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So I got the idea for this Medium Cool from Cole’s description of the place where he spent the night on Friday.
I am not saying Joelle put me in a dive hotel to kill me and get my inheritance, but I will say that there is a 4 foot sinkhole in my room and a Waffle House next door, so if this is the last you hear from me, it’s been real.
Pretty sure we all have stories from when we stayed at that place – or somewhere similar.
For me, it was the place with the broken lights, the sink where it was clearly better to not wash your hands at all than to wash them in there, where we each slept on top of the bedspreads on top of our coats, and the pool like this one, except that it was rectangular.
As bad as the accommodations are, we console ourselves with the thought that it will make a great story at some point.
Share your stories!
In case you are new to Medium Cool, these are not open threads.
Thor Heyerdahl
I remember staying at a motel somewhere in Washington State as a kid in the 80s – the fridge was in the bathroom… and not just a bar fridge – it was a full sized 1960s vintage fridge.
Gloria DryGarden
1. Winter camping in a waterproof tent, in high school.
3 of us in a two man tent.
you know what happens inside waterproof, in winter?
2. a small hotel room in Paris, it was clear the sheets hadn’t been changed.
NotMax
Stayed at a motel in Brazil in 1961 which consisted of basically two rows of shacks facing each other from either side of a trench which served as an open sewer.
Nukular Biskits
Two places stand out in all my business travel. One was a California Inn & Suites in San Diego with walls so thin toilet paper would be thick by comparison. I was treated to the sexual exploits of the couple(s)(?) next door. EVERY. DAMNED. NIGHT.
Another was a low-buck place somewhere in the New London, CT, with vintage 1940s appliances.
Josie
My late husband was a pilot and owned a small plane with two other guys. Early in our marriage, we flew down to Puerta Vallarta for some vacation time. They had made the reservation by phone without looking at the place. His friend had recommended it. The room was not very impressive, but we were young and not picky. That night, however, we could hear someone snoring, and we knew it wasn’t either one of us. The walls must have been paper thin. I don’t think I really slept the whole night. Of course we checked out early the next day. You can imagine how carefully we looked over the next place we checked into. And we certainly never asked that friend for any more suggestions.
WV Blondie
Spouse was a traveling stand-up comic for many years. The stories he’d have about the rooms he stayed in would make even Mr. Cole’s hair curl!
But the underlying thread among all of them, he says, is the smell – of hookers and feet.
NotMax
Repeating from Cole’s thread.
Speaking of a motel room with a funky floor, check out the movie 41.
Gloria DryGarden
3. There was a backpack trip that aborted because of no tents, friends w down bags, and some July snow at dawn at 10,000. My accommodation was fine, but theirs was ruined.
4. sleeping on trains with the Eurail pass, in Italy there were terrible stories about people being robbed, their bags stolen from, from under their seats, while the seats were pushed together and folks were sleeping. I was lucky, and careful. But gods, the worry. I guess it was dicey.
KrackenJack
Got a great last minute deal on a motel near the south entrance to Death Valley. Went to see the wildflower super bloom.
The room was cinder block and linoleum with florescent lights. There was a bathroom with a toilet and sink, but if you wanted to shower, you had to go to another building a couple of hundred feet away (uphill). The chef’s kiss was the headboard painted on the wall above the bed.
To top it all off, we found out that the south entrance was closed due to heavy rains the previous winter. (Super bloom!)
WaterGirl
@Josie: Wow, you and Nelle both married to pilots!
frosty
I can’t think of anything as sketchy as the ones you and Cole stayed in. I had a memorable night in an old motel near Tucumcari (?) when I left California with everything I owned in a Datsun pickup and a U-Haul. I picked it because it was $12 a night.
The heat (it was December) was on a timer that you could hear spinning down. Once it shut off, the room got cold, I woke up, shuffled over, set it again and got back to sleep. It happened a lot, it was probably a 1-hour timer.
karen gail
My all time worst was pet friendly room, where the door didn’t lock; and no chair to put under door handle. But since I was traveling with Mastiff I figured that she got second bed next to door and window that was stuck open about 1/4 inch. I put overnight bag in front of door to keep it shut and skipped taking shower do to layer of mold. No idea where this was but I had passed Gary, Indiana and needed to get some sleep before falling asleep at wheel.
I pulled out in very early morning to find a couple miles down the road a Holiday Inn that would have charged me the same price for pet friendly room.
TheOtherHank
This isn’t strictly true to the rubric, but I’ll tell it anyway. When I was but a baby whitewater guide I rowed the Colorado through the Grand Canyon as a trainee. (This is the best way to see the canyon, btw). The company I worked for did 120 miles in 13 days from Lee’s Ferry down to somewhere upstream of Lake Mead. Anyway, back then you’d meet up with the passengers at Lee’s Ferry and give them the water-proof bags into which their belongings were stored. The space in the bags is limited, so naturally you put the most important stuff in first and them fill with less and less critical stuff until the bag is full. This means you get to camp on the first night and your bags are packed upside down. One of the first tasks, then, is to empty them out and repack in a more sensible way.
The folks were busy doing just that on the big sand bar where we camped the first night when the wind started to blow. The wind picked up in intensity until grains of sand were flying fast enough to hurt when they hit you. Then it started to rain while the wind continued to blow. There were people scattered all over the beach lying down on their stuff to keep it from blowing away. As one of the least essential members of the crew (trainees are by definition not too clued in on camp procedures), I ran around helping people get their stuff crammed back in their bags. One guy managed to get his tent set up, but the wind was blowing so hard it broke the tent poles.
We ended up managing to get a big tarp supported by oars set up over the kitchen area securely enough that it wouldn’t blow away. The entire group: 16 paying passengers, 4 guides, and 2 trainees ended up spending the night in a big pile of people in sleeping bags under the kitchen tarp. Nobody slept well, but we were all friends by morning.
