Palm Beach, home of Mar-A-Lago, is one of the posher
places in the US, but West Palm Beach, that's a
different story. It seems to be populated largely by
the serfs of the seaside community and by, well,
bums. This doesn't bother me enormously, but it
does make it an odd choice for a getaway, as there's
basically nothing to do here. But the fares were
good, and Lilli needs the miles, so here we were.

Our first night was at the Hampton Inn, where they
gave me the presidential suite - I paced it out,
kitchenette, conference room, living room, bedroom,
and bath totalling 1400 sf. Actually rather nice,
but Lilli wondered what president would stay here.
I said maybe the president of Domino's. I think we were
assigned this accommodation as it was unsold when we
got there at 1 am and were to spend only one night, so
why not be nice. The suite would sleep I estimate
6 comfortably, with the giant bedroom bed being the
nicest, a pullout bed and a couple fairly comfy chairs
in the living room, and, if one were desperate, more
room under the grand-looking conference table.

Breakfast was the usual except that they had what
appeared to be Hillshire smoked sausage along with
the usual dreck. Oddly, as this was Florida, the
oranges and orange juice were terrible.

As I needed more Hilton stays, it was switcheroo time.
I snagged a good rate at the Garden Inn within walking
distance so I could get my needed credit, so the rest of
our stay was in the nominally slightly posher facility.
Here they gave us a junior suite, just a little more
than 1/3 the size but perfectly adequate (do the math).
Same type of bed arrangement, with the superking in the
bedroom and the pullout in the living room, but there
was no room to stow extras were there to be any. This
suitette seemed very much like the accommodation where
Swisher joined us in Arizona in the spring. Pretty good
for two, adequate minus for three or four.

The problem is that eeither of these places is really
near anything, so going out on the spur of the moment
for food or drink is less than an easy task. To remedy
this, there's a bar and reheat restaurant on the ground
floor. Also the three Hilton properties within walking
distance share a shuttle via which you can get to the
rather seedy downtown and the gem of the neighborhood
City Place, which the developer had high hopes for but
which now appears to be a somewhat less down-and-out
part of a down-and-out burg. The shuttle drivers are
chatty and willing to offer advice; also, in exchange
for a couple bucks they can be convinced to take you
off-route, which the management seems not to mind,
knowing that there's no way anyone would want to
venture too far into this jungle.
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