21 Comments

Great story Paul, I loved it.

I have stayed in numerous shitty hotels.

The worst was outside of Vegas, the TV in the room only showed bad porn and the bed was a waterbed, that was so hot you slowly poached in your own and others sweat. The shower had no tile and when I was showering the shower head popped off, pinning me to the wall.

Pro tip: Put your camera cases in trash bags before you move in, and Easy Off oven spray is just as good as pepper spray and easier to get.

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Thanks, Kirk! And I appreciate the practical tips, truly. I'm fairly low key with camera gear, but not as low key as the guy I knew who carried his in a diaper bag. I always thought that was clever. The Easy Off tip is especially great. I hope I never have to thank you for having used it, but I like it! The old strip in Vegas was particularly bad. It's still sad, though, that they tried to turn that part of town into a sort of theme park and that now the project is frozen. Is there no more decency or respect???

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it was in the garden district. I was there for a medical convention, consulting at the time. I usually was provided a room in a good hotel by the company I was working with. this time I went with the place my husbands company got ( they were low on the totem pole for securing rooms) this was a giant convention for the American Heart Association, 40,000 or more people show up. the place was an old victorian/New Orleans style mansion converted into rooms. reeked of bug spray and disinfectant, old furniture, a very gothic vibe. the next day we went to the Marriott where we were told there were no rooms, but I begged and pleaded and placed my life in the hands of the front desk manager. she said she would see what we could do. we ended up in the Presidential suite, for the standard room rate! we had a great time and now I have a great story from the experience.

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It’s just this notion of stories I was thinking of as I read Paul’s piece and these comments. One time I took a room in a Chinese border town on the way to a long hike. The room was so small and the bed filled the space so much that the door didn’t fully open. The walls were thin enough, I kid you not, that I had could make out the curve of the neighboring sleeper’s back in the thin panel board. I had to turn when he turned. I’d never knowingly choose that dive again, but such stories are their own strange reward. I’d never remember a night at a Hampton.

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Another great story. To be devil's advocate, I might add that it's not always a bad thing to have a forgettable night...

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Oh wow. You don't want to smell bug spray in a room. I had a horrific bug experience in a room - I'd have to look it up, but I think it was Alabama - and no amount of bug spray would have helped. I did leave that place, went across the highway, and had a fine time. There's something empowering about doing that, even if you do have to swallow the money. I have also gotten the money back a few times, as well.

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this brought back memories of a very unpleasant overnight stay in New Orleans, my skin still crawls. germs aside, your observations of the people also staying in the motel was compelling. oh the complexities of humanity and life experiences.

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the complexities, indeed. I was once at a really horrible hotel in Paris. really low-end, and basically walked out. the door guy followed me for three blocks. where in New Orleans, what part of town?

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Oh Paul, we've spent nights in the most "interesting," story-inspiring places in America, although this one sounds like a conglomerate of many at once. We are lucky, though, and shouldn't feel the least shred of guilt over our ability to hold fast to our sanity and productivity (whatever that means), and the capacity to recover from falls down the rabbit holes of life. Here's to cheap motels and to how they provide perspective on our human conditions.

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Thanks, Sue. "perspective" is the key here.

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Had a great experience in Sacto a few weeks ago. Rolled up to the lot, An ambulance was right in front of the entrance,,cleaning up something... "everything ok now" they said.."don't park there" they said.."make sure your car is behind the gate"... 😂

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Hope they removed the 'crime scene' tape.

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Sacto is a very friendly town.. everyone I met seemed astonished when I told them where I was staying...."I'm going to walk to the room tonight" I remember mentioning at one point..."Absolutely do not walk there .." it had a strong police presence,, very safe..

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life is full of mysteries

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I admire your honest and vivid writing that made me feel like I was there alongside you. The lack of a top sheet would be distressing to me too! My last motel stay (for a while at least) was at a Best Western in Vermont where sewage leaked from the ceiling in the bathroom in the middle of the night. Hope you had a delightful day in Boston!

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Holy crap! And that's a Best Western?????

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BW is interesting. For a long time, they would just rebadge some rotten old places. A while back, they upped their game and actually opened or refurbished some pretty decent places. I find them real hit-or-miss now.l

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That's a lovely story, about the sewage. Motels are like vortexes. (Vortices?) Thanks!

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I too have begun to pay enough to get a better hotel room. But when my wife's not with me I still like a motel with a pull-up outside the door. Quick in, quick out. (There's this $60 place in south Cheyenne that I am sold on. . . .) My solution to the sheets and coverlets problem has been to travel with my sleeping bag and a half-inch camping mattress--the blow-up mattresses give the bed enough stiffness that my touchy lumbar will be ok in the morning, I don't trust random mattresses to give it support. The mattress trick then led me to sleeping in my own sleeping bag all the time in motels now. It's familiar, it's got my own smells in it, and I know when I last washed it. Now that my wife's getting used to my sleeping bag solution, I can do it around her without getting so much as a raised eyebrow. God bless cheap motels. Just so they aren't renting them by the hour. . . . And just so there aren't roaches or bedbugs. Thanks for the ruminations on rooms, Paul.

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Thanks, Tim. I carried a bag with me for a while, as well. I must say - the cheap motels out west are consistently better than the cheap motels in the East, the Northeast and especially the Mid-Atlantic states. Call it the climate, the density, I'm not sure what, but I'll still stay in a cheap motel out west. Not so much here.

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Paul, what memories this post stirred!

One of them is from 1978, when my then-husband and I traveled with our baby firstborn to Victoria, B.C. We stayed in a place called Crossroads. I'll never forget the fluffy blue and white duvet. There was a card on the nightstand explaining that a duvet was a combination sheet and comforter. There is no top sheet. But, of course, you have to wash the duvet cover often. Sounds like the motel you visited didn't.

Move forward to 2016, when I took a solo road trip to the Sacramento Delta. I have no love of medium-priced chain motels, with their icky bedspreads and terrible art, so I sought out little independent ones. They were charming! Old wooden furniture. Clean, simple, inviting. Invariably the owner/operator was of East Indian heritage. The New York Times Magazine once had a story on the Patel Motel Cartel, Indians who buy and run small motels. Maybe half the small hotels in the country. I guess that's what I plugged into.

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