NotMax
Not nearly as numerous now, there still exist bungalow colonies in the Catskills (one version of which recently seen in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel).
WaterGirl
@KrackenJack: Painted headboard, my laughter scared the cat.
BellaPea
We were traveling down the California coast from San Francisco to Big Sur in 2001. I was using the Internet then but did not have any knowledge of TripAdvisor, etc. We booked a hotel around Big Sur that looked great on the web site; it was expensive, crappy, paneled walls, no TV and nasty indoor-outdoor carpet. Also, no source of white noise except for a wall heater (it was September). Hubbie went to bed early. I sat up and drank so much wine to try to make myself sleep that I couldn’t even read a book. At least breakfast the next day at the hotel cafe was good. Learned a lot of lessons from that one.
mvr
My last real sabbatical was in Princeton NJ (a very expensive town to rent in) and I wanted to be close to campus. But half my pay came from my home institution which pays Nebraska wages. So I could not afford the faculty housing that was available. I wound up renting a room in a shared house walking distance from my office. Had at least one lovely roommate with whom I had many good conversations.
But the upstairs bathroom leaked into the kitchen on a semi-regular basis. The downstairs bathroom, down the hall from my room had a sink so gross I bought a new one and replaced it myself. And the toilet . . . Well I only used it standing up and went to the office when I needed to use a toilet not standing up. I got a campus gym membership to be able to shower. The furnace went out during the coldest part of the winter for several days. Stayed there for all 9 months of my leave apart from trips home, etc.. And it all cost more per month than my entire house back home.
Not sure if that was worse than a different rooming house that I lived in in college before I dropped out the first time, where my room was in the basement and the roaches were tropical in size. But it is more salient because more recent. The leave itself and the working conditions were fabulous. Music scene nearby wasn’t bad either.
FastEdD
I went to visit my old friend Murf who was living at the Aqua Motel in Santa Ana. He was a funny, intelligent, well meaning guy who was also an alcoholic with no luck at all. He showed me the pool out behind the motel which was literally filled with human sewage. I was joking, “Hey Murf, I’ll give ya ten bucks if you jump in!” He took off his shirt and jumped in. Ugh, I still shudder to think of it.
frosty
@frosty: I just remembered the worst one. Ms F had a Spring Break one year and we wanted to go to New Orleans because we like to eat good food. Our travel agent convinced us to go to Cancun. We figured we’d see Chichen Itza, eat Mexican, drink Dos Equis, have a good time.
We were next to the Hard Rock Cafe and the band played La Bamba every hour. It was loud!! We gave up the bed, dragged the blankets into the bathroom and shut the door. That’s when we found out about the roaches.
We were at the airport and on a plane home the next day. One night of that was all we could stand.
Marc
Back in the 90s my girlfriend and I wanted to vacation somewhere different in Hawaii, so we rented this picturesque old traditional-style house on Kauai that had been used in some film or another. It was a beautiful spot with a 270 degree view of the ocean. All was great until bedtime, when we both gradually became aware that we weren’t alone in the room. First, it turned out my girlfriend was deathly afraid of lizards, of which there were a few in the room, ranging up to a foot or so. I have no problem with the lizards and tried (unsuccessfully) to chase them out. It was the spiders roughly the size of my hand that freaked me out later. I think we slept with the lights on that night, and got a room in a Sheraton the next day.
Mrscoachb
Hubby and I stayed at a motel right off 95 just outside of Savannah…..we needed a place sketchy enough that we could sneak in 4 dogs. Floors were gross and the walls were thin enough that we had to listen to the neighbors “having relations” :). Thank goodness it was just one night.
WaterGirl
@frosty: I dunno, $12 a night and waking up every hour to turn the heat on is right up there. Not painted headboard level, though.
TF79
Twice I’ve stayed at motels in small towns as preludes to hiking/camping trips where we just said “screw it, let’s just sleep in our tents” and ate the $15 bucks or whatever. Can think of one or two others where it was a pretty close call.
scav
Dan’l Boone Motor Lodge on the Ohio side of the OH-KY border. Cigarette burns on the intentionally and accidentally nicotine-colored bathtub (tattered curtain for bonus points) and then the wonders of the Carry-O-Kay lounge for evening’s entertainment.
Somehow the bare-bulb room I slept in wearing my raincoat for warmth in some nowhere town in southern France nevertheless managed charm. Probably because they were a) available on the rainy night when the train dumped me there and b) had the most amazing coffee the next morning.
frosty
@frosty: On top of the accomodations, Cancun doesn’t do Mexican. They cater to college kids, so it was pizza and Coors at most of the restaurants. Ugh.
kalakal
Stayed at a B’n’B in Scarborough many years ago. Room was fine but when it came to breakfast… Ordered bacon & eggs, 5 minutes later server exited through door that led along a corridor to the kitchen. Sudden almighty crash, sound of plates, hitting floor, muffled swearing. Server reappears saying breakfast will take a little longer. Breakfast appears a little later complete with carpet fluff sticking to eggs. Nope
PaulB
A few decades ago, I was staying at a cheap motel in Alton, Illinois — on business and on a strict budget, hence the “cheap” part. Late at night, I get a knock on the door. I (somewhat foolishly) open it to find a youngish (20s) mixed-race man and a scantily-clad, similar-aged woman. He wanted to know if I was interested in enjoying physical relations with her. I politely thanked him and declined, firmly closing the door. I would have been 21 or 22 at the time and was definitely not prepared for that encounter.
