Inside The Hilton At Milton Keynes

Buckinghamshire, England - Nearly every time I call home when I am out on the road, I get the question, "Where are you?" from the girls - followed by a number of inquiries about my hotel and hotel room.

Julia, in particular, asked me to take pictures of my hotel room - and the lobby. So I'm going to try and do that over the next nine days - that see me in seven different hotels. Some days will be harder than others, understand, because I might only be there a few hours. In the case of the Hilton, we are here the first three days.

In the slideshow above, I point out the little keyslot near my door. Without the key in the slot, I have no power for the lights, for the bathroom outlets or the TV. Kind of strange, I know. I have a feeling I'm being charged for the electricity...

In the case of those outlets and adapter plugs, one of the team mechanics (John Sessa) helped cut off some of the plastic around the end so I could fit my cell phone charger into the plug. I have two adapters that I switch off between my laptop, sleep machine and two cell phones. By the way, my Razor phone (for Team Type 1) is not getting service. UGH.

The other unusual thing about my room struck me the minute I walked in: the window was wide open. Apparently there is no air conditioning in this hotel. (Not that we would need it because the temperature is only in the 60s - or about 15 degrees Celsius.) But having the window open last night also allowed me to hear two guys having a fight over a girl in the parking lot. Both were attending a wedding reception here at the hotel. I'm just glad when I looked out that it wasn't two of our riders...