My plane was late landing in Nashville, and they couldn’t find me the right rental car. Gone midnight by the time I made it to the Gaylord Massif otherwise known as Opryland–a hotel so far bigger than necessary that it surely encompassed its own zip code–along with a strangely enormous human terranium inside.
I’d had the presence of mind to catch a liquor store before they all closed, and grabbed a six-pack of the only tonic that would quench my thirst, a similarly Disney-esque experience of a beer, the Blue Moon (as brought to you by Coors–no, Molson Coors now).
The clerk apologized. “We have nothing but a room that’s normally used to connect two suites. It has a sofa bed.” Otherwise, another hotel…with my confirmed reservation prepaid!
The sofa bed sat smack in the middle of the spacious room, like a life raft adrift in a sea of chintz. Ah well…I had my $150 spa credit to soothe me, and a single mandarin orange to slice and float in my Blue Moon.
In the orange glow of the Opryland hotel suite light