I have tried to be a bit more discerning in my choice of accommodations since, so none of my other choices compare. I did pick a Best Western in New Hampshire a few years ago that was, to be put it mildly, not scrupulously clean. I got out of the shower my first morning, walked over to the dresser, went to put on my socks, and realized that the soles of my feet were filthy. The carpet was so disgusting that walking on it with damp feet meant that I picked up so much dirt that the bottoms of my feet were almost entirely black.
I took my socks and shoes into the bathroom, thoroughly washed my feet, dried them carefully, then put on my socks and shoes. Instead of staying for two more nights, I checked out that morning. I wonder to this day just how could you possibly let a floor get that dirty. And wonder even more, with a shudder, whether that lack of concern about hygiene also was present in the bedding.
Not a hygiene issue, but I made the mistake once of making a reservation at the height of mosquito season at a motel in the Everglades. I had to walk through a literal cloud of mosquitos to get into the room. Of course, despite my care, quite a few of them cheerfully entered with me. I decided I wasn’t prepared for this, so I turned around, got back in the car, and drove south to a motel in Key Biscayne which was, mercifully, mosquito-free.
Gloria DryGarden
Y’all reminded me of a time I stayed at a friend’s mountain cabin/ modular home/ trailer up above 11,000 feet. There were mice, climbing in and out of the box springs. I couldn’t sleep.
arrieve
Driving cross country in 1981, spent the night near Lake Charles, Louisiana. It was very late and the only hotel we could find was creepy to put it mildly. The man on the desk was too shy to speak to us (2 women in our twenties) but we finally managed to get out of him that he couldn’t take credit cards and we needed to pay cash. My friend left to try to cash a traveler’s check and I waited by myself in the lobby for more than an hour, where I was eyed by a succession of dubious characters who seemed to be trying to make up their minds whether they wanted to hit on me or rob me. When we finally checked in, there were plastic sheets on the bed and a 12 inch gap between the bottom of the door and the floor. We could see feet pausing in the hallway outside our room all night long. Because of course we didn’t sleep. At all.
Ruckus
I worked as a hobby in a professional sport for 30 years.
Then I got a full time job in the same sport. I’ve traveled to and worked in every state but Alaska. A lady in a smallish airport once asked me why I didn’t have a top tier travel card with the airline because I traveled so much. I asked her, did it actually make any difference other than to someone’s ego? And she said no, it didn’t. And then she said, oh I see. Eight months a year traveled every week for a weekend event that actually was 4 days long. Did that for 10 years. Decent pay, got to see a lot of the country. I would not recommend this type of job to anyone. For any amount of money. OK maybe a million a week…… But not a dime less.
It wasn’t as bad as it sounds, all expenses paid for by my employer and decent pay. Still wouldn’t recommend it, for a number of reasons. First home one day a week, mow the lawn – after going into the office for most of the day, MAYBE one more day in the office but normally back on a plane the next day, do it all over again. 8 months of zero days off is not work, it’s a sentence. OTOH my grocery bill was minuscule for 8 months a year, and my personal vehicle milage was minimal. Also your life isn’t your own. Oh well, all water under the bridge now.
Rachel Bakes
Does a cursed vacation and rotten customer service count?
I’ve visited Cape Cod once. Had our 2 year old with us and stayed at a condo rental place after the season ended. A hurricane was due that night but no damage. Every day housekeeping would pound on the door during nap-time (which we kept strictly for her sanity and sleep), despite double locking the door, hanging signs, talking to her, and talking to the management. Would not accept that we didn’t need clean towels daily. The last straw on the whole trip was the fire alarm ringing at 12 am one night. We stood there dumbly in our room, looking for a cause then called the front desk and were told “we think it’s a false alarm, you can go back to bed.”
packed up and drove home then and there.
Another Scott
@TF79: Also not a motel story, but adjacent:
After high school and friend and I left Dayton, Ohio, headed west to Missouri to see some of his relatives for a few days, and made a big circle to Dallas, New Orleans, Atlanta, and then a dash home.
(Newly paved asphalt in the summer in Oklahoma in a 1966 Oldsmobile F-85 with no air conditioning is hot!!)
We were making this trip with almost no money, and were using his old mini circus tent with no floor for accommodations, stopping at KOAs and the like.
We ended up at the place we were staying outside of Dallas after dark. Paid the $10 (or whatever) for a spot for the night and tried to find some place to set up the tent. Got the tent up, sleeping bags out, and got ready to collapse…
And about 10 minutes later I jumped up and said I was getting eaten alive and headed for the car. Because we had apparently set up the tent over a fire ant colony. My friend thought I was exaggerating, until I saw him at the door of the car a few minutes later…
Good times!!
Best wishes,
Scott.
dexwood
We had driven non-stop from Albuquerque to Nashville where our bodies insisted it was time to find a room. We saw a decent looking place across the road from some restaurants. Perfect. A meal, a shower, a comfortable bed. We were smoking a joint and checking out the local news when we saw a follow up story about the murders of three people a few days earlier. In the room beneath ours. Yikes! Creepy. We hardly slept and checked out at dawn.
NotMax
@NotMax
Another entertainingly odd motel movie: Bagdad Cafe.
;)
Jay
When we were moving from Maple Ridge to Kamloops, we cleaned the house, top to bottom for the new owners. We booked a “Pet Friendly” room in a local large Western Chain of a Hotel, a couple of blocks from the house, as we would be hitting the road the next day, early. We arrived at 9pm.
Well, the room reeked of urine and cigarette smoke, to the point that our eyes watered. It was right next to the Events Room where somebody had a wild wedding going on, complete with aa live rock band, kids running the hallways, and couples having drunken arguments just outside our door.
We lasted about half an hour before bailing and getting our deposit and money back.
