Mass. Trip ’14, day 6: Drive from Massachusetts to New York

Hawthorn Suites (Franklin MA, 3:27am).  Slipped under our door, which is apparently what every hotel does nowadays.  $546.90 for four days’ stay.  At least this time the pool was working.  But the entire hotel was taken over by a wedding party, so we got a “Bedroom studio” (which is not a 1-bedroom at all) rather than the “Bedroom suite” we had wanted for better separation between kidlets and parents.  Staff wasn’t very accommodating, so it’s unclear whether we’ll stay here again.  Perhaps we’ll try another look around online, but we keep coming back here because it’s the cheapest place in Eastern Mass that has suite rooms and (usually) lets us have one.

Shaw’s (Franklin MA, 11:15am).  $44.17 for groceries, including three boxes of Cheez-Its with specific flavours that my furiend had asked for (he loves Cheez-Its almost as much as I do) and also another test-box of “original” flavour for myself (boxes with the same lot number that I tested on day 3 are now sold out).  While in the check-out line, I notice that they are selling cans of “Starbucks Doubleshot Espresso+cream”, which the furiend had also asked for.  It is the last item on my shopping list for him!

Shaw’s (11:20am).  The test-box is fine, so I buy 18 more boxes of Cheez-Its for $31.41.

Hess (Franklin MA, 11:26am).  $30 for gasoline.  This is the first time that a gas station in Massachusetts has discriminated against me due to my unAmerican postal code.  The receipt does not indicate price-per-gallon nor total gallons purchased.
      I used to like Hess in New Jersey.  I do not recall when they started selling gas in Massachusetts.  Wikipedia says it was before 2013, but I suspect it may have been after 2011 or surely after 2007.  Anyway, all “Hess” gas stations will be rebanded as “Speedway” by 2017.

Massachusetts Turnpike.  Tolls.  No receipt.

New York Thruway.  Tolls.  No receipt.

Golden Corral (Colonie NY, 2:32pm).  $41.41 for lunch.  Not as good as we remembered, perhaps because the previous visit had been at dinnertime so they served steak (also it was a different franchisee).  Golden Corral is very proud that they are the world’s largest purchaser of Brussels sprouts, but the sprouts were not cooked very well (or perhaps they would have been better at noon).  The hamburger was quite disappointing.  Still, the salad bar was good and worth the price on its own.