Also cost more than $29.99 a night. But it was worth it.

When I stood up in the bathtub, the water (had I filled the tub all the way) would have touched the bottom of my knee. The bed was tall and had a soft top with five faux-feather pillows on it. "Law & Order" was on the TV.

I love hotels; new ones, clean ones.

I love being away from home in a place that smells and looks better than mine, whose sink shines brighter than mine does, whose TV gets more than NBC and the churchy channel.

I went to the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells this weekend for a Wisconsin Newspaper Association convention (something someone described as "the next nerdiest thing after 'Star Trek' conventions") -- and the hotel was ... wow. People, real people (not journalists, families), actually pay hundreds a night to stay and play on the indoor waterpark and eat, shop and mingle in a bubble of Africa-themed gotcha-spending.

Kind of made past collegiate hotel experiences in Tennessee and South Carolina look really ... um, shady and trashy. I didn't even have to wait until the manager looked away to duck in the room with my six other friends. I actually had a room that was legally mine. I didn't find one cockroach. I didn't see vomit on the carpet. (Ah, college.)

We didn't pay hundreds a night to stay here, and I didn't surf on the indoor wave pool. It was just nice to be in a nice hotel, watching a Weather Channel show on tornadoes and floods and other cable gems like "Law & Order," all evening long in a quiet room, where I got to adjust the room temperature. I kept getting up to nudge the digital number from 70 to 68 to 69 to 71, trying to feel a difference.

I missed Dave and the dog, but they don't have to know that I kind of enjoyed not hearing "Turn it to ESPN real quick, come on, real quick, we don't have cable at home!"

Big is really, really bossy like that.