We drove our two cars to Hope, getting there around 2am completely bagged out. Both highways are lined with old motels from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. We stopped at the first one that had a vacancy sign lit. Had to buzz the door at the Mgr/s Office/Room. The owner, late 60’s buzzed us in to the office, wearing a bathrobe and carrying a Yorkie.
We asked if she had a pet friendly room available. Nope. Told her our backstory. She took a $50 damage deposit and gave us a room in the middle, with nobody on either side, and nobody above us. The room was clean, unscented, 2 double beds, clean sheets, old wool blankets, (it’s Hope, it get’s cold suddenly, even in the summer). The bathroom was ancient, but clean, the taps worked, the TV worked, for Hope, (just CBC and CTV, no cable), and a 2 cup coffeemaker.
I walked the dogs, we all went to bed, (Casey, Digger, Pablo and Capra). Slept through the alarm, (10 am check out), woke up at noon, apologized, booked another night. I got us breakfast, (Tim Hortons) and Starbucks coffee, we walked the dogs, ate roadfood for supper, went to bed early, slept well, got up early, loaded up the cars, passed inspection and paid the bills, thanked her, hit the road.
She said she and her Yorkie never noticed that we had cats and dogs, because we were so quiet and everybody was well behaved.
Just look at that parking lot
In the mid 80’s we were headed to New Hampshire for a wedding . Stopped at the Thunderbird Inn off I-95 somewhere in South Carolina. Big, brightly painted totem pole out front. My wife said it looked like a fun place to stay. Ended up keeping every light in the room on all night. It was the only thing that worked to keep the cockroaches at bay. Sorta.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
We stayed in a place called The Maze in Rio de Janeiro. My Rough Guide to Brazil said it was “the most interesting place to stay in the city.” It was in a small favela called Tavaros Bastos. Our cab driver did NOT want to let us out of the car. And he couldn’t drive us to the door of the place because no road goes there so once we did convince him to let us out we had to lug our bags through a narrow alley to find the place. It was mostly hand built by a British expat and the plumbing was functional but definitely not fully up to code. It was fine, we didn’t have any trouble with the locals. Tavaros Bastos is a pretty safe favela, maybe the only one, because the Rio version of SWAT is headquartered there. But it looks like all the other favela so our cabbie thought no way should you naive tourists be walking around here.
Grover Gardner
Years ago we decided to take a trip from Southern OR to San Francisco. This was in high summer. Our kid was 12 or 13, I think. I had a brilliant idea to take our time and cruise down 101 and see the sights. My wife asked if I had made reservations anywhere and I said, oh no, we’ll just wing it. What a mistake!! Every single town of any size along the way had a car show or a gem show or a truck show or a music festival or some damn thing going on, and from Crystal City to Santa Rosa there wasn’t a room to be had. Since we’d dawdled away the day looking a curiosities, we ended up late at night, exhausted and hungry, at a weekly-rental motel in Ukiah–and we were lucky to get that. Ugh.
Nukular Biskits
@PaulB:
Your story reminded me of another one of my bad hotel stays. I’ll preface this (and should have prefaced the others) with the fact that the employers I used to work for allowed you to keep the difference between the per diem rates and the actual costs. Because of that, most of the guys I worked with would ALWAYS stay isn the cheapest places to make easy tax-free money.
Anyway, I was scheduled to stay long term up in Moorestown, NJ, as part of a group of other folks. I asked where they were staying and they highly recommended an extended stay place (name I can’t recall) that was “brand new”.
I got there and, yes, it was brand new but the majority of the clientele was … uh, lets just say some of life’s most unfortunate folks.
One day, I went to do my laundry and, on my way into the laundry room, I noticed a woman headed my way. Thinking nothing of it, I proceeded into the laundry room, closing the door (you had to have a key card to get in). About a minute later, I heard someone rattling at the door and it was the woman I had seen earlier having some difficulties getting the door open. She finally succeeded and walked straight over to me and struck up a conversation.
I’m not easily intimidated but this woman really put me on edge and there was no one else in the laundry room so I rushed to get my clothes out of the washer and into the dryer. The entire time she was talking and it became apparent she was high on something.
As I pulled a shirt out of the washer, I observed that one of the buttons had come off. She immediately suggested I bring it to her room where she could sew it back on for me. I lied and said I had a sewing kit in my room but I appreciated it, threw everything in the dryer, started it and almost literally ran out of the laundry.
I waited a couple of hours before returning and even peeked around the corners on the way back to the laundry to make sure she was gone. Breathing a sigh of relief, I proceeded to take my clothes out of the dryer only to find a black pair of panties and a bra.
I’m not ashamed to say I rewashed all my clothes.
Subsequent trips to Moorestown, I stayed elsewhere.
NotMax
Best shrimp jambalaya I’ve ever had (aside from homemade) was when dining solo on Xmas Eve circa 1972 at the Holiday Inn in, of all places, Emporia, Virginia where was staying as a halfway point on a drive back from Miami to NYC
Grover Gardner
I also remember the time in the 60’s when my dad, mom and I took a road trip, I forget to where. My dad had not made reservations anywhere, though that wasn’t easy back in those days. But night came and we were in the middle of nowhere and could only find a room in a place that looked like something out of Nothing But Trouble. After one look inside, my mom refused to stay there, so we spent the–in the CAR!! For someone as punctilious as my dad, it was a huge humiliation.
NotMax
@Grover Gardner
Ah, the days of the AAA Triptik vertical flip booklets.
;)
Eric S.
The Eagles Nest in Quincy, IL.
The town where brother and I were born. We went to visit family and run a local half marathon. We checked in and went to our rooms.
My room had a CRT tube TV (in 2018) sitting on a folding TV dinner stand and a microwave on a dresser with a broken leg.
My brother’s room had mouse traps under the dresser and mold on the shower curtain.
