arrowwood

So we spent the weekend at Arrowwood (in one of my favorite towns — Alexandria, MN) and went to our friend Nikki D’s (now C’s) lovely wedding. We had a great time at the wedding and the reception and the banquet facilities were really nice.Now about the rest of the place…

Our room was functional — it had a bed, a toilet and a shower — but missing drawer handles, peeling wallpaper borders, water stains and those cheap-ass Super-8 style comforters are not what I expect for this price. A walk around the grounds revealed that, they’ve been so busy building a monstrous water park that they’ve ignored a number of the attractions for those of us over the age of 10. The tennis courts are a mess. Weeds almost up to my knees growing from every crack. Realistically, if you don’t want to resurface, get someone out there with a bottle of Roundup and pull ’em. The swimming pools (outside of the $20-a-day water park) were also a mess. I figured I could rent a movie but, of course, the system wasn’t working (“Sometimes we can force it through manually”, we were told — thanks but no thanks).

I had a lot of time to myself on Saturday, stuck at the place with no car for the better part of the day. After the walk between rain showers I figured I’d head back to the room for a quick nap — it’s been years since I had a good nap and I’d given what I thought was ample time for the cleaners to clean up the room. Nope. OK, so I’ll get lunch and catch a nap afterwards. After a forgettable veggie burger in the restaurant, I returned to a unmade room.

Disappointing. At this point (2PM) it was time to get ready for the wedding.

Warped rooflines, falling shingles and the complete lack of any internet connectivity made me even more sure that I will not be returning any time soon. If I want to “rough it” I could have done it for a lot less across the lake.