Although the race the day before conspired to minimize the potential of our free breakfast vouchers, today there was no such constraint. Oh no. Today we could take leisurely showers and then head downstairs to enjoy the eggs and bacon and oatmeal and bagels and pancakes and fruit and coffee to our hearts’ content.
So we sat there enjoying breakfast to our hearts’ content, ignoring the monsters on the wall.
On the far side of the dining room, there was an indoor garden with various low-growing tropical plants and two tall Palm trees (this was El Tropicano, after all) growing up into a skylight that projected beyond the ceiling into an outdoor swimming area on the second floor.
And there were six guys standing around.
No. These guys were definitely not standing around. The were digging with shovels and swinging picks and pounding the ground with a rockbar. Not standing around.
What are those guys doing?
We watched them as they labored mightily, digging a circular trench around each Palm tree.
They’re taking out the trees.
We had seen the trees thru the skylight a few minutes before from upstairs. Their foliage was pressing against the glass. They had outgrown their home. And these guys were digging them out. As it happened, they were transplanting them. The gardener explained that there were two large planters upstairs beside the pool, and they were going to move the Palm trees up there.
You’re going to take them upstairs?
Yes, Their plan was to dig them out and take them up the sweeping spiral staircase that led from the lobby to the second floor pool. But there was a lot of hard, backbreaking work to be done before they got to that point. And we had more of San Antonio to see. So we had to leave the action behind.
Later that day, we returned to the hotel. We had some vouchers for coffee and snacks, so we were stocking up before we started our drive home. As the fair and industrious Trudy surveyed the snacks, I turned to look at the planter where the men had been working that morning. The Palms were gone; a pile of dirt was sitting on a tarp beside where they used to stand; and a woman was sweeping the staircase.
I turned to the barrista behind the counter and asked about the Palm tree procession. One after the other, the barrista said, the six men carried each Palm tree up the spiral stairs.
“I hate to see them do that.”
It wasn’t clear what the barrista meant.
“I mean, are you kidding me? Six of them carrying a tree up the stairs?”
It wasn’t clear what the barrista meant.
“I’m Mexican, too,” the barrista said. “Those six guys can do better than that.”
Probably true. But given the care of their digging and picking, I don’t think the trees could have asked for any better.