Do you have a favorite souvenir from your travels? This is a question I was giving thought to recently, and it was particularly interesting to me because I really don’t buy a lot of souvenirs. When I travel, if I purchase anything at all, it’s likely to be a t-shirt or sweatshirt — something practical I know I’ll use.

But I do have a souvenir — two, actually — with special meaning, from a trip to Ajo, Arizona, four years ago.

Ajo is a small town (population around 3000) in the Sonoran Desert, near the Mexican border. Prior to Steve’s having received a work assignment there, neither he nor I had ever heard of it.

Accommodations may have changed recently, but when we went in the summer of 2019, pickings were slim in the remote town: There were really just two motels to choose from, and both looked to be a bit dated. We ended up making reservations at La Siesta Motel.

We flew into Tucson and rented a car, and fortunately, before making the two-and-a-half-hour drive west to Ajo, we called to confirm that our room was ready. Not only was it not ready, it wasn’t even available. The motel didn’t have any record of our reservation and wouldn’t have any availability until the following day. We had no choice but to spend that first night in Tucson.

When we arrived in Ajo the next day, the young lady working the front desk was very apologetic. She showed us to our room, and, as anticipated, it was somewhat dated, but it was also clean and comfortable, so as far as we were concerned, all was well.

Our second day in Ajo, Steve and I were both out of the room — him, working; me, walking around Ajo — and when we returned, on the table we found a gift bag with colorful tissue paper spilling out the top. Inside the bag were a handwritten note of apology and two gifts: a copper-colored metal sign decorated with a butterfly at the top and the word Welcome cut out of the center, and a matching candleholder with cut-out butterflies. I figured they were probably made by a local artist, since Ajo has a thriving arts community.

Both items now have a prominent place in our home — the sign hangs on our front door and the candleholder sits on a bedroom dresser — and I love the feeling I get when I take the time to really look at them. They take me right back to Ajo and, whereas some of our business trips have been — for lack of a better word — bland, leaving me with no standout memories, that’s not the case with Ajo. I have lots of memories of Ajo. For example, it’s where I first learned what javelinas are. Walking around town, I kept noticing that many residents had their yards enclosed by chain link fences. When I finally asked a local about all the fencing, he said people were trying to protect their yards from javelinas, animals that resemble small pigs and that wreak havoc by eating entire plants or digging up plants to get to their roots. (I never actually saw any javelinas in Ajo.) On my walk, by the way, I became severely dehydrated, thanks to a disastrous combination of temperatures soaring well above 100 and my all-too-usual negligence when it came to drinking water. (That happens to be one of my more vivid, albeit unpleasant, memories of time spent in Ajo!) I also remember the town’s Spanish architecture and the area’s cactus-dotted landscape.

So, I love my Ajo butterfly souvenirs because of the (mostly) great memories they bring back, but I also love them for another reason: It was such a thoughtful, unexpected gesture from the motel staff. Once Steve and I got over the initial surprise of our room reservation having been lost, we both got over it quickly. It worked out fine. So, it wasn’t as though the staff felt the need to smooth over ruffled feathers. Our feathers weren’t ruffled at all. They genuinely felt bad about the mistake and wanted to make it up to us.

We’ve stayed in many, many hotels over the years — and we’ve had our share of trying experiences, some of which I’ve written about in this column (most notably: strangers entering our rooms unannounced, having been given key cards by the front desk). Usually, we’ve received apologies, but seldom anything more. This rural motel went to more trouble than most of the hotel chains we’ve stayed in. And it’s nice to realize that the bottom line for some businesses really is about more than the financial bottom line; it’s about ensuring that customers have a positive experience.