We got the hell out of dodge. Got refunds when we protested to our credit cards with pics.
Nukular Biskits
@NotMax:
It seems like a hundred years ago but I definitely recall packing a copy of a road atlas and various maps when I’d go on business travel. Not to mention, picking up maps at the car rental counter.
I can’t tell you the last time I actually used a paper map.
jame
A Knights Inn, somewhere in the South, about 25 years ago — I went back and insisted that the clerk give us clean sheets, which I put on top of the bed. Roaches in the shower, and the toilet was only somewhat better than a pit toilet. Ugh and yuck!
Suzanne
I remember staying in a motel in Atlanta sometime in the mid-90s. Couldn’t tell you what it was called. Anyway, it was one of those places with exterior walkways and the door to your room opens directly to the outside. Right outside our door, on the underside of the slab that was the walkway above, was the biggest spider I have still ever seen. The size of my two hands clasped together. NOPE.
I won’t stay in places like that anymore….. for security reasons, but also because spiders.
NotMax
@Nukular Biskits
And the paper road maps were free for the taking inside gas stations!
Nukular Biskits
@NotMax:
Yup. I remember that as well. I used to have a file cabinet with free maps.
Until Biden’s woke policies took them away …
/snark
zeecube
Stayed at a dive hotel in Daytona Beach way back when. Room had 1 working light bulb; so using the bathroom required moving bulb from sconce to sconce in each room.
JoeyJoeJoe
Stayed at a hotel in Casper WY in 2022, a Travelodge I think. It was nearly empty. Turns out it was a drug den, and it was later destroyed in a flood in 2024.
Also stayed at the Golden Key outside of Atlantic City in 2012. That other was infamous. My brother called it the Murder Hotel.
hitchhiker
A couple of years ago we took our dog, Utah, on a road trip. We live near Seattle, and we were going to Salt Lake City, then home by way of Wyoming.
Travel with a dog for geezers/disabled folk like us means finding airbnb-type places that take pets, which is what we did. All was well until the very last night.
Our place that night was … oh god.
A former cowboy whorehouse, I think. You had to walk through a terrible old restaurant to find the owner, who led you up some back stairs to your room. It was in a dark narrow hallway that smelled of rotting wood. There was no key. The room was long and narrow, with two single beds and a window that didn’t open. One lamp across the room from the beds, which were lined up lengthwise.
There was a bar next door where you could get okay food if you had a couple of hours to wait. The TV was tuned to a rodeo, which made me happy because it felt like this was actually what everyone in this crowded place cared about.
The bathroom in our room was actually scary; I don’t think it had been cleaned since before Reagan was president. I used the toilet and that was it. When I took Utah out for his last pee there were no lights outside, and at least three local dogs running loose in the muddy ground around the place.
Slept on top of bedding, telling myself it would be okay, just go to sleep. In the morning we left just after it got light, and somehow the woman who had showed us the room was there next to us in her car, gesturing that she wanted to say something.
Were we leaving already? YES, bye!
Trivia Man
Walla Walla about 1995. Road trip from utah to seattle, with my new bride. Both of us had travelled the world (we met in Asia), she had done more adventurous trips than i. Both comfortable with “rustic” rather than sterile chan hotels so we’d look for old school motels.
This one was typical – threadbare carpet, mismatched furniture falling apart, cigarette burns on the desk snd in the linen. Rickety and very well used – but cheap. Watching tv there is a local story about “another murder in a motel on the west side.” Uhhh, we are on the west side. Did he say “another”? Yep.
At the (woman’s name) motel, and they showed it. Is that ours??? I went outside to check. It was something like “motel heather” and the murder was at “motel Helen” or something close. Slept fitfully at best.
zhena gogolia
Boy, I can’t even read this thread.
zhena gogolia
We call these “Lolita motels.”
Trivia Man
My first Dead show, early 80s. SLC to Vegas. 7 of us, we planned to drive straight down and get a cheap hotel. Huge blizzard, we decided to stop in some small utah town off I-15 about halfway to st george. About midnight, at least a foot of new snow, no roads plowed at all. My cousin went in to the desk and bought a room. $14. It was the olden days.
As he was leaving the desk he casually said, “i have a couple friends, is that ok?” Clerk just shrugged. He was surprised at the parade but DGAF. But the point of my story – that room had almost exactly enough square footage for 7 people. 2 in a twin? Double? Bed and the rest on the floor. #7 had to sleep halfway through the bathroom door because we filled the space. Good times!
Tehanu
Hotel in Rome advertised (honestly) no tub but a shower. What they forgot to mention was that the shower head and drain were in the middle of the bathroom so you stood on the floor, without a curtain. Had to request extra towels to wipe down the toilet and counter afterwards.
Trivia Man
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: My friends went on their honeymoon in Rio about 30 years ago. His Spanish was pretty good and they just muddled along doing fine with the language.
They were walking in a beautiful park, middle of the day, and a local came up to them extremely agitated. Hes up for local color d he tried to have a conversation. After several minutes he finally realized the message. “Leave. Now. You will die. Soon. If you dont leave. They are coming.”
He is grateful he DID understand in time.
Omnes Omnibus
There was a place near Saugus, MA. Heat on at full blast in the middle of summer. My grandparents, my parents, my brother and me in one room. Some of the places I stayed in Kitzbuhel for Hahnenkamm weekend. When every good, decent, or bad place are booked up, you stay in the awful. They were just places to pass out for a few hours.
Trivia Man
@NotMax: Custom made for every trip! Ive been AAA member for almost 50 years. Peace of mind and now probably less useful but its a habit.
sab
I went for a job interview in northern Wisconsin near the Michigan UP. Stayed at a hotel the night before, and a hockey team was also staying on my floor. Very raucus all night.
