A Hilton Adventure

The Grand Imperial Council of the Red Cross of Constantine will hold its annual meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina in May and June.  As Intendant General for Iowa I get to go. This year the meetings are being held in the Embassy Suites Hotels.

I called today to get my reservation and was able to get a handicapped accessible room with a King Size Bed. - They say that

"We are pleased to offer to each guest a Complimentary, Cooked-to-Order Breakfast each morning, two hour Manger's reception daily, free parking, Complimentary weekday morning newspaper, Business Center and Hilton HHonors Program for points and miles.

I am in the Hilton Honors program but do so little travelling that it doesn't amount to much for me.  But as they say "every little bit helps."  After I got my reservation made I was asked if I wanted to speak to a representative about some special deals they have.  I usually don't listen to these but for some reason I decided to so I was transferred.

I spoke with a very nice young man for about 40 minutes.  Or rather I listened to him as he talked about almost everything.  He told me that Hiltons had almost stopped all advertising but were relying on offering special deals of up to 70% off and were relying on word of mouth advertising. Makes sense to me,  Satisfied customers are the best advertisement.

He was from Missouri so he had a slight southern accent.  He said he was in Branson and we talked about the tornadoes that went through there and he said they were hustling to rebuild. We got on the subject of fishing, or rather he did.  I told him I wasn't fond of the idea of fishing down there because of the Moccasin (Cottonmouth) snakes.

That set him off talking about the snakes and how mean they are and how they will drop into the canoe and attack.  He said they are called Cottonmouths because the inside of their mouth is white and they sit around with their mouth open and wait for prey.

From there we went on to talk about the type of fish they have in the lakes down there and I mentioned the 13 lb. Northern Pike that I caught in Minnesota. He had been up to Canada where you have to fly in to go fishing and shared that the cabin he and his father and uncles stayed at had boards with nails pointing up all around on the porch and doors.  Seems the people who were there before them had left some food in the cabin and the bears got in.  The nails had blood and fur on them.  He said he stayed pretty close to the cabin while on that trip.

Michael and his muskie

Oh yes and he loves to eat Walleye.  I mentioned that my cousin Michael fishes for Muskie and how he throws them back after he catches them.

And the conversation went on and on and finally he got ready to ask me some questions.  The first one was related to my income.  Did I make more that $80,000.  The answer was no.  (Retired Schoolteachers don't make that kind of money,)  It took him about two seconds to tell me that the Level A offers were all sold out but he would put me on a list for future 70% off sales.  He thanked me for listening to me and said good-bye.

I won't be holding my breath waiting to hear back from him but I did enjoy listening to him.
Thanks for stopping by, hugs,, j