook would do something like that, and there certainly weren’t any of those in Grand County that hadn’t already been signed on to work at the local bank.

That first night sleeping in our new bedroom opened my eyes to another issue that I’d never considered before buying a hotel, bar and restaurant, and had I considered it and given it the necessary due diligence, no way would I have pulled the trigger on the purchase; that issue was vomit. Those that know me well know that I would rather face a pack of hungry lions while wearing rib-eye underwear than deal with vomit; the only possible thing worse than dealing with a vomiting human would be dealing with a vomiting tarantula. Oh Lord, let us not go there.

The restaurant was busy, and the hotel was sold out on this Grand County 4th of July night. Fortunately all of the diners and hotel guests ate early, and all but one couple departed for the fireworks extravaganza at Grand Lake – a good 45 minute drive from the Riverside. This would be the first time since moving to the hotel 10 days earlier that I would be able to sit quietly in the lobby and enjoy a cocktail in peace, as the couple that remained went quietly to their room. They were the last to check in that evening, not having a reservation and taking our only available room. When I was showing the gentleman the room, he asked if we had an elevator, as he told me his wife wasn’t in good shape and would be unable to go up and down the steps. When I said no, I felt certain that he would leave and I wouldn’t see any more of him; but I was wrong. A few minutes later, his wife and he were standing in the lobby, asking to check in; they’d flown to Denver from Kentucky that morning, driven through Rocky Mountain National Park, over the 11,000 foot summit of Trail Ridge Road, and were hungry, tired and ready to settle in, stairs or no stairs. His wife, who was 60-ish and not able to wear slim dresses, felt that she could make it up and down the stairs, although she was admittedly having a difficult time breathing, she felt, due to the altitude. She had me just a little worried.

Our visitors from Kentucky were the last to be seated for dinner, and after getting over the crankiness that often comes with traveling, they seemed to begin enjoying themselves and The Riverside. The wife had our Pan-seared Scallops w/Asparagus Tips in a Buerre Blanc sauce, while the husband enjoyed Prime Rib, with both enjoying a bottle of Riesling then desserts; a $100 restaurant tab on top of an $80 room rental that I didn’t think I’d get for the evening. Off they went to bed, off everyone else went to the fireworks and off I went to my quiet lobby and cold martini. Even Julie had decided to pack it in early, anxious for a rest in our own king-size bed, a bed that had been sitting for 10 days in the unfinished bedroom of the unfinished living quarters.

I had less than an hour of uninterrupted bliss, when the guest from Kentucky appeared in the lobby with a concerned look on his face.

“Can I help you?” I asked with a smile that tried to hide what I really wanted to ask – “what in the hell are you doing down here disturbing my peace???”

“Your scallops have made my wife sick. She’s thrown up all over the bedroom. Can you call 911?”

“Oh My God!” I thought, “I forgot about vomit. How in the hell could I have forgotten about vomit? Who in the hell is going to clean up the vomit?? There’s no way I can clean up the vomit! I doubt I’ll ever even be able to go upstairs again, let alone clean up the damn vomit!”

“You’re serious?” I asked. “You really need me to call 911? I mean, the vomit is about the worst thing that could have happened at this point in my life, but I don’t need 911!”

So I called 911, which will have to come from Granby, some 14 miles away. I stand out in front of the hotel, waiting anxiously for help, hoping the lady doesn’t die in our hotel, but more importantly hoping that she’ll be well enough to help clean up her vomit.

Within 15 minutes that seemed like the proverbial eternity, the ambulance showed and I pointed the Paramedics in the direction of the vomit-filled room. A few minutes later, the two male Paramedics, (there was a third female Paramedic), came down to retrieve the stretcher.

“How is she” I asked.

“Severe altitude sickness”, one answered, “a really bad idea for someone her age, in her shape, to come from sea level to 11,000 feet in an 8-hour period.”

“How bad is the room” I asked, cognitive of my being polite to ask first about the lady before asking about what really concerned me.

“Pretty bad” was the answer.

Pretty bad!!! These guys are used to dealing with all sorts of nasty stuff, and he said ‘Pretty bad’. Oh my God, what awfulness awaits me?

It was another 30 minutes before the ambulance crew started to traverse the stairs with the stretcher that contained our guest. It’s work to slither up and down those stairs with a box of donuts; imagine transporting a human cargo on a 7’, wheeled gurney. My hat’s still off to those dudes, who were making something that I would have considered impossible look easy. Our guest didn’t look well; she was pale, sweating and strapped to the gurney with much needed oxygen being tubed to her nostrils. She gave me a sad look, a faint wave and mouthed “I’m sorry!” I know she felt sick, and worse, badly for me and the situation.

By this time, guests had begun to return from the fireworks and were milling around the front of the darkened hotel. Off went the ambulance, followed by her husband in their rented Ford Taurus; that being followed by $180 that went unpaid for the room and the dinner, half of the latter of which was left behind in the ‘Linda’ room.

When I finished dealing with the guests and locking the place down, and thanking my darling daughter Rachel, to whom I will forever be eternally grateful to for her courage in cleaning up the vomit, I went back to spend my first night in my old bed in my new room. I belive it was 2 AM.

Julie awoke from a deep sleep, to mumble/ask, “how’d things go?”

“Before or after the ambulance left?”

To be continued………..