Alabama – Out in the Boonies

At a previous company, we had customers in some pretty remote locations across the United States. One that sticks out in my mind is Troy, Alabama. Troy is about an hour south of Montgomery and feels like a world away.

I arrived in Montgomery and drove down to Troy in the late afternoon. Another consultant was supposed to go to the customer site with me the next day, but he traveled separately. He was also going to leave a day earlier than me, so we decided ahead of time to rent 2 cars. Anyway, it was a nice drive down to Troy and uneventful. I found a place to eat that evening (knowing me, it was probably a quick fast food place – in and out quickly!) and went to my room. Now, if you read my story – Texas – Staying at a Roadside Motel, you know that I don’t recommend hotels where the rooms are on the building’s exterior. But this hotel in Troy had exterior rooms and there weren’t any other options around.

I met up with the other consultant the next morning for breakfast and we went to the customer site for a full day of meetings. We had a great day – the customer was very kind and generous and very easy to work with. You can’t ask for much more! They recommended a place for dinner that night that was outstanding for such a tiny town. The second day was equally successful.

That evening, my colleague suggested just having dinner at the hotel since he had to leave early the next morning. That was fine with me. I was staying for another day with the customer, so an early night sounded good. We met at the hotel bar which was… interesting. Every possible cliche you can think of for backwoods bars in Alabama seemed to exist in this hotel bar in Troy. I was so thankful to be with my colleague, who was slightly older and male. I was sure I didn’t want to be in this place alone as a 20-something female. What creeped me out the most was the several men sitting at the bar glancing over at our table. We were clearly intruders in their world.

My colleague decided we should eat at the bar rather than the restaurant. I didn’t really have an opinion because I wasn’t sure the restaurant would be any more comfortable. And we could get through the entire experience faster. So we ordered dinner. My colleague finished eating first (I’m a slow eater) and while I was still nibbling, he got up and said, “Be right back.”

Well, I thought he said, “be right back.” I finished eating and sat there for maybe 10 minutes wondering where my colleague had gone. At this point, I was really uncomfortable because it was mostly men in the bar and again, they were looking at me like I didn’t belong. I decided to pay the bill (yep, my colleague stuck me with the bill too!) and head back to my room.

As I left, two of the men from the bar also got up. I walked out of the lobby (remember, my room has an exterior entrance so I had to walk along the outside of the building to get to my room which was on the hotel’s backside). The two men casually followed me out the lobby door. At this point, I was totally freaked out. I thought about going back into the lobby but decided I just wanted to get to my room. I walked so fast around the building to my room. I made it safely and I think those two guys were heading to their truck (yeah, the parking lot was full of trucks). However, in my room, I locked the door and put the desk in front of the door. I was freaked out!

I logged in to do some work once I settled down. I saw my colleague online and pinged him, saying, “what happened to you!”. He said that he went back to his room. I couldn’t believe he just left me there in the bar but he did. Needless to say, I wasn’t very fond of him from that point forward at work!

All in all, nothing happened, I was safe, and it was probably all in my head. But that’s my memory from Troy, Alabama.