Why We Will Never Use Expedia Again


We have been traveling a lot more in the past few years, now that the kids are older.  I've used Expedia to book almost everything.  And until this week-end, I was very happy with them.  

A couple of weeks ago we found that we could definitely attend Geowoodstock in Boonsboro MD, over memorial day week-end.  We wanted to camp, but the campgrounds were all full - no surprise.  Memorial day week-end is typically one of the biggest camping week-ends of the year.  So we went online to Expedia, and found a hotel room.

Hotel #1 - The Oak Tree Inn
We booked a room at the Oak Tree Inn in Brunswick.  It was nothing fancy, but it is brand new, and our options were limited, so we booked the room.

Two days before our trip, we received the following email:



This was not really a big deal.  We called, spent 30 minutes on hold, then another 45 minutes with an Expedia rep who upgraded us, at no additional cost to us, to the Hampton Inn in Martinsburg WV.  We love the Hampton Inn. Martinsburg is not where we planned to stay, but it was ok, I could adjust my plans, and it was the same distance, roughly, from Boonsboro.

Hotel #2 - The Hampton Inn
Take note of the itinerary number. That is NOT a reservation number.  It is for expedia - NOT for the Hampton Inn.  We learned that the hard way.  Also note the "your reservation is booked, no need to call".  SO stupid of us to believe that, we should have called!

At about 3:30 on Saturday, we arrive at the Hampton Inn.  When we walk in the door, the desk clerk is screaming into the phone.  The gist of his conversation is that they need to give them refunds, that this hotel has been booked solid for months.  Uh oh.  He slams down the phone, obviously hanging up on whomever he was talking to, and turns to us.  We give him our name, he types into his computer.   He asks if we booked through Expedia or hotels.com, and when we tell him Expedia he, rather rudely, informs us that they have over 30 rooms booked through those companies that they never received the reservations for, and that they reservations could not have been made, because they have been booked solid for months.  They have no room for us.

We call Expedia.  45 minutes on hold, then another two hours on the phone with a representative who has to call the Hampton Inn, then look for another room for us.  This representative refused to look outside of the Martinsburg WV area.  The first hotel she chose for us would not take credit card payments, and did not have a website.  I was concerned.  Since they couldn't take credit card payments, she then found a different hotel for us - the Economy Inn.  We knew nothing about the hotel, but since our current reservations were for the Hampton Inn, we assumed the reservation would be similar, although I was concerned.  I typically like to research our rooms, and this was not a chain we were at all familiar with.  But our options were limited - it was memorial day week-end in an area with several VERY large events occurring at once..  We drive to the Economy Inn.

Hotel #3 - The Economy Inn 

This is the room Expedia booked us.




The pictures do not adequately show the age, and condition.  Everything was stained.  The room was so small that we could not take the bikes off the back of our car and put them in the room with us, and the location was such that we didn't feel safe leaving our bikes locked on the back of our car.  There were people kind of hanging out all around the outsides of the rooms - we got the feeling that some of them probably lived there.  It just didn't feel like an area we really wanted to be in.

Another call to Expedia.  This time it took an hour to get a person on the line, and while we were talking to them, we lost cell service.  So we had to start all over.  ANOTHER hour on hold (45 minutes I believe) and we explain the issue.  

While we're on hold with Expedia, it is getting late, so we start checking our options and calling hotels in nearby Hagerstown.  We finally found a room at the Hilton in Hagerstown - their last available room.  

When we get through to Expedia, we try to explain the issues, but they can't understand why we "cancelled our reservations at the Hampton Inn".  We could not get them to understand that we did NOT cancel our reservations, the Hampton Inn had no record of us ever having reservations!  We finally told him that it didn't matter - we booked our own room - and that we just wanted our money back.

And we were then told we could not get our money back, that the money was paid directly to the Economy Inn.

And that my friends is why we will never, ever, use Expedia again.  We lost half a day, of a two day trip, on the phone and driving out of our way to different hotels, only to end up booking our own room and STILL having to pay for the dump expedia finally booked for us.

A Note About the Hampton Inn - 

On Sunday morning at the hotel where we ended up staying (booked on our own, NOT through Expedia) we met another couple who had the exact same problem- they also arrived at the Hampton Inn  to find that they did not have a reservation, even though Expedia had sent them an email confirming that they did.

