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This routine finally showed its ill-affects three months into the tour when we landed for a week’s stay at the University in Greensboro North Carolina. I had been pretty much doped up as we made our way back east from California (or was it Texas?) We landed in Greensboro early afternoon. I was pretty doped up but couldn’t pass up the chance to get ride into town for toiletries and laundry. The bus driver took us to the nearest shopping mall right after we checked into our rooms at a quaint little turn-of-the-century bed & breakfast. We all went our separate ways. I hadn’t the strength for hooking back up for dinner and a movie so I was advised to just call a taxi and it would take me back to the ranch. As I look back now I think it was probably the first time in my life I was left on my own.

I finished my laundry and headed back to bus stop where we had been left off. I remembered there was a phone booth. I opened the phone book and found the listing for the Yellow or Checker Cab Company, put a dime in the slot and dialed.
The operator answered and I requested a taxi.

“What city, please?”

“Uh…what?”

“For what city?”

I didn’t understand what she meant by that! Where was I? I stumbled to get the name of the bed & breakfast out but the only place I could recall staying was Motel 6. But was that in Lubbock or Terra Haute?!

I panicked and hung up the phone. I didn’t know where I was or how I’d gotten there. I was dizzy and sleepy and all I wanted to do was lie down! Luckily the boyfriend of a cast member came walking by and saw the despair on my face. He called the taxi cab and instructed the driver where to take me.

When I was finally in my room I felt such a since of relief and security. It reminded me of someplace I knew very well but had never been: the Shady Rest on Petticoat Junction. It had a big canopy bed with goose down feather pillows and handmade quilts. And a fireplace! I slept knowing that in the morning I would wake up to someone cooking something delicious. And it cost just as much as a Motel 6!

This and other complaints from the company led us to demand that we be booked in more comfortable accommodations. If we were going to go to all these Podunk towns we may as well enjoy some of the local culture.

I’ve traveled the country many times since then and well recall the sameness of place when it comes to chains. Yes, convenient, no surprises. But you never get over the feeling of traveling for hours and hours and feeling like you’re winding up in the same old place.