Picture it: your heroine is on yet another business trip.
She exits the airport. It’s February and yet her hair frizzes instantly. Welcome to Texas is the message.
Her dealings require that she stay at a Texas mega resort complex near the airport.
She thinks she will get dinner and a margarita at the property’s Mexican restaurant. Her driver is subtly discouraging of her expressed desire for a margarita.
“You know what’s good there? Breakfast.”
He says it twice. She notices.
Inside at the reception desk, she receives a Texas-sized welcome, as well as an atrium King room. The employee announces the atrium room with such glee that our heroine doesn’t have the heart to object. She squelches the desire to sputter “but…but natural light…it’s so nice!”
The hotel is like a Courtyard except Texas-sized. Using a map, she finds her room. The resort is like Great Wolf Lodge for Adults Convention-Goers. There’s a lazy river.
There are also hundreds, perhaps thousands, of men wandering the property wearing lanyards and name tags in spite of the fact that it’s 8:30 pm and their last seminar ended two hours ago. They are pharma sales reps and franchise owners and middle managers, damn it, and they want you to know that they are official.
In the elevator, a man in a lanyard gave her religious materials. She gave the pamphlet back which he didn’t like. He appears close to cursing at her when the elevator doors finally, mercifully shut between them.
She thinks about dinner. She Googles the Mexican restaurant and remembers the driver, who seemed to have a point. In spite of there being, you know, oodles of great Italian in her lovely home of New York City, she opts for the hotel’s Italian restaurant.
The wine list. Oh the wine list. What to say.
The nicest thing to be said about the food is that the bartender allows our protagonist to order a half portion. She cannot imagine the garlic breath that would have come from a full portion.
She thinks about indulging in the Christmas menu but decides to stick with President’s Day options. (not really)
After dinner, she retreats to her room. Lights flicker from the atrium. She pretends it is lightning. Or a passing police car. Things that one encounters in NYC and in other places with natural light.
Eventually she draws the shades and begins counting the hours. Soon it will be time to return to her beloved NYC.
Until the next trip.
OneChicklette 
If you go slowly and carefully, it will usually fit.
Yes indeed
I’m glad my employer is too poor right now to send us anywhere…
Ha! No white zin for you.
It’s pretty classy that they laminated the menu and everything.
You had an Atrium Room OC!!? OMG, you must be famous and important! I can now say that I know of someone who had an Atrium Room! Ha! These huge facilities totally turn me off. If the food is terrible, who cares that they can serve 1,000 people simultaneously? I love to travel and experience how others live but this monster is soulless. I’m not sure how the concept of bigger is better ever started, but it is for sure a false one. (Don’t tell Texans that – it is sacreligious.) Their attention to important detail is so poor it boarders on ludicrous – Xmas dinner in February. As you pointed out – travel, when done poorly, can be a serious drudge.
Yes! Fortunately some trips are great.
Paul and I are kindred spirits 🙂 It’s the little things.
You would think any state with two cities as cool as Austin and San Antonio would have to be pretty awesome, but no, it’s not.
Truly. Worse? I have to return soon.
Visit in August! It will help to know what hell truly feels like the next time you run into a polar vortex. (source: I’ve lived her my whole life)
Oh I have been to Texas in all months.