When you go on vacation during Christmas, you expect to spend time in the loving bosom of your family, not at a former crime scene.

We packed three people and seemingly tens of thousands of presents into the car headed to Texas to visit my wife’s family over the Christmas. Had this been a less buy time of year or we had less cargo, we might have stayed with her sister for a night or two. But given the body and present count, we checked into, what I’ll call, the Braymont Inn, a few blocks from my sister-in-law’s house.

The Braymont is a national chain with reasonable rates a continental breakfast. (I think the continent was Atlantis, everything tasted wet and salty.)

A 10-hour drive isn’t difficult, just boring. So when you arrive at your destination, you’re eager to get out and meet people and catch up on news and eat and laugh and party. These things we did. And then it was time for bed. Even a motel bed feels good at this point, regardless of how many “How filthy is your motel room?” exposés you’ve seen on the local TV news during Sweeps Week.

Morning, renewal, in-room coffee, lazy chat and looking forward to a hot shower and breakfast and … no, it can’t be … there is no hot water in the Braymont. Boiler broken. They’re looking into it. They’re sorry for the inconvenience. It’ll be fixed tomorrow.

This isn’t inconvenience, this is bordering on a crisis. My Christmas spirit is being sapped because I can’t rinse the 10-hour drive off in a torrent of hot, South Texas soft water. OK, we can handle this. Not killed, made stronger. A quick tepid rinse and then my wife made the discovery that will forever characterize this trip: the blood-spatter pattern.

She was reaching for something that had rolled under the bed and lifted up the sheet to see that the box spring fabric had an old blood stain. Not an “I cut my finger and a few drops of blood came out” spot. Not an “I was whittling a new moose call and the knife slipped and I need three stitches” stain. Not even an “I smacked my head against the wall stumbling around in the dark and head wounds bleed a lot and please go get the ice bucket” mess.

This was a basketball-sized, something-criminal-and-probably-a-felony-happened-here blood puddle. It had been cleaned many times to extract as much blood – or evidence – as possible, but there’s really no way to return the box spring to its pristine state after the boys form the crime lab have finished with it.

We were aghast. Not that something unfortunate had happened in this room earlier. This was Conroe, Texas, after all, misdemeanor assault capital of Montgomery County. But that Braymont management thought that their guests would be OK with sleeping on a mattress that could have starred in a “Law and Order” episode. This was revelation No. 1 in a two-revelation process that will keep us from ever staying in a Braymont Inn again.

We dressed as quickly as a possible to report this to the front desk, hoping they’d be as outraged as we were. The young man behind the desk turned out to be the son of the franchise owner, a young man in his late teens or early 20s, a young man who doesn’t exactly grasp the concept of customer service, a young man who would find the concept of “Do you want fries with that?” too intellectually rigorous.

We told him what we found, suggested he contact the authorities and find us another room ASAP. He said a room would be ready for us by the time we finished breakfast. Mmmm, Braymont breakfast: salty, undercooked scrambled eggs and the best Danish that Sam’s Club had to offer – last month. We got our new room keycard, packed our stuffed, transferred rooms and crossed our fingers.

The rest of the day passed with good fellowship, board games, too much good food, presents and my debut on Dance Dance Revolution. (For the record, I stink.) Back to the Braymont. The mattresses in the second room seemed to pass muster. Not on the comfort scale necessarily, but at least we didn’t have Detective Columbo hunting for crime-scene clues in our room.

Ahh, morning, renewal, in-room coffee, lazy chat and looking forward to a hot shower and breakfast and … no, it can’t be … there is no hot water in the Braymont, again. Boiler still broken. They’re still looking into it. They’re still sorry for the inconvenience. It’ll still be fixed tomorrow. These guys really know how to satisfy customers, who could become repeat customers or write reviews on hotel Web sites.

You know the drill: tepid shower, family fellowship, food in abundance, Christmas cheer.

That night was our last with the Braymont. It passed without incident. And in the morning, praise Jesus, there was hot water. Glorious hot water. We packed, checked out, silently wished the other guests well because we knew what they were in for. Ten hours home and we went straight to the computer to write the most scathing review of the Conroe, Texas Braymont Inn we could.

It’s been three years. Hopefully there is new management, a new attitude, or at least new sheets at the Braymont.

My little girl isn’t so little any more.

Alexandra Rose Wilke turns 16 on Monday. She’ll go for a driver’s license test. There will be more boys asking for dates. Soon she’ll be going to college. Career, marriage, children can’t be far behind.

She’s come a long way. It hasn’t always been a smooth road. When she was young, the word stubborn barely described her obstinacy. But one thing she’s always had was a great sense of humor – intentional or not – and a great sense of comedic timing.

When she was in pre-school, I began writing down some of her quips. I called them “Alexisms.” They run from pre-school through junior high. I think they show what a great kid she was, is and will continue to be.

So without further ado, and with the narration I wrote at the time, I present the wit and wisdom of Ally Wilke. (Her nickname has gone from Alex to Ally.)