I posted pics on twitter, commenting that we either had to stay in this dump (at the time we had probably called 12 different hotels, none of which had vacancies) or drive home.  The Hampton Inn got back to me almost immediately. They wanted details, asked for the email to be forwarded, and apologized repeatedly, and THEY want to see what they can do to make this up to us.  I don't really think this was their fault - it might be a problem with their reservation system not working with Expedia, but it was definitely expedia we were having the problem with.  We're likely to stay in a Hampton Inn in the future - but we will book it ourselves, not through a 3rd party - and we'll call to confirm our reservation before going out the door.



From thrift store painting to menu board


When I bought this painting at the thrift store, I actually intended for it to be a sign for my porch.  But then when I was spring cleaning my kitchen, I decided it would make a great menu board..  I had primed the entire thing off white when it was meant as a sign, but that just made it easier to make it a chalkboard.  I used raft paint on the frame, a deep dark red.  When I sprayed on the chalkboard paint some of the overspray got on the frame - I rubbed it on and added a bit more black craft paint giving it that sort of crafty antiqued look.

I'm really surprised by how much my family loves this.  They all really like knowing what is for dinner each night.  Especially my husband!


Giant Bubble Recipe

A Recipe For Giant Bubble Solution

Replacing The Broken Glass on Our Patio Table -



We have horrible winds here.  One storm picked up our large patio table & smashed it sideways against the deck railing, shattering the glass top.

After looking at a couple of options, I bought a piece of plywood (they cut it to size for me even) and a remnant of linoleum from our local flooring store.

We should have sealed the plywood with an all weather paint first. 

Then we attached the linoleum with contact glue.  The entire project cost me about $35 and took minutes to complete. :-)


-Update-
This held up great for us, for years.  I replaced the chair cushions two more times before we gave the table away and switched to a picnic table here - and that was just because I was tired of recovering the chair cushions.

====================

Around The Farm This Week - May 6th (Building A Goat Playground)


This week we built a goat playground.

The baby goats LOVE it, and play, and sleep, on this most of the day.


I get a lot less done each day - because I spend so much time just watching them play.  :-)
The babies are starting to eat grass now too.

We moved all the goats that are not moms out of this pen.  Horton escaped the pen we put him in, and has been happily living with the horses in their pen.  Piper, who is still pregnant, is in the dog pen on the side of the house (where we have moved all the new moms when they first give birth, to keep an eye on them this year)

Dan and Matt used the skid loader to clean up around the hay troughs and smooth down the ground in a few areas where we had bad ruts - it looks so much better.


We also moved the ducks and chicks out of the garage.  We put them in the back of the goat pen, in a dog kennel, with a pen that has a heat lamp in case they needed it on colder nights.  That lasted for a day.  Then they figured out they could escape the dog kennel and roam the goat pen.  On Day 3 they were wandering around my backyard, and today they are in the peacock pen - they let themselves in and seem happy in there.  At night they appear to go back to their own pen, inside the dog kennel, all by themselves. 


 This week they discovered the little pond in my backyard flower beds, and they love it.  :-)

Dan blocked off part of the chicken coop run, and has put seed down.  I've been watering it, but it has not even sprouted yet.  :-(

I'm REALLY glad I put in a lot of perennials last year.  It's nice to see the rhubarb flourishing, and flowers like the bleeding heart pop up and bloom even though I haven't done a single thing in any of the gardens or flower beds yet this year.  I'm planning to look for plants and bushes at the flea markets on Sunday morning, then I will visit a couple of local markets and greenhouses to fill in some more

The pig pen is ready - but we haven't found pigs at the right price yet.




Around The Farm April 24 2015

So much for my intentions of updating every week.  :-)  It gets BUSY here in the spring! (everything in italics is copied from facebook posts)

We have babies!




Addie had a baby boy yesterday - leaving us with just one pregnant goat (Piper) left this spring. We have 10 baby goats right now - 6 girls, 4 boys.


 

At BSF this week some of the women asked how many baby goats we have now, & I told them I expected more by the time I got home today. Sure enough, another set of boy girl twins. Any time we have a storm come through, if we have goats close to giving birth they usually have babies then. I think it has something to do with the air pressure change. I don't know what it is exactly, but I do know we have had babies born with every storm in the past week

 


We got a llama!!

