A wonderful off-season bargain!

So I went out to take out the garbage yesterday, and nailed to the tree was the annual orange sign, telling us that our street would be blocked off to cars from 8AM to 1PM.  This is due to the ultra crappy holiday parade, to be held this coming Saturday, November 28.  So, if we wanted to avoid having to hear the crap as it goes by, we have to get the hell out of Dodge before 8AM, or be trapped.  And getting up early on a Saturday morning is a royal PITA.

This parade is beyond awful.  The local high school band is involved, and it sounds like someone is torturing elephants to death.  The Aleppo Shriners marching band is not much better.  Also, we have to put up with losers sitting on our porch steps, using them as their own personal bleachers, and there’s nothing we can do about it…if the landladies are around, they actually let these people sit there, make even more noise, and generally annoy the hell out of us.

We thought about going away on Friday, staying at a hotel somewhere, and coming back on Saturday after all the nonsense was over.  But we already had plans to go to Old Sturbridge Village the following weekend, as well as some model train show out that way that Mike wants to go to.  The train show is only that weekend, and the holiday stuff at OSV starts that weekend.  Not sure if we could justify spending money on a hotel two weekends in a row again.

Still, it’s the off-season, so surely some good hotel deals could be had.  But where to go, and what to do?  My first thought was to go up to ManchVegas, New Hampshire, and stay at the Hilton Garden Inn, the place that is next to the Fisher Cats ballpark (pictured here).  Obviously, there is no game going on, but we like the hotel, and we always get a room facing the ballpark, just because I like to look at it.  The rooms on the other side are a few bucks cheaper, but they just face the parking lot, and the auto accessories/body shop place across the street. BOR-ING!

They had a room facing the ballpark, at the  rate of $99 a night.  But, as I looked further on their website, I saw that for just $20 more, we could get a “Palace Theatre Package”.  This includes a room with ballpark view, two tickets to whatever show is playing at the Palace Theatre in downtown ManchVegas, transportation in the hotel shuttle to and from said show, plus full breakfast for two the next day.  Not a bad deal at all!

So I went to the Palace Theatre website, to see what would be playing on Friday night.  It’s  “The Nutcracker”.  Cool, we’ve never seen it on stage before, only on TV.  So I went ahead and booked it!

I’m sure the tickets are not for the best seats in the house, but still, it’s a great deal for the money.  So not only are we going to get away from that horrible parade, but we’ll get to see a good show, too!