My friend Jerry Hempstead has been traveling out west with his bride and yesterday emailed me something that was a cross between a travel log review and a rant. I found it humorous, but somehow reflective of Obama administration pending policy on health care. Read on.
"In an effort to help stimulate the economy and to keep the Mrs. happy we spent the first 10 days of July touring Mt. Rushmore, Little Big Horn, Yellowstone and Grand Teton.
The trip had been one of my wife's dreams as she is a fairly accomplished photographer and this part of the country offers opportunities for great photos. I was taken aback while here to find that our government through the contractor here has learned the art of improving yield the way the transports do. Accessorial fees...and not small ones.
When you check into your hotel at Yellowstone, for example, they offer you the use of a card so that you can charge things to your room such as meals in the dining facility. Well if you do use the card they charge a fee. I learned my lesson after the second day when I came to find out that the fee for a dinner of $56.06 was $8.50 and the fee for using the card for a $27.40 breakfast was $4.
Now that's not the best of it. They charge a "Utility Fee" for just about everything you buy here at the National Park. An it appears the utility fee is in some instances subject to a minimum charge just like the transports do. So that breakfast for $27.40 had a $1 "utility fee" applied to it. There was also the sales tax of $1.55. Now recall that I charged this to my room and got hit with the $4 fee for doing that. To add insult to injury when I checked out they charged me tax and a another utility fee on the grand total.
When I inquired as to what this utility fee was (at all three Yellowstone hotels I stayed at) nobody could explain it. They handled me a card with some mumbo jumbo about environmental stewardship and thats why I need to "participate" in the utility fee.
The reality here is that the services in the national parks are a monopoly managed by our government for "we the people".
The hotel room prices are some of the highest I have ever paid, and I've traveled the world over in 32 years of peddling freight. The hotel at Lake Yellowstone is in my humble opinion a dump that should be demolished and rebuilt. It is past the point of repair for historic sentimentality. $216 a night for a small room with the wallpaper pealing and a bathroom so dirty even the bugs would not go in it.
In an effort to be good stewards the light bulbs in the room I think were 25 Watt, just enough that you would not bump into things but not bright enough to recognize who was in the room with you.
Gasoline costs $3 a gallon here because there is no competition. That's true of the overcharging for everything. All the stores are managed by the same company that manages the hotels and the dining. All overpriced. So here I am on independence day in our national parks - which I as a citizen am told belongs to me, and I'm being ripped off by the government that I have elected to run the place."
Somehow this makes me think the Obama health care plan will be similar.
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I actually think it is a pretty good deal - exploring the parks for the cost.
Markets are pretty efficient. So since Yellow Stone has been a National Park for 140 years or so - it seems to be working. We should thank Theodore Roosevelt and Northern Pacific Railroad for their efforts in making the Park possible as we know it today. Just one guy's opinion. An no I am not in favor of President Obama's healthcare plan and neither would Roosevelt....Teddy that is.
Brian R. Callahan
Staten Island, New York
Posted by: Brian R. Callahan | July 10, 2009 at 05:38 PM
I love travelling to the States, but the 'hidden' taxes really annoy me. Seems like this is just another case of squeezing more cash out of customers. ( I wonder how much the bugs have to pay for the Roach motel). Having said that, this wouldn't stop me seeing America's fantastic national parks.
Always a silver lining - if this recession goes on much longer, Obama may have to bring in a National Parks programme ala Roosevelt, so you won't have to pay anything then!
Really enjoyed the article - keep up the good work!
Posted by: Lara Walsh | August 07, 2009 at 06:08 AM