In case you missed it: Part 1, Part2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

The Best Western? The place that took pets in Denver about a million years ago?

The clerk at the Hotel Frankfurt Messe was pointing down the street. But he could as well have been the messiah, pointing at heaven. Was there really a Best Western in downtown Frankfurt?

I ran back to the van, where Donna and pets were presumably on tenterhooks waiting to unload into this fine hotel that didn’t take cats. Sorry Sami. Sorry Man Ray. Let’s try one more stop.

The Best Western was a couple of blocks away, in the direction the Hotel Messe clerk pointed when he asked the crucial question of whether we’d tried the Best Western. But unlike any Best Western motel I’d been to in the States, this one was a hotel, eight stories of heavenly real estate in the sodium slate German sky, proudly advertising its pure unmotel nature in five giant letters: H O T E L.

OK, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. After we’d driven the 2 blocks I had to find a place on a side street to put the big-ass van then hustle into the heaven-sent hotel and inquire, in broken German, if they had a room. Ja. And if they took pets. Ja. Ein hund und zwei katze? Kein problem.

Finally. Finally some good news for the dispirited, demoralized and disgruntled los dos. And mascotas.

I booked the room then floated back to the van on wings of relief, waving the hotel bill at Donna through the windshield of the big-ass van. This endless German night was not going to end with us bedding down in the back of the big-ass van with 11 pieces of luggage and three caged pets (The thought had quite seriously crossed our minds.)

They gave us a room on the 6th floor. And after roughly 60 hours of travel from Santa Fe, we could now just stop for a while.

We set up the portable folding litter box we’d ordered in Santa Fe, walked the dog and, without bothering to eat anything, went to sleep. Donna slept another night. Gary slept until 2:45, or 6:45 pm in New Mexico, which makes no sense at all, but when is sleep sensible? I suspect I tried to sleep again for a long while, but by 5am it seemed better to just get up and go below for a cigarette. Where I discovered the coffee machine and porcelain cups off the lobby. And inspired by coffee, it occurred to me I could just buy and download an eSim for my phone. Something I should have thought of hours ago but just didn’t. And like that, we were back in the good graces of Mother Internet.

On Thursday morning we enjoyed the typical European buffet of cold cuts and kaiser rolls, toast and jam, several varieties of eggs and sausages, and even some champagne with our orange juice. 15€ per Rees was well worth the double dose of normality after 3 surreal days in transit.

So there we were. On track. On the other side of the turning point. We had something around 23 hours to drive. To Córdaba and home!

Stay tuned for the conclusion, Part 7 – Homecoming in Spain