Baymont by Wyndham (Greensboro, North Carolina)
As I started to walk down the hallway to my room for the first time, I began to realize that I had never walked down a hall this long, and it was also going downhill. I said to myself, “I’ve only walked in hallways like this in my nightmares.”
The picture above is not an optical illusion. No mirrors at the end of the hall, or I would be showing in the photo. The hallway actually drops (or rises depending upon which way you are walking along it).
When I went outside to my car, I looked at this motel building. It is actually built going down a hill. There was no attempt to bring in a bunch of soil to build on level ground. Fortunately the rooms are level, but how odd to walk past three rooms and then have the hallway drop, no steps, the floor just slants (undulates), and do this all the way down the hall. Great exercise in the morning when you are walking up the hall to the free breakfast. *But, this hallway just screams that whomever built this building was “half assed” about it. You just wouldn’t be this slack an architect. **The AI just gave me the justification for my thinking that this long hallway, with the undulating floor, was odd. It provides problems for accessibility.
I did like the lighted bathroom mirror, and it might have even been heated in the center because when I was taking a bath, I noted that the mirror was foggy except for a rectangle in the center of the mirror.
I realized that I had forgotten two things. One was a brush for my hair, after I showered. I had one in the car, but still, I used to think ahead and include a tooth brush, and tooth paste, a brush for my hair and maybe even a few cotton swabs for my ears to get the water out. I had noted on the WRAL weather report that it was supposed to turn cooler on Tuesday evening, so I had brought along a long pair of pants and a bright yellow/green long sleeved work shirt (they’re cheap at Walmart – about @$8. But, what I hadn’t done was bring another short sleeved shirt (like what I was wearing when I left home) for the next day, and I could tell while going up for breakfast, and watching the morning news, that it was going to be a hot day. *I thought it odd that there was nothing showing the WIFI password in my room. Only a week later, at home, as I was about to throw away the key card, did I notice the WIFI password written on the sleeve of the key card. Ha!
I wanted to detour to Gibsonville (I’ve been before.) but stay on Hwy. 70 and not go via I40. After trying to fight the AI, which was acting super stupid that morning… “No, I said Gibsonville, not Gibson… not Gibsonvale, Gibsonville.” I’m not making that up, and it kept starting me somewhere in Missouri, not in Greensboro, where I was sitting outside the motel in my car. I finally just stuck the AI up my ass, and manually looked at the map on my phone to navigate to Hwy. 70. I stopped in back of a funeral home one time to get my bearings. There appeared to be a Seniors high rise apartment building across the street from the funeral home. How convenient.
A short time later, and a few blocks over, I drove around a small insurance agency building (the building was small, although the agency might have been small also), on the corner of some street to get on Hwy. 70. *How odd. I see from Google Maps that this appears to be both an insurance agency, and a coffee shop. Cafégency Insurance Organic Bean Coffeehouse.
This was all near a hospital. I don’t recall if that was Moses-Cone, but I did pass between Moses-Cone, and thought that this was where Debbie had spent a good deal of her work life… and I hoped she still wasn’t having to work at age 70+. *And yes, this was Moses-Cone, I just checked on Google Maps.
Gibsonville has the intricate model train layout, “the Gibsonville Garden Railroad,” which I see appears to be, weather permitting (no rain, or fog, or wind, or too hot), run on each Saturday – April to December.
I decided to stop at a Walmart in Burlington, North Carolina to get a short sleeved bright yellow/green work shirt and put that in my phone’s GPS. What did I find in Walmart? Well, I found the shirt I was looking for and it was only $4+. I did the self-checkout, went into the bathroom up front, and changed shirts, and put the long-sleeved shirt I had been wearing in the Walmart bag with the ripped off new shirt tags, and walked out of Walmart wearing my new L(arge) short-sleeved shirt. Comfortable in the warming air.
