Finally! A hotel that “gets it!”

As an itinerant vaudevillian, I travel quite a bit! Often, this travel involves staying in hotels, or “loneliness ports.” Well. As I often bring a change of clothes for each day I will be living in such a place (out of respect for our society), I just as often have need of an ironing board. [Pro-tip: if you want to shave minutes off of your packing time, ball up your nice clothing and cram it into a backpack. Be sure to use your foot for the most efficient kind of crammery. Then when you get to the hotel, you need only spend an hour ironing the crammed clothing.]

Too often these hotels overlook the needs of the wrinkled traveler. Sure, they provide an iron. Okay, good start. They will usually also provide an accompanying ironing board. NOW YOU’VE GOT MY ATTENTION. And what do you do with it? [You’re a hotel, FYI] You stop right there. I’m all, “Whaaaat? Iron and ironing board, the end?”

Well, imagine my delight (when you do, be sure to imagine me smiling; it lends authenticity to your mental picture) when I opened up the closet at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO, and found that they’d anticipated my needs like a Radar O’Reilly transformed into a building by witchcraft!* The Stanley is the only hotel to understand that many of us who are forced to live in fake homes for a good part of the year sometimes like to do our ironing al fresco! As you can see, The Stanley has thoughtfully provided an ironing board carrying case (shoulder strap included) so one can heat up one’s iron, unplug it, strap on one’s ironing board, and run outside. Then, just pick an idyllic spot, unpack your ironing board, get your clothes ready, and take the now-cool iron and plug it into a tree or rock outlet on God’s own Grid, planet Earth.

Thank you, Stanley Hotel. You’re not just the inspiration for Stephen King’s The Shining. You’re also an inspiration to disheveled entertainers yearning to breathe free. God bless us, every one!

*The plot of the spec script for AfterM*A*S*H I wrote last year)

(Taken with Instagram at Stanley Hotel)