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Once I was done in the bathroom, I grabbed one of the keycards – since it was standard to give two with each room – and walked out to the lobby. Thankfully, my stomach decided that it could wait to growl until I was in the hallway with the door shut behind me. It was loud, and I worried it might have woken Grace up if I were still in the room when it happened.
The complimentary breakfast didn’t offer a ton today, but that was probably because the storm had cut the delivery off. I grabbed one of the small boxes of cereal and a small paper bowl. There was a box full of small cartons of shelf-stable milk. I wondered if they had been stockpiling this for the winter and just happened to have some left over for the storm that had hit unexpectedly last night.
With the addition of a spoon, I was set for a little while. I found a spot to sit in and then poured my cereal. One small box wouldn’t be enough, but I wanted to see if anyone else stumbled down for breakfast before I went for more.
The man who had been working the front desk noticed me watching the doors and hallways and walked over.
“Are you watching for your friend, or just in general?”
“Just in general,” I replied. “She must need the sleep if she’s going to sleep in. Then again, I don’t know what her normal sleeping schedule is.” I shrugged. “Any word on getting another room open?”
“It’s not looking promising. I don’t have a way to open the locked rooms without the keycard programmer. All our maintenance people are stuck at their homes, and no one is going anywhere in this much snow.”
I nodded slowly.
“Well, don’t be shy with breakfast despite this. I know it’s not much, but there’s more than plenty for the guests we have right now, and we have plenty of shelf-stable options to offer up. The cook couldn’t come in today, and I’m not that good on the griddle. We have a working fridge so long as the generator and power in general work.”
I nodded. That was good. It meant that we could get the likes of eggs, waffles, and such tomorrow, perhaps.
“Well, at least the storm has calmed,” I said as I glanced out the window.
There was plenty of snow. It looked more like I would have expected this part of Colorado to look like during December and January, not this time of year.
There were no visible tracks – which meant no one had walked through the snow or tried to drive through it. The next piece of the puzzle in getting out of here would be how long it took to get the roads plowed properly and how long it took to get back to the airport. Flights were probably going to be taking off tonight, but I didn’t think there would realistically be anything cleared until tomorrow morning, at the earliest.
We weren’t going to be getting out of Dawn for a while. The commercial flights were the priority, and I’d have to file a new flight plan anyway. We were somewhat stuck here until I could get cleared for take-off from this small commuter airport.
The man returned to the front desk, probably so he could do his duties. I ate my cereal quietly. I ended up going back for a couple more boxes of the same cereal since I was pretty sure that I was the only one awake and there were plenty of boxes. There were also some bagels, some fresh fruit, and a lot of other things that needed to be eaten before they went bad.
I grabbed an orange since it was the best fruit that they had, in my opinion.
As I was peeling the orange, the two new boxes of cereal untouched for now, I saw Grace coming down the hallway. She looked a bit groggy, but I was glad to see that she had managed to get the sleep she needed.
“Good morning, Grace.” I smiled at her. “There’s plenty of food over there. Maybe a bagel some cream cheese, and a gallon of coffee?”
“That sounds amazing. Especially the coffee.”
I stood up.
“Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll get it for you. I’ll have to wash my hands because peeling an orange is sticky work, but I can get you the bagel and cream cheese.”
“That’s not necessary, Gabe,” she said.
However, she grabbed hold of the chair before turning to head towards the food. I simply put a hand on her shoulder.
“You can hardly stand up straight. You’re still half asleep. Let me get your food, and perhaps that’ll wake you up enough that you can get seconds if you want them.”
“And an orange? I think I’m going to eat the one you have…”
I laughed a little.
“I can get another orange.”
With that, I walked over and used the hand sanitizer provided. It didn’t entirely get rid of the sticky left on my hands, but it made it less noticeable. I felt better about grabbing an orange, a plate, a knife, a bagel, and two squeeze packets of cream cheese for her. With my other hand, I poured a cup of hot coffee. The guests were all probably very relieved that the coffee maker was able to run off of the generator’s power.
Upon my return to the table, Grace had already started to eat my orange. She set down the remaining segments and started to squeeze the cream cheese onto her bagel once I set the plate down for her. I finished peeling my new orange.
“How did you sleep?” I looked over at her.