*A note regarding how things used to be, and how nice they are now. When you were planning on going out of town for a day or more you had to contact the motel several days in advance, and get a reservation. And this was normally done by a secretary. You would also have to go to the front desk when checking out to officially check out. I can now wait until just a few hours before arrival, the same day, and reserve a room online (as long as they are available). Also, I don’t think I would have been able, as easily as I did, to buy a new shirt, for a great price, put it on in the store and walk out comfortable. *I even looked at some magnifying glasses, and setups, with the idea that the next time I lose a screw in my eye glasses, I want a magnifier, with a stand to be able to try and fix this problem myself (as I have in the past, but was close to going to the eye glass store in Walmart to have them replace the screw). My hand isn’t steady and depending upon the glasses that are still working I may not be able to see as clearly to fix the problem (“thread the needle successfully).
The free breakfast had a Belgian waffle maker, but the batter ran out for me so I almost had half a waffle. I took this as a sign that I only needed to eat half a waffle. I’m not sure if there was any sugar free syrup, because neither container was labeled. The orange juice was good. The yogurt was good, but I ended up putting syrup in the yogurt because there was no fruit. The coffee was okay and I poured some milk in because there was no creamer.
The T.V. was large and eventually I figured out how to jump from section to section. Not sure if they had HBO but I don’t think I found it. The room didn’t have a microwave, so I put the bag of un-popped popcorn I had brought back into my bag.
The air conditioner/heater was easy to use and I turned the heat mode on for a while as I prepared to take my morning shower. As if I have an evening shower too,… I don’t.
I was in Room 143, and the key card worked for the room and the outside doors. I figured out where my room was located and ended up parking my car right beside my bed. I also found the far entrance and parked near it so that I didn’t have to walk a long way down the scary hallway.
Before finding the motel, I first stopped by Whole Foods to buy some liquid Stevia sweetener, and some peach tea. I had seen a 2 oz. bottle of the Stevia online, but they only had an 8 oz. bottle on the shelf, and it was $20, but I put it in the basket anyway. They didn’t have any of the tea, so I found the nearby Harris Teeter, in the same “high end” shopping center, and got some sugar free cranberry drink.
I then went to “Sticks-n-Stones” and ordered a ‘to go’ “To Be the One” Margherita Style Pizza with fresh jalapenos. What’s that? Mozzarella, tomato sauce and some basil. I ate the whole thing in the bed, in my motel room. *I was almost able to create my Bill’s Drink on the road, but I didn’t have any orange juice, until the next morning and I added a little OJ from the Continental breakfast to my drink bottle.
I’m an old man, and I realized that staying in a motel room was no longer a pleasant experience, even if it was otherwise a comfortable room. It may be the Type 2 diabetes that make my feet sore when walking on a hard floor. My toes are stiff (this is not a new thing), and I can tell I’ve lost some feeling in both of them.
My day out of Fayetteville started by stopping at “Chappell Peaches” and buying a small bag of peaches (my second this season). I also took a free paperback book from a table, Frank Herbert’s “Dune Messiah,” to leave at some LLL. I recalled that I had left a Michael Connelly, “Bosch” novel with a girl at the stand, last year.
*I just gave this book to a teller at the First Citizens Bank. She was the one that had the three stars tattooed on her hand (Harry Potter ref.).
I bought a bag of “Desiree” peaches on my first visit and “Summer Prince” on this visit. *I took some of the Summer Prince peaches over and left them for the Hendricks.
I then headed up Hwy. 220 to Asheboro and ate lunch at No. 1 China Buffet. As I walked in, I saw a sign that lunch on Tuesday was Senior Day. The difference in lunch buffet price was about $3 less. I ended up paying about $12 total, some for a tip.
After lunch I went for a short visit to the Public Library and browsed through a “My Mexican Kitchen” Cookbook by Eva Longoria. The image below shows a recipe & image of “Corn and Green Chile Soup.” This soup is enhanced with a “Salsa Mancha,” which came to my interest. As I read about Salsa Mancha, I came to realize that it is much like the “Spicy Chili Crisp” that I love to put on all sorts of food. I also used the bathroom, and this time, unlike last, both toilets were not clogged with toilet paper.
I had been planning to drive up to Winston-Salem to drive around for a few hours before heading back to Greensboro for the night, but then I decided to drive around Lexington, North Carolina. I drove down Main St. and then came back. I did some side streets, and at one point ended up in the medical community, which included the hospital.
After spending the night at the Baymont in Greensboro, and detouring to Gibsonville, and stopping at the Walmart in Burlington to buy a short-sleeved shirt, I had planned on going on to Raleigh.