* Alex was waking around with her shirt tail out and she told me: “I’m not a tuckin-in person.”

* Alex was playing outside at a friend’s house when they spotted two butterflies lazily wandering by.  “Those two butterflies are mating,” her friend said with the authority of someone who learned about it in second grade. Later, when they spotted the same two butterflies flying separately, Alex said: “They got a divorce.”

* I was walking Alex to the bus stop. She was bemoaning the fact that “no one plays with me at recess.” “No one?” I asked.  “Well, only, Joshua, Paul, Lance, Peydon, Kirsten and not Jason anymore because he moved.”

* Standing at the bus stop, I noticed Alex’s hair was mussed up. I told her that I needed to do a better job brushing her hair.  Alex said: “Don’t worry, my hair fixes itself in the afternoon. That’s what makes me special.”

* Driving Alex to school this morning, two weeks before her birthday:  “I feel 7 already.”

* We were playing tennis in the street this afternoon, when Alex hit an errant shot that almost hit Patch the cat. Mused Alex, “I lose more cats that way.”

* Alex had finished performing her guitar piece for her music class and next up was Eric telling some jokes. The kids were sitting on a semicircle of bleachers watching their classmates. After Eric’s first joke, Alex stood up and walked to the back of the room where I was standing.  I bent down to speak with her, expecting something like “Please tie my shoe” or “I need to go to the bathroom.”  Instead, she whispered, “Ba-da-ba.” A rim shot!

* Our new kitten was cleaning himself. I asked Alex, “How did Tiger learn to clean himself, because he didn’t have a mom to teach him?”  Quoth Alex, “He must have watched me and Xan pretend we were cats.”

* During a time I was between jobs, I was taking Alex and some friends on a drive, when 3-year-old Will asked me what I was going to be for Halloween. Before I could answer, Alex said, “Dad, you could go as a guy who doesn’t have a job.”

* I was rummaging through the medicine cabinet looking for talcum powder. Alex wandered by asking what I was doing.
“Looking for talcum powder,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Baby powder.”
“I don’t think we have any. We haven’t had a baby for a while.”

* A nice spring day, Alex and I decided to go for a bike ride. She hopped on her bike, saying, “Let’s go see what this baby can do!”

* We’ve been in a drought all summer. On hot and muggy afternoon, we had a brief rain shower. When Alex saw the rain, she put down her drink and headed outside, saying: “I’m going outside to dance.”

* We were taking Ally’s friend Kirsten with us on a very chilly winter day to swim at the city’s indoor pool. As we were pulling out of the driveway, Kirsten asked, “Which pool are we going to?” Noting how cold it was, I said, “the outdoor one.” Without missing a beat, Ally said, “It’s cheaper this time of year.”

* Ally and I were listening to NPR’s news show All Things Considered. Ally didn’t quite believe the name of the program. She asked the radio: “What if I called you up and told you I got a puppy. Would you consider it?”

* I was talking with Ally this morning about her cat, Pyewhacket. Based with recently acquired fifth-grade math knowledge, she said: “Maybe we should call him 3.14-whacket.”

* Ally and I were at a railroad crossing waiting for a stopped train to continue. There was a small space visible under the railcar in front of us. Using her keen logic, Ally said: “I wish we had a clown car.”

* We were driving to the New Jersey Shore to visit relatives. As we turned onto Long Beach Island, the street numbers started at 15th and began rising. We were looking for my aunt and uncle’s home on 129th Street. I said, “You mean we’ve got 100 blocks to go?” Then Ally said, “Are we still going to be in New Jersey?”

* I was on the phone with Ally asking about the New Year’s Eve party she went to. She went to a sleep over with her friends Paige and Xan, the two friends she generally hangs out with after school. She said, “We stayed up late and acted like idiots.” Then I quipped, “How is that different than a regular day.” Without breaking stride, she said, “We were wearing hats.”

* We were discussing all the Harry Potter books and movies with her stepbrother, Joel, who was just beginning to read the series. We were throwing around titles Joel was unfamiliar with. He asked, “What order do the books come in?” Ally piped up, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.”

* We watched the movie Happy, Texas. Afterwards, my wife said there really was a town called Happy, Texas. Ally asked incredulously, “What other towns are our there? Emotionally Disturbed, Louisiana?”

* We knew this was going to be the last Christmas for Santa Claus. We felt lucky that we had gotten away with it for as long as we did. A few days after Christmas, Ally was taking some trash out to the curb and looked in a bag. She saw the box that her big Santa present had come in. The jig was up. Ally told her mom that she had seen the Santa box and it was OK that Santa didn’t come to our house any more. “But I’ll still believe in Santa for the little kids and the poor kids,” she said. I have never been so proud to be a dad as I was in that moment.

I’m still proud of her every single day. She’s grown into a wonderful young woman with a bright future.

Ally, I reluctantly give you permission to grow up.

Love, Dad