Dizzy with anticipation, he drives the car under log beams that look as if they defined the word “lodge.”

There’s a lot of hype over a planned weekend away. We say goodbye to our normal routine and our little ones who will gorge themselves on grandparental spoils. For a few days we sleep. Actually sleep, until we cannot sleep anymore. We eat when we please, like breakfast at 10:30 a.m. and without dropping platefuls of food on restaurant floors; we speak full sentences in an absence of tugs on our pants or burps in our ears. We do, what we want. 

My cheeks were still cold from walking in. “Just two,” I told the long blonde hair in glasses at the counter. I wanted to add, Can I tell you we’ve left three of us at home, on purpose? 

“OK, I have you in a King, Mountain View, for two nights.”
Pinch. Me. “Yes.”

Our room key was an actual key and much more charming than the bright, blue, accordion ribbon attached as a bracelet. My knee-high boots clanked on hardwood through the lobby with a roaring fireplace and a view so other-worldly I couldn’t soak it in enough. It was the same view out the wood slatted shutters in our room.

“Where should we eat?”
Anywhere. Everywhere. Twice. “Let me check Tripadvisor,” I said, pulling out my phone with finger smudges. 

Oh, Tripadvisor. We have become quite close the two of us. You should really be named something much more honorable like, Salvation Reviews or, What Not to Eat or simply, My Precious Guide for not Picking the Jamaican Dive Who Will be Out of Business the Next Time I Visit that Serves Pasta (?) Under Green and Black and Yellow Lights and Sees the Same Two Patrons Every Night at the Bar. You know, something like that.

We wanted something a little more…digestive, if you will.

Deciding to opt out of Rasta Pasta, we picked a highly acclaimed burger place. Our hands reached out over a speckled concrete bar and we relaxed with a Tequila and cinnamon hot chocolate, which the waitress recommended and I, do not.

All was hunky dory. We were dancing, romancing, financing.

Later, when I ignored the clock and drifted to sleep I could feel cold hit my neck, so I pulled up the covers. I tossed and drifted and still, the chill. I grabbed the extra blanket and settled back in. But there it was again, sneaking it’s way to my core.
This stupid blanket, I thought. It isn’t cozy. It’s like Berber carpet. How am I supposed to wrap carpet around my shoulders?
I looked to the other side of the bed.
And how can he be sleeping so soundly in this icebox? Doesn’t he feel the wind as it literally whistles through the windows?
I warmed only with anger.

Fifty. Five. Degrees. That’s what the thermostat told us by morning.  

“Hey, has anyone ever complained about the heating in room One-Oh-Eight?” Chase asked the morning shift. So respectful. It was good that he was taking care of the situation. I wouldn’t have phrased things in quite the same manner. 
“Yes actually.” I think he was shaking a little. I felt sorry for him. A little. “The mechanic is on his way. We’re having trouble with the whole first floor system.” He looked out the front door more than once. Poor chap. 

Breakfast was cold. Brushing our teeth was cold. Dressing was cold. My heart was growing cold.

We spent the day like the tourists we were. We walked through homes from the 1800’s, learned the influence of a slave and a naturalist. We had lunch by a rowdy group of college students who knew everything, were phased by nothing, and talked like surfers. We ordered coffee, watched the sun slide behind ski runs, and compared the different snow suits we liked. Until it was time to head back to our room.

Please, for the sake of that dear, scared boy in the lobby, let the heat be on.

Fifty. Five. Degrees.

Oh. Oh my stars. And freaking garters.

The mechanic was called. “Well we got the heat working this morning but I’ll take a look,” he said. With his digital thermostat he checked the numbers by the floorboards. “Wow, it’s over a hundred degrees on this side. It’s working but sometimes these older systems take a while so give it about an hour and it should be better.” Old system, makes sense. I’m still skeptical. 

Two hours later, Fifty. Nine. Degrees.

I was marching at this point. Knees to my chest, jaw jutted, marching.

“Our room is at fifty-nine degrees and I want some serious compensation for this.”

If I were camping? No problem. I’d expect to be that cold. Colder, in fact. But for what we were paying, no. Nuh-uh.

“Absolutely. I can definitely get you one night comp’d if not two. For now, let me get you a couple space heaters.” 
“Thank you very much.” And they better work.

 This is marriage. We plan, we form expectations. We don’t just vow to love and cherish, we vow not to do marriage the way our parents did. We promise that no matter what, we’ll work it out. We anticipate that the years will hold arguments, hard days, sure. But nothing can break the bond we have formed. We’ll do it right.

Until the room gets cold and the repairs aren’t working. All of a sudden it’s not so hard to see why someone would want to move to another floor find a nicer hotel.

We woke up on the last morning warm. Hot, even. In our haste to have heat we had turned up the knobs a little much. 
We stayed until there was a solution. One that included an apology, a refund, and a will to try something else. Something, that worked. 

Our weekend didn’t go as we thought. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth it. And if we hadn’t stuck it out, we wouldn’t have known that it could get warm again.