Fortunately I didn’t get the job. Seemed like the sort of town that you had to have lived there four generations to really belong.
Soprano2
In 1985 my BF and I went thru New Orleans. We didn’t have reservations, and this was pre-internet, so we stopped at a motel on Airline Drive! We had no idea, although BF said the clerk looked at him funny when he said he wanted it for the night. We checked in around midnight. That was the creepiest hotel room I’ve ever been in. I hated even laying on the bed, and the light was one of those awful fluorescent things. Two years later when the story about Jimmy Swaggert picking up prostitutes on Airline Drive came out, it all clicked for me! Aarrgghh…
sab
We stayed in a hotel in Las Vegas that didn’t allow pets. The six goldens were all good boys and girls and made no sound. Early the next morning we snuck them out and away. But they left many hairballs in the parking lot. As we left a room check was beginning, to find illicit dogs. We felt so guilty.
Jay
Kuta, Bali. Package deal.
The “hotel” was just basically a 70’s Western strip motel. Not like the brochure. We were there for a week, then had another 3 weeks on our own. Western bathroom, toilet, tub, sink, shower. Window unit AC, which I declined to turn on. First, because acclimatizing to the heat was a thing, second, because they are germ labs if not constantly cleaned and drained, third, because it was home to a 3 foot long boa of some kind.
Belated 1st marriage honeymoon.
Everyone in the motel who turned on their AC units got miserably sick.
After that, we stayed in loftsam’s, “guest huts” built in family compounds. Porch, one room, attached, private outdoor bathroom. Everything tiled, squat toilet, showerhead on one wall, a water tank and ladle instead of TP. Thermos of Java coffee, a bowl of fruit salad each from the garden, a fried egg and toast from the chickens, waiting every morning on the porch. Incredibly cheap. The only downsides were rooster in the morning, the frog chorus from the rice paddies, and the rice rats living in the palm thatched roof at night.
Aftern
sab
We are at home in our own house and a disgruntled cat peed my husband’s razor.
I keep telling him cats don’t like cluttered counters.
Jay
@sab:
I guess that pushing it off the counter repeatedly didn’t get the message across?
Warren Senders
I got into New Delhi late one night in 1986 and there was not a hotel room to be found that I could afford. I wound up in a joint which clearly catered to hookers. There were sexy posters on the walls (a chubby topless Indian girl in peasant costume, and an exotic model cuddling a python), along with convex mirrors and flocked red velvet.
The room was at the top of a narrow rail-less stair (really narrow, like 8″ wide) and the door opened outward, so you had to do a little dodge and weave to not get knocked into the stairwell. Across the open space from my room was the bathroom; when I had to pee I had to step over a sizeable opening. I have pictures somewhere.
I was so paranoid about bugs, skin diseases, yadda yadda that I never disrobed and lay fully clothed on a sheet I had with me.
In the morning they brought me spicy bean mash on toast and it was one of the tastiest things I’ve ever eaten. Go figure.
karen gail
Back in early 90’s ex decided we needed to go on fishing trip; his boss had stayed at place and bragged about it. Great fishing Table Rock Lake; so first the cabin isn’t on lake it was on stream below dam. Okay, won’t put boat in water, cabin sparkled; they scrubbed it down with bleach. (I am allergic to bleach.) So open windows, no screens but bleach fumes kept the bugs out. I am trying to figure out how to get ex to bail on long weekend; go to put boat in water and he forgot seats and gas tank. So it was his idea to leave early and tell boss that cabin was so clean it sparkled, I only had to spend one night in that room but I will never forget how bad the bleach fumes were and wondered how anyone could spend a week in those cabins.
RevRick
When I was 13, I went tent camping out west with my parents, our intention being to get to the Seattle World’s Fair. Never made it. Not even close. But two of the lowlights were the campground at Albert Lea State Park in Minnesota. Me, my parents, and my cousin got eaten alive by mosquitoes. Our next stop at a county campground in Presho, South Dakota made that seem like paradise. The outhouses were so rancid that I couldn’t get within twenty feet of them before the gag reflex began. I fled to a nearby field and literally took a dump in the weeds.
Of course our mode of transportation left a lot to be desired. My cousin and I sat in the back seat of a 36 HP, ‘56 VW with no A/C. (Our cooling system was basically a cylindrical tank filled with water that was attached to the passenger side door.) This was when Interstates west of Chicago were basically nonexistent. And we were pulling a tent trailer!
On the other hand, the campgrounds in Bighorn National Forest, in Cody, Wyoming, and in Grand Teton National Park were glorious, rustic, but clean and well-kept, but the surroundings were sublime.
Jay
@karen gail:
It’s a fishing trip, by day 3 the fish slime, OFF scent, BO, beer burps and bean fart’s cover the bleach smell.
frosty
Strange bathrooms: we stayed in a converted rubber baron’s mansion in Sorata, Bolivia for a few days. Not a dive, it was very nice, parrots in the courtyard. But the shower … no hot water tank, there was an electric element to heat the water as it flowed. You turned the hot water on with a Frankenstein double-throw-knife switch. Which was within range of the shower. Apparently no one gets electrocuted with this setup – we didn’t!
sab
@Jay: For some reason they don’t do that in the bathroom. They do everywhere else.
Jay
@sab:
None of our cats, ever cared. Litter box not clean enough to their standards, yup. Crack open a can of tuna and not share, yup. Blueberries, yup, tin foil balls, yup, Ping Pong balls, yup.
Plants, okay, strange dogs, okay, guests, okay, (except for my ex-brother), ornaments were safe, photo’s were safe, xmas tree, phef.
