Necessary Roughness

When I booked this hotel, I was quite surprised that I wasn’t able to book something in Shreveport or Bossier City, which is much closer to the Halliburton facility in Bossier City. Saturday is an air show at Barksdale AFB, so perhaps there is a lot of tourist interest due to that.

I got a room that was standard-sized for a king room. Exercise room wasn’t much, but it’s enough for simple calisthenics. The refrigerator was a full half-height, and the freezer within kept TV dinners well frozen. The microwave was small but still large enough for said dinners. The television had all the standard channels, even the History Channel, but the cable went out Wednesday night. It was back on early Thursday morning. Air conditioning and heating were handled by a standard window unit.

Connectivity worked very well except for Wednesday night also. Each room has Ethernet and wireless access. The speed is quite good. The desk had lots of real estate, and the roller chair could lean back. There were plenty of plug-ins for all my chargers.

The bed and the pillow were quite uncomfortable. Several nights I couldn’t get to sleep until after 1am. Wednesday night I had neck pain from the pillows, so I had to take a Motrin to go to sleep.

The bathroom was average-sized, with the sink inside the bathroom. The bath and shower were standard Holiday Inn Express with the adjustable shower spray. A full-length mirror was positioned opposite the bathroom door, so if one was sitting on the toilet one could see themselves in the mirror. I had to shut the door.

This Express had the standard Smart breakfast. They have an outdoor pool, but no fitness room. One of the staff suggsted I do laps around the parking lot to get my walking in. This was fine except for Tuesday’s 90 degrees and high humidity at 7pm.

Laundry service was good. There was a little bit of soap smell on the clothes, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the laundry in Fort Smith. They followed my directions and didn’t press my jeans. Even though they offered on their form to fold clothes instead of hang, when I asked for that, they hung everything. They didn’t affix laundry tags on each article, so that was convenient.

The hotel has two exits and one entrance due to its funky position near a highway off-ramp. At the bottom of the entrance is a bump, but I didn’t scrape my rental on it. The parking is sufficient, but if the staff expects people to walk they should put sidewalk all the way around the building. I saw rain more days than not. The hotel is actually somewhat distant from the town of Minden itself; I drove about 3 miles towards civilization and a Walmart.

The staff was inexperienced, but the manager was quite capable and always teaching. They’ll improve. The distance and the bed are impediments to my staying here again. The price was nominal for an Express: $67/night.

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