Statements normal people probably do not utter - "I'm running late, I can either feed you guys or feed the llama, I don't have time for both." (I made supper, Dan fed the llama)

We've been looking for a llama for awhile now. We've had a few others watching for us too - we wanted a really friendly one.  You can't get more friendly than Barnaby!  He comes running when we drive up the lane, and waits at the fence for us to come pet and fuss over him.  He's super, super soft too. 




Meet Peabody the 2nd

I found a gorgeous, older, peacock at the Middleburg livestock auction today, & was prepared to pay a ridiculous amount of money for him. I won't even tell you how much - just know it was a truly ridiculous amount. (I don't care for jewelry, I'd rather have livestock & amusing poultry) And yet I was still outbid. The kicker? After they outbid me, they commented that they didn't know where they were going to put him, they guessed they would have to move some chickens. I have a backyard landscaped around a zoo sized peacock pen, and a female peahen here - but they spent all that money and don't even know where they are going to put him. Life is so not fair.

Then a few hours later:

So Dan found me peacocks. smile emoticon I'm going with "because he really loves me", but it may be that he found out what I almost spent today & decided to make sure that didn't happen again.

And

He rode home in the car, on my lap, because it was how I thought he would be safest. We passed a truck driver, and I think he almost wrecked his truck after he looked down into our car... Peabody on my lap, tail over the console and back across the folded down back seats...My life is just plain weird. But it's never, ever, dull. (Sometimes I pray for a little dull. Just a little.)

I went to Middleburg this week - 

Every Tuesday there is a livestock auction in Middleburg.  They have the largest weekly poultry sale that I am aware of, in this area.  I went looking for a peacock, guineas, and silkies.  I came home with Lavendar Guineas, and a silkie with 6 babies.  



I had forgotten how noisy guineas are.  :-)

(We have 5 of them - at least one is a girl)

The Cows
We're down to just the three cows (2 steers and 1 cow technically) - we sold those black ones that we simply could not keep fenced.  They were angus limousine cross, which apparently is one of the worst breeds - VERY high strung.  The one almost broke a wall, and the auctioneer hid from her, at the sale.  I'm so relieved they are gone!


 This cow isn't ours - it belongs to our neighbors.  I love her.  Dan won't let me have longhorns, and I've never seen another breed with this coloring.


Dan and the boys took down the fence on the center island here, and rebuilt it.  It looks so much nicer!
Right now we have the billy goat in there, along with the goats that are not pregnant this year.  That freed up the goat pasture for just the moms & babies.

Garden - 
I haven't planted a single thing yet this year.  Not so much as an onion.  I'm kind of glad I didn't - we had a hard freeze last night.  Because I'm so far behind, I didn't have to cover anything.  :-)  I'll try to have the beds all planted and nice looking for the Skeet Shoot here on May 9th.

I know you are all very upset over this cold weather, but I'm over here going "yay! It's ok that my garden isn't in & I haven't planted any flowers!" smile emoticon I'm looking forward to two days of catching up on things inside this house.


All of that tiny green plant all over?  I think that is sweet annie.  It's seeded all through the herb bed, and through a lot of the yard - especially where the mole had dug up around the outside of this herb bed earlier this year.

Around The Farm March 13, 2015


Looks almost peaceful, doesn't it?  Pics can be deceiving like that.  We were up half the night looking for them, worrying about them as we listened to the coyotes hollering, and knowing it was icy hoping they hadn't slipped and broken a leg.  We drove around before it was even fully day light, but still couldn't spot them.  At 7am a neighbor called with their location - they were on the opposite side of 8th street.  That's about the busiest street around here at 7:20am (when we got to them) - it's the street that leads to the school.  We had to get them across the road, through traffic, then walk them home.  Dan didn't stay here in the snow long, he brought them down to the road - it was too icy and difficult to walk in the fields.  Dan fell down the bank, landed on his knee, and I walked them the rest of the way home.  One of them got her nose in the feed bucket I was using to lure them home, and pulled my shoulder back at an angle, so that I've had pain all week from it.  