Other than “Mellow” being a shit head and starting fights with Lil’Bit, and Capra, they were chill. Lil’Bit always held her own, she outweighed him by a good 10lbs, Capra always held his own. When Lil-Bit was a kitten and young cat, she would come charging into his basket, to wrestle him, (yes, just play wrestle). He would always put her in a choke hold and once she had passed out, use her as a pillow.
If it went too far, Casey our Pit-X would get involved, and none of the cats wanted that. A nose bonk from her could make you feel like you had gone 5 rounds with Mike Tyson.
RaflW
I was on a road trip in I think 1999 or 2000 to upstate NY from Minnesota. Back then on the rare occasions I’d need a motel room traveling not for work (work was usually Super 8s) I’d usually get a coupon book from the free ‘news box’ at Interstate rest areas. Those usually worked pretty well!
But this one time, in northern Indiana, I struck out a couple times, as these were always “space available”. I needed to sleep cheap. I stopped at a motel that looked okay. Just.
Went into the office and asked to see a room. They guy looked at me and said “If you need to see a room first, you probably don’t want to stay here.” Fair enough. I moved on. I did find a joint, and it didn’t have bedbugs and did have a working air conditioner and (IIRC) clean enough. I remember the tube color TV had that dying color render where part of the screen was lime green, and it probably had 5 channels. Whatever. I slept, I wasn’t murdered and my car wasn’t broken into.
The one other time asking to see a room ended up with a no-stay was just outside New Orleans on NYE. That motel had an honest to god full length mirror on the ceiling over the bed. We did not check in. Ended up driving to Baton Rouge to find a place with a vacancy sign that wasn’t also a brothel or porn set. Who knew New Orleans was so packed on NYE!? (everyone but us, apparently)
karen gail
@Jay: Strange; years later we were part of group who went to Chippewa Flowage fishing trips that lasted two weeks. Between 4 to 7 couples and children at resort built in 1950’s. All fish were cleaned in fishing houses, the cabins were clean and we were provided with fresh sheets every 4 or 5 days. No reek of bleach, friendly owner and great fun. We also managed to freeze enough fish to take home and have waleye for dinner a few times during the rest of year. Will say that fresh sheets had whisper of bleach but it was liveable.
Jay
@karen gail:
There are good fishing lodges, great fishing lodges, fishing lodges where you feel like a Gilded Age Plutocrat, then there is the ex-chicken coop we stayed in while fishing for Salmon on the Miramachi. Sometimes, it’s the lake/river that is great, (depends on how guide/access/lodge licenses are handed out).
The Thompson River Inn in Spences Bridge was pretty basic, but the only place to stay. They did take pets, and had a Continental Breakfast, and a closet with a tile floor and wader driers. Steelhead fishing in -20 is not for the weak.
On the Dee River, the river is broken up to “rods”, a pay to play thing where you have an appointment, a fixed stretch to fish, a ghillie. You stay often in a Castle, the food is stellar, any Salmon you catch goes to the house, and formal wear is required for dinner, and don’t be late.
Fishing, can get “weird”. In BC, I mostly camp at a Forest Service Site, ($15 for a year round permit for the entire Province), but there are some places, where it is “pay to play”.
Jersey Tomato
Many years ago when my now-adult daughter was 4, I booked a room in a motel in the beach resort town of Woldwood NJ. I thought a three day vacation at the beach would be wonderful immediately after Labor Day weekend when everyone else would be back to school and work. Little did I know that was also Wildwood’s annual Harley Weekend, when thousands of bikers showed up as well.
The motel had a nice pool with a six-foot diving board. My daughter and I jumped in as soon as we unpacked, complete with a set of swimmies for her. She and I were having a great time, with me catching her as she repeatedly jumped into the pool, paddled to the side, and climbed out to jump again. This must have gone on for an hour before I noticed some hard core biker dudes getting in to sit on the sides and drink beer. Gemma kept jumping, and pretty soon one of the bikers yelled “How old are you?” She told him she was four and he said “you’re pretty brave to be jumping like that,” and called his friends over. Pretty soon the entire pool was lined with drunk bikers who were egging her on to jump from the six-foot board. She climbed up the board and threw herself into space to huge cheers and applause. She loved it and a good time was had by all. The motel was pretty stank, but the pool was great.
Scrounger
Points for those who related good experiences. They get far fewer call-outs, but should get more, for landlords who do do the right thing, every single time.
Jay
There was the Niskani Lodge, a fly in place. The fishing was Arctic Char, or Lake Trout. The food was great, the rooms comfortable, but they ran out of cigarettes, cigars and beer by day 2. Cigars and cigarettes were used to keep mosquito’s and black flies away.
The “bathroom” was a single out house, overlooking the beach.
Mark was using the outhouse, when we started yelling, he heard us but could not make out what we were yelling. There was a Polar Bear walking down the beach. A Guide came running out with a rifle. The bear stuck it’s head inside the outhouse, then trotted away. Mark did not have to poop for another 5 days.
Fishing was slow, so we got a guide to take us to the Narrows, for Brook Trout. One boat sunk in the rapids. Several swimmers.
Mike in Oly
In the early 90s, in my early 20s, I took a road trip from Illinois to Florida in February. We just wanted to get away for a few days from the awful winter and work after the holidays. We had a friend in Cocoa Beach (I Dream of Jeannie!) we wanted to visit before heading over to Tampa. Upon arrival in town we saw a run down motel, very 50s-60s MCM, the circular drive ringed with a hodge-podge of blow molded plastic characters, a mix of Christmas, Fourth of July, and religious that was just surreal. And it was called the Sea Missile Motel, advertised in a large space-age missile outlined in neon light. Being young, very gay, and enamored with kitsch and camp there was no doubt where we were spending the night. It did not disappoint as a relic that had seen better days. Checking in we snagged a few business cards – one of which I still have on my fridge today – with the proprietors listed as Don and Linda. ‘And Linda’ was crossed out in ballpoint on every single one. The rooms were fine. Old, worn, scuffed, but reasonably clean for Florida. Couldn’t say as much for the obligatory central courtyard which featured a pool that had not been cleaned in a decade or more. Local wildlife had entirely taken it over. A green stew surrounded by overgrown grasses and brushy scrub. We were only there the one night. We howled with laughter for years after over the place. I still smile every time I notice that business card.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: oh my word!
mark, and the polar bear..
