Cool Breeze --- NOT!

          Sometimes you can't tell by a picture what's really going on. The temperature of the second floor of the historic Trempealeau Hotel on Independence Day weekend, 2006, must have been over 100 degrees F! That breeze blowing in the upstairs window was in the 90s for sure! It was "hotter than a firecracker on the 4th of July!
           This quaint lodging establish- ment was one of the few survivors of the town's 1888 fire. It has been preserved and run much as it was was back at the end of the 19th century. All rooms share a single bathroom. The website fails to mention that the hotel's upstairs rooms are not air-conditioned. But they warned me when I booked a two-night stay and said a fan would be provided. How bad could it be, right? I really wanted this unique lodging experience!

Whew! How I survived I'll never know! The very worse part was that my room was right above the kitchen, so I couldn't have my window open. The greasy smell of char-broiled steaks rising up from the kitchen exhaust fans made me sick to my stomach.

But it was an experience I'm glad I had and will never forget. The food in the dining room was great, and for the first time in my life I experienced a "smokeless" bar as I drank a few brewskies before the Saturday evening concert began. There's a whole other story about that:
http://theheartlanddaily.blogspot.com/2011/12/theres-story-here.html