I decided not to go to the Raleigh Wegman’s, but asked for the nearest Wegman’s and there were two in Chapel Hill, and the one in Cary that I’ve gone to repeatedly was also an option. I’m glad I took the Wegman’s in north Chapel Hill because it brought me to a surprising place. The GPS said to turn left on Service Rd. and when I neared the stop light, I looked to my left and there was the old Blue Cross – Blue Shield building that has been around for many years. *I see that the construction started in 1970 and was completed in 1973, so it was being built as I was attending Carolina in 1972/3. It was the trapezoid shaped, mostly glass outside building, that hasn’t been BCBS for several years now.
I turned onto Service Rd. and it led me in a snaked path to go past the old BCBS building and then there was the new Wegman’s a short distance away. I parked and went in. The nice thing about Wegman’s in the south, is that they are all pretty much laid out the same. The one key difference is that the self-checkout section is laid out in different patterns, and I think I’ve seen 3 distinct layouts. *I even made the mistake once of saying to a store employee that, “I see you’ve gone back to your old layout,” to which they replied, “No, it’s always been this way.” And then I realized that I had been in a different Wegman’s
But the bread section, and the cheese section and the deli meats section are all pretty much the same wherever you go. I bought some small red cherry tomatoes (Flavor Bombs) and later, for lunch had several with some salt and they were delicious.
There was no Hillshire Farms Pastrami, so the “friendly” butcher cut me half a pound of Wegman’s brand, and even let me try a slice of “smoked pastrami” which was delicious. I also bought a block of sliced Wegman’s White American Cheese (I love the Wegman’s flavor, better than HT.) for $3 exactly. *I pulled the plastic cheese bag out of my trash to check, and yes, the price was exactly $3. I had already put a Ciabatta Roll and a Pumpernickel Bagel in separate bags.
I think I bought a few cans of cheap beans (some as cheap as 79 cents a can), and went looking for Wegman’s Sugar Free Peach Tea. It ended up that it wasn’t the Wegman’s brand (if there is a peach tea they make) but I found the other that I liked with help from a woman staffer.
I also picked up a 2 lbs. package of bright red strawberries for a good price (under $5). *I left them out on my dining table and this morning I see where two or three of the strawberries have already started to grow white mold. I put them in the fridge.
I used my box cutter pen to slice around the outer edge of my Ciabatta Roll, and then pried it open. I put some pastrami on it and a couple of slices of the Wegman’s White American Cheese. I didn’t have any Dukes Mayo, but it was still a very pleasing sandwich. The mayo would have kicked it up a notch, but it still gave me the satisfaction of thinking that “this is a really good tasting sandwich, that I just made myself, in my car, sitting in the Wegman’s parking lot.” I had several of the Flavor Bombs cherry tomatoes with some salt, and a few of the strawberries with a little Splenda. All good, as I drank some of the zero sugar Snapple Peach Tea from my Rainbow aluminum coffee mug.
After lunch I left heading to Raleigh and wanted to stop by the State Farmers’ Market. I didn’t even need the GPS because the I40 road signs directed me into the two left lanes for the State Farmers’ Market. I normally take the right to go to Wade Ave. and Whole Foods.
There were no peppers yet but I did buy several types of squash (small white & small yellow patty pan squash, and small zucchini). I think I’m going to look for a squash casserole dish online maybe with some Panko bread crumbs and some grated parmesan cheese.
NOTE [06/12/25]: I weighed 250.2 lbs. this morning which is the highest I’ve weighed in a long time. But, after I thought about it, I ate a bunch of calories yesterday, including the Ciabatta Roll sandwich at lunch, and then made a Pastrami Reuben at home for dinner. Those are special, and I consider fixing & eating them “an event.” This Reuben has melted butter on the outside slices of seeded rye bread, and melted cheese on the inside of both slices. It has a few calories in the homemade Thousand Island Dressing, even though I substituted some Plain Greek Yogurt for some Duke’s Mayo. And then the Pastrami has a lot of fat and sodium.
I used a small 8 oz. can of Silver Floss Sauerkraut for the sandwich and the sauerkraut side dish. [end NOTE]
Bill Gibson, II 