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: what time of day were the frogs?
the rats sound noisy and distressing…
mvr
@Jay: Just read a decent book about fishing the Miramichi – Lines on the Water by David Adam Richards. Kind of slow and soothing read by a guy with a hand/arm that did not work well and learning to fish anyway. And a bunch about people he met along the way.
Gloria DryGarden
@Nukular Biskits: I like paper maps. A year back, we drove down to Arkansas for the eclipse. My friends had a whole gps data thing going with updated directions to take us around traffic jams. It was all windy roads.
i begged to stop at a rest stop so I could get a paper map at the Missouri border. Then I could have a sense of where things were.
mvr
When I used to hitch hike I would sometimes have to sleep in odd places. I was living on a few (maybe three) dollars a day and traveling summers. I hated staying in cities at night but sometimes had little choice. One night in Spokane we found a seemingly grassy area nearly under an overpass. Soon after we bedded down around midnight the sprinklers came on. We had little alternative so we wound up sleeping on the sidewalk. There is nothing like waking up in the morning with dozens of well turned out feet and ankles wizzing by one’s head.
Kayla Rudbek
There’s a dump of a motel that I think was near Chincoteague that we stayed in and freaked out the California folks I keep up with on Facebook, I griped about it that much.
Also a hotel near Lompoc CA which convinced Mr. Rudbek to change our plans from biking in the area to going to LA and Disney instead.
Ocean City has a lot of older hotels on the beach and I think we’ve stayed at quite a few of them over the years. I still miss having Salty Yarns being in the hundred-year-old hotel on the boardwalk, but the hotel owners decided to remodel, so the yarn/cross stitch store moved inland.
I get tired of all the stores on the Ocean City boardwalk being so repetitive (too many t-shirt shops and not enough other kinds of stores).
Jay
@Gloria DryGarden:
Morning, dusk, for the frogs.
The Rice Rats normally nest in palm trees, but palm thatch gave them new homes. They rustled all night, mostly nocturnal. Under the thatch was a fabric ceiling, to catch the rat droppings. They are big, possum sized.
I got weird looks, from the locals, walking the paddy paths during the morning and day, learning all the local shortcuts.
Last 2 weeks, the ex went to an “all inclusive resort”.
I took a phinsi to Lombock and did a jungle walk instead.
Jay
@mvr:
Did a Scout Miramachi canoe trip as a Scout. 2 weeks, rain, treachery, bad food.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: I’m really happy to hear about the fabric ceiling to catch th3 droppings.
walking the rice paddies sounds amazing. There must be some amazing entries in your travel journal from that time…
Once in an esl class the two guys, one from Mexico, one from Fujian, China, discussed all the creatures that came out of the waters when they drained the paddies. I was awestruck by their questions, and knowledge, as well as their willingness to go for it in broken English. It was a delight.
now I have to look up all the rivers you said you went fishing on. On google, no paper map here.
mvr
@Jay:
My Scout camping experience is not a fond memory, though I suspect the adult leaders of my scout group were decent folks who had nightmares about what fuckups we were for the rest of their lives.
mvr
@mvr: But then making bisquick pancakes over flint and steel and fire stared with steel wool dropped into sterno stoves in a church basement is not much preparation for camping.
Gloria DryGarden
@mvr: thanks for making me laugh hard..
Gloria DryGarden
@mvr: I can’t imagine that bisquik biscuits could get evenly cooked over sterno..
otto correct don’t like that one..
Paul in KY
Back in 1968 or thereabouts my dad had his older brother get us a room at a local motel in Atlantic Beach, NC as we were coming for a vacay. His brother was a notorious cheapskate and got us this room in some cinderblock dive, without AC and with no windows as well. With a carnival about 50 yards away too.
By far the crappiest place I’ve ever stayed.
Paul in KY
@WaterGirl: That shows they had some class.
Paul in KY
@FastEdD: Man, he really needed that drink…
JustRuss
My first motorcycle trip, we’re somewhere in Idaho, it’s raining, and my buddy’s leading us to this great river resort he stayed at years ago with good food, beer, music, gonna be a party. We get there as darkness falls, there’s one car in the whole place, the swimming pool is full of green water, everything is dark, and nobody’s around. We set up our tents on the lawn and hoped we’d still be alive when the sun came up.
We were, and somebody did show up to take our money, but it was pretty bleak even in daylight.
azlib
My spouse and I stopped for the night in Barstow, CA at the last motel out of town heading west towards Mojave. The checkin was right out of Psycho. A portly gentleman took my credit card, but had to ask his Mother something. She was watching a very loud tv in the back office and had clearly been drinking. She yelled at her son and he came back and processed my credit card. I really expected Rod Sterling to be standing in the lobby corner. Needless to say, I locked the motel room door and deadbolted it and did not tell my Spouse what had occured until we were on the road the next morning.
Gravie
No-name motel in Roanoke, VA. A long, dim, narrow room, and the dark green carpet was spongy and sodden from a leaky faucet in the sink at the far end of the room. When we woke up in the morning, our 5-year-old daughter was so eager to run out to the car for a toy that she yanked the door open before we could take the security chain off. She pulled the entire door frame off. We fled.