Don’t go there Dave

Our hotel list was done well before I even started the drive to Georgia. That is normal. It is very difficult to organize ANY hotel at the last minute when we have a need for 12 plus rooms.
We were scheduled to stay at the Calloway Gardens after the Columbus stage finish. Only a short distance from the finish. But management thought the early morning transfer was way too long so he wanted to change hotels to one closer to the Start of the stage in Carrolton. A great idea. But maybe a hint that we were changing please.
I was driving to Calloway Gardens with about a third left to drive of the 1 hour 40 minute total transfer. I got a call to say NOT to go to Calloway and to drive to Newnan, GA instead. Mark Higgins of Capitol Sports and Entertainment (Lance’s management agency) simply said to go to the city and I will tell you where we are staying. I was so close but had to detour. Had I been told to go directly I would have driven about the same distance to CW-G as it was to Newnan. With the detour our transfer now took over 2 hours. No big deal. A bit longer for me but even more for Dave the hotel guy. I tried to call Dave but no cell coverage for him in this remote area. Dave ended up making it to Calloway Gardens when I finally got him. I actually called the hotel since he still had no cell coverage. They gave me the run around and said they could not put me through to a guest that was standing in the Lobby area. I told them it was an emergency and they finally gave the phone to him. “STOP checking in Dave” I told him while informing him we are moving to a different hotel. He was bummed as he had ALL keys in hand and was basically waiting for me to show up with the luggage so we can deposit them in the rooms.
The hotel was taken by surprise to say the least. They wanted to call the new hotel before letting their rooms become available to anyone else. They were cool because they did not want us to be homeless if our other hotel was not a sure thing. It was though and we moved on much closer to the Stage 3 start city. I think they were truly bummed that they could not host our team (inc. Lance).
According to the hotel list for that day, we were at the same place as all teams. I did not think we were to stay with any other team this day. But, apparently the Calloway Gardens had a separate section for us. Complete with it’s own entrance, parking lot, etc. We were technically to be at the same hotel as the other teams, but would not see them as they were fairly far away on another section of the resort. Dave the ever so nice guy offered our rooms to Brenda (Webcor Soigneur) to have for themselves. She was bummed though as she had her keys already and luggage inside each room. Too much work to switch to our (probably bad ass) rooms.
Dave said the Calloway Gardens was a really cool place. There was a golf course on site and our rooms supposedly had a view overlooking it. It is not a definitive indicator but usually more often than not having a golf course on site usually means a nice place. According to College it is one of the main venues for Water Ski competitions. One of the biggest (if not THE biggest) Ski competitions is held here each year. The guy who founded this resort sold it to go on to make some brand of golf clubs called Calloway golf clubs. Hmmmmm Sounds familiar.
And there is the Hotel switcheroo. Don’t go there Dave!

CClinton

Owner of Promechanics.com and long time professional race mechanic.