a lesson on appearances

I admit it, I am the kind of person who judges a book by it's cover. I know that's a bad thing, but it's so true! I somehow believe that a book with a pretty cover and nice artwork, and a good font means that what's inside is better than a book with a boring cover with bad artwork and a lame font.

This also applies to restaurants. To me, it seems like the food tastes way better in a restaurant with a nice atmosphere. Part of the whole experience of eating out for me is enjoying the surroundings.

Where am I going with this? Last weekend when we were away for our anniversary we stayed a night in Mackinaw City in a hotel. We all know that websites make the hotels look way better than they really are. We were surprised to find that the "hotel" was set up more like a "motel" with all the entrances to the rooms on the outside of the building. When we went into the lobby to register, the employees were wearing jeans & hoodies. The decor was 70's with a twist of "antique".

Then we get into our rooms and see that nothing's been updated for about 30 years. Oh boy. Did I mention that I also have a bit of an issue with hotel rooms? The first thing I do is rip the comforter off the bed (you know, since they only get washed about once a year and who knows who has done what on it!) but thankfully I decided from the start that I was going to have a good attitude about it and just make the most of it. One cool thing about the room was that there was a GIANT jet tub. It was the biggest bathtub I've ever seen. So we skipped the pool and just had a "swim" in our tub. :) Jaxon thought that was great.

It was close to supper time so we decided we'd check out the "buffet" restaurant that was right across the street from our hotel. We were excited about the thought of a buffet....we've been to some amazing buffets in Michigan that have just about every kind of food you can imagine and leave you extrememly full. Well as soon as we walked in I had to chuckle to myself. It pretty much matched the theme of our hotel room. Very dated and retro. Hickish would be a good way to describe it.

I was leary as I walked up to the buffet counter to get my food...as it was the most retro buffet counter I've ever seen....and it seemed as though the standards for cleanliness weren't quite as high as I was used to. At this point I was still disappointed about our choice of restaurants but I bravely scooped some stuff onto my plate. When I got back to our table Dan and I kinda laughed about it...how it was nothing like what we expected and how we were kinda scared to eat the food. Thankfully we both had good attitudes about it and just decided to have fun with it.

Throughout the meal we realized how surface we are, and how bad it is how much we base on appearance. The food was actually REALLY good. It was home country cooking and was delicious, it just wasn't presented the way we expected it to be. The host and waitress were SOOOO friendly and kind, and that made us feel a little guilty for the attitude we had coming in. We left the place satisfied and realizing that we need to work on not letting appearance affect us (especially me!) so much.




I pretended I was taking this picture of Jaxon but really I was taking a picture of the fancy buffet table behind him. :)