Then add in that we had never properly fixed the gate they tore through in the upper pasture, Friday afternoon we were chasing horses.  They went through the broken gate.  The guys had the horses almost home when someone drove by and beeped their horn, spooking the horses.  It took us another hour, and the help of a neighbor, to find them.

I'm so done with those cows, but they are still here. Dan wants to keep them until April.  For now they are in the goat pen.  

Between chasing animals, a funeral, and a new baby to visit (I have a new nephew), and some just plain general laziness on my part, I got very little done on the farm this week.  With the snow melting, it is more and more obvious how much there is to be done.  I wish I could afford to hire help, but I don't think that is going to be in our budget this year.  And really, there is no good excuse for me not getting more done.  Like that gate - if I had gotten Matt to help me fix that gate earlier this week, I wouldn't have  been chasing horses this afternoon.  Pure laziness on my part, no other excuse for it.  It's time to transition from the lazy days of winter into the full force, get things done, mode of Spring.   If I just tackle one project a day it will make a big difference.  Eventually. :-)




The decorative pond thawed enough that I could remove the dead fish.  :-(  I am so sad that I killed them - we thought they would be ok in there all winter, but it was a rough winter and the ground froze too deeply.    On the positive side, that is the longest I have ever had carnival fish survive - usually we keep them in the house and they die within a week.  The pond is still pretty full of ice, I'll probably shop vac all the water out and start fresh this spring - it's full of leaves & debris.  I need to read up on pond care.

Piper, who is extremely pregnant, also has CL.  I'm so discouraged.  The hair has fallen off, so Dan will take her out back (always to a field we don't keep any livestock on at all) to clean it out and hopefully she and her babies will be ok.  (I'm guessing twins, but it could only be one).  The first goat babies should arrive early April here.


Yuck.  This is what spring REALLY looks like.  :-)  The pastures are all starting to look a mess too.

I cleaned up some of the hay from outside the dog pen - where we had  Ugie the goat for the last couple of months.  It was ice under the hay yet.  I put the hay in the chicken coop to help with some of the mud for now.

Peterson the peacock is still loose.  I have not seen him at our neighbors since we attempted to catch him - but my sister in law did spot him there, so I am hopeful he's still hanging around.


Washing the eggs.  :-)  This was a few days worth.  The hens have slowed down a bit, and keep going broody, I've been kicking them off nests all week, but today I left one nest to hatch out.  I like baby chicks.  :-)


 

I started cleaning up this area so I'd have a place to sit down while working out here..  but it just looks so sad to me, with the one faded chair cushion and the faded umbrella, and the dead leaves in the stones...  it's  a start.  I'll want to paint those basement doors again too, once it is warm enough



This doesn't show the mess as much  - but off to the right is almost all mud.  We had a ground mole last fall that did a lot of damage.  I did a google search and found out I should have put down seed in the fall (there is so much I should have done in the fall, and did not, leaving extra mess this spring).  I did find this "In order for you to seed, the ground temperature has to be warm enough for the seeds to get established and the roots take hold. I would also recommend to aerate your lawn in the spring, seed, you can also fertilize, and water regularly. Aerating will allow the seeds to penetrate into the ground better. "  It sounds like mid april - so just a month away - before I should put seed down.

Upcoming Projects


This rain barrel is for sale for $300
I'd love to make a similar one - but I may need to hire someone to paint it. 
I spent a lot of time researching rain barrels, and how I want to make mine.  Mostly I want to paint them (which you should all know I'm not very talented at, but I do love Krylon..) but before I can do that I want to put them together.  I've done my research, you can see everything I have found here - http://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/2015/03/making-my-own-rain-barrels.html
I'll update as I make them.


I'm researching an outdoor bread oven, and a smoke house too.  I don't know how far I will get with those projects, but I am hoping to build both this spring.

Around The Neighborhood - 
The  farm on the hill, where we learned how to grow & harvest tobacco last year, sold for $600,000.  For just 60 acres.  But it is a really nice barn.  The new neighbors will be Amish as well, from Lancaster County. 

They appear to be tearing down the farm house on Hickory Grove road - Jay Showers old house. It's owned by an amish family, I'm pretty sure they will build a big new house in its place.

The Lapp's are building on again - 

I think it's a porch.  We'll see.  They also built this recently -  (sceenshot of someone's facebook post)