Winter Road Trip Day 14 (Part 1): La Posada Hotel
Last night we stayed in the historic La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona.
As usual, I worked from about 6:30 to 10:30 (MT) in our room (room 122), pictured here after we'd packed up and were preparing to move out. While the desk was just fine and the wi-fi faster than our home connection, the chairs were hard, hard wood, and even with pillows, I was stiff and sore even after only a few hours work. I'm glad we weren't staying but the one night.
The door at right opens directly onto the patio, which simplified move-in and move-out, but was a little tricky to operate. There was also an interior door to the hotel's hallway.
There was plenty of room for storage in this room, which after our annoying experience at the Holiday Inn Express in Dublin earlier this year was quite welcome.
We had sprung for one of the rooms with a Jacuzzi-style bathtub.
Oddly, the room had an interior window that opened onto the parlor (with blinds for privacy).
There was also plenty of flat space in the bath-shower area, another welcome change from those hotels where the designers seem to forget that people might carry things like soap, shampoo, and razors into the shower with them.
The room was a "split" bathroom with separate sink area from the toilet-shower.
Before we checked out, we went to breakfast in the Turquoise Room.
We had a fairly simple breakfast. They were able to make plain breakfast potatoes not full of green chile peppers, so I had a basic eggs-sausage-potato breakfast while Lisa had sourdough toast. My breakfast came with a couple of small (and delicious) blueberry muffins, which I shared with Kuma Bear.
The restaurant includes a Fred Harvey Room that can be set aside as a private dining area.
A small bar looks rather cozy, even to a non-drinker like me.
After checking out, we wandered around the hotel and grounds.
There's an art gallery on the upper level connecting the two wings of sleeping rooms.
On the ground floor, the main hall has a huge amount of open space with different nooks and crannies in it.
Lisa tried to interest Kuma Bear in a game of chess. Some of the pieces are as large as Kuma is.
The ballroom includes an area set aside as a game room.
Outside features this colonnade.
Spacious grounds include large lawns and a croquet court.
It's a good train-watching spot, as the BNSF mainline is immediately adjacent. As I mentioned yesterday, access to the passenger platforms is via this area, but the platforms are closed except during train time. Unfortunately, this meant that we couldn't go look at the former passenger depot, which is in the process of being converted to an art museum. There is also an ex-Santa Fe dome car beyond the depot, but it's hard to access from the public areas.
I went to use the restroom while Lisa stepped out to the north garden to take things easy.
Here the grounds have walkways in the design of the Santa Fe Railroad logo. Lisa and Kuma soaked in the thin sunshine.
This is only some of the photos that I took today. For the whole thing, see the Flickr Album. It's an extraordinary hotel, but possibly a bit much for us, and it does contain a few elements (like the hard chairs) that don't suit our "use case." But it really is lovely to look at, and I'm glad that we stayed here once. One may have been enough, though, and it was time to move on.
As usual, I worked from about 6:30 to 10:30 (MT) in our room (room 122), pictured here after we'd packed up and were preparing to move out. While the desk was just fine and the wi-fi faster than our home connection, the chairs were hard, hard wood, and even with pillows, I was stiff and sore even after only a few hours work. I'm glad we weren't staying but the one night.
The door at right opens directly onto the patio, which simplified move-in and move-out, but was a little tricky to operate. There was also an interior door to the hotel's hallway.
There was plenty of room for storage in this room, which after our annoying experience at the Holiday Inn Express in Dublin earlier this year was quite welcome.
We had sprung for one of the rooms with a Jacuzzi-style bathtub.
Oddly, the room had an interior window that opened onto the parlor (with blinds for privacy).
There was also plenty of flat space in the bath-shower area, another welcome change from those hotels where the designers seem to forget that people might carry things like soap, shampoo, and razors into the shower with them.
The room was a "split" bathroom with separate sink area from the toilet-shower.
Before we checked out, we went to breakfast in the Turquoise Room.
We had a fairly simple breakfast. They were able to make plain breakfast potatoes not full of green chile peppers, so I had a basic eggs-sausage-potato breakfast while Lisa had sourdough toast. My breakfast came with a couple of small (and delicious) blueberry muffins, which I shared with Kuma Bear.
The restaurant includes a Fred Harvey Room that can be set aside as a private dining area.
A small bar looks rather cozy, even to a non-drinker like me.
After checking out, we wandered around the hotel and grounds.
There's an art gallery on the upper level connecting the two wings of sleeping rooms.
On the ground floor, the main hall has a huge amount of open space with different nooks and crannies in it.
Lisa tried to interest Kuma Bear in a game of chess. Some of the pieces are as large as Kuma is.
The ballroom includes an area set aside as a game room.
Outside features this colonnade.
Spacious grounds include large lawns and a croquet court.
It's a good train-watching spot, as the BNSF mainline is immediately adjacent. As I mentioned yesterday, access to the passenger platforms is via this area, but the platforms are closed except during train time. Unfortunately, this meant that we couldn't go look at the former passenger depot, which is in the process of being converted to an art museum. There is also an ex-Santa Fe dome car beyond the depot, but it's hard to access from the public areas.
I went to use the restroom while Lisa stepped out to the north garden to take things easy.
Here the grounds have walkways in the design of the Santa Fe Railroad logo. Lisa and Kuma soaked in the thin sunshine.
This is only some of the photos that I took today. For the whole thing, see the Flickr Album. It's an extraordinary hotel, but possibly a bit much for us, and it does contain a few elements (like the hard chairs) that don't suit our "use case." But it really is lovely to look at, and I'm glad that we stayed here once. One may have been enough, though, and it was time to move on.