Great Basin National Park and George gets stuck in the hotel bathroom

Lively day. We started in Ely, Nevada after checking out of the Jailhouse Motel and getting coffee and bagels at a local cafe. By 9:30, George and I headed out of town towards Nevada’s only National Park, Great Basin. It’s a lovely little park that features Wheeler Mountain scenic drive, 10,000 feet into the air. Beautiful. Pictures were snapped and stops were made to survey the beautiful landscape and inhale the scent of desert pines. After Great Basin, our mission was to get to Salt Lake City, where we’ll spend two nights (and George’s birthday tomorrow!). The drive was lovely and fun, with few cars on the rural highways. George taught me the names of all of the songs on the Hamilton soundtrack, which I expect to be quizzed on in the near future. Home2Suites is our new home. When we arrived, there was no one at the reception desk. I waited along with another woman and her 3 year old son, wondering who worked at the hotel. We looked back in the hallway where the manager’s office was and I tried calling the hotel from the lobby. I think I must watch too many true crime shows, because I started to worry that someone made off with the hotel employee. After a long 10 minutes, a woman appeared and explained that she was the only one working today and she had to help another hotel guest with her bags because she had just given birth. All of this was super weird, but George and I shrugged it off and headed to our room. Swimming seemed like a good idea, so George went to the bathroom to change. The bathroom has this pocket door that locks with a cheap plastic thingy. Unfortunately, once George was in there the door wouldn’t open again. I tried from the outside and George from the inside. No luck. I contacted the front desk and the poor woman working alone came up with a key, which when tried, didn’t work. She then got a butter knife out of the kitchenette and got one screw out. The other wouldn’t budge. So the lady went back downstairs to find a screw driver. It took about 10 minutes for her to return, at which point she told us that she’d been in an argument with another guest about how to get George out of the bathroom. The guest wanted to come up to our room to help and the woman wouldn’t give him our room number (thank you). She got the door lock unscrewed and George was freed. Then she comped our room. That was an adventure. We swam. We ate Chinese food. We relaxed. Tomorrow we celebrate George’s 15th birthday!