home away from home

This week is another trip down memory lane. In this case that memory isn’t even on campus, but it’s certainly Penn State.

On the far end of College Ave, the Hampton Inn is one of the first things that you come to once you’ve gotten off of Exit 26 from 322. And it is this hotel that will be the subject of this week’s blog. That may seem pretty lame at first but, to me, that place is far more than a hotel.

To put it in perspective, I have probably spent more nights at that hotel than some people in this room have ever spent nights in any hotel. Every home football weekend for about ten years in fact.

Think about it, that may even be more times than you’ve slept at your grandparents and best friend’s house combined! Pretty insane if you ask me.

Football weekends would always start off with checking into the Hampton on a Friday night, and then heading over to the Damon’s next door for dinner. It was a pretty awesome tradition to have as a kid, one of the kinds of traditions that seem novel every time, even though you’ve had the experience before.

What separated the Hampton Inn from other hotels, in addition to simply being intrinsically valuable, was that it had perhaps one of the most delicious and unique continental breakfasts a hotel could have.

Every single morning, I would wake up and eat Grilled Stickies from The Diner. This is something that I didn’t even realize the amazingness of until I became a student here. Grilled Stickies? Those things are unbelievably awesome! I make trips to The Diner every time before I go home so I can bring some back to Delaware with me.

But this hoarding was unnecessary as a kid. Because, every day, every morning, I had an unlimited supply.

Unfortunately, a few years back, Hampton Inn’s stopped being individually owned and operated, and the business decided to regulate all the hotels. The Hampton that I spent many childhood nights in lost a lot of what made it special… including the Grilled Stickies. That being said, I still give it a glance every time that I drive by, because let’s face it, old sentiments live on.