Dave's Fiction Warehouse

In which I bloviate about books, TV, movies, politics and other stuff I know little about..

  • Books
  • Movies
  • TV
  • politics
  • american life
  • Writing
  • Other Stuff

Connect

  • Email
  • Facebook

Powered by Genesis

Motels of the damned

August 11, 2010 by Dave Knadler

It will probably be in a Motel 6 nears Hays, Kansas.

While it is physically possible to drive 1,250 miles in a day, I don’t recommend it. I tried that coming back from Montana in July, leaving just after 5 a.m. and arriving here after midnight. For hours afterward, my fitful sleep was haunted by the vision of pavement rushing beneath me, weeds and signs blurring by on either side. It didn’t help that the stupid cat, perhaps annoyed by my long absence, kept walking across my head and meowing through the night. Let’s just say it took an extra night or two to recover. So the money I saved on a motel was a false economy.

Not that money spent on a motel is a great deal either. Super 8, which I had long considered a bargain in roadside lodging, has pretty much doubled its prices over the last few years, trying to justify it with tepid swimming pools and hair dryers and a free “breakfast” that is little more than watery coffee and generic cereal in a plastic bowl. You get the cereal by turning this knob on the container; an adult-size portion of raisin bran requires about 38 turns.  I always feel a bit like a chimpanzee when I do that, imagining that scientists are recording my reactions to see how many turns it will take before I run cursing from the breakfast lounge.

Still, Super 8 is the Ritz Carlton when compared to Motel 6. All I really require from a motel is clean sheets and a shower and a decent Internet connection. Motel 6 provides the first two. It claims to provide the third, but the Internet never works at a Motel 6, and most of them expect you to pay $3 for the privilege of attempting wireless access to their dial-up AOL account — the one that times out after taking 15 minutes to load a Lifelock ad. It was at a Motel 6 that I discovered the joys of solitaire and mahjong on my laptop.

I’ve ruminated before on the decline of the American road trip, and I guess this is an extension of the theme. Motels, like hamburger joints and big-box stores, have all become the same place over time. You check into a La Quinta in Tupelo and check out of a Sleep Inn in Missoula; if not for the blur of time in between, you’d swear you were somehow teleported while flipping through the same 40 channels. You go into a Target in Jacksonville and when you come out, you’re in Wichita.  Yeah, you must have driven it, but the memory of the trip is just the endless unspooling of white lines on the interstate. I’m glad I’m not a trucker. Finally, I think, you’d lose all sense of place.

Road trips used to be more about the journey than the destination. Now, not so much. Maybe I’ve driven too many miles this year. Maybe I should stop more: check out that five-legged cow near Hays, or purchase a look at the World’s Largest Prairie Dog. Maybe I could time my next trip to coincide with that Czech festival in the town of Wilson. So many attractions. Outside of Livingston, Mont., there’s a billboard shouting “BEARS EXIT NOW.” Not being a bear, I’ve never exited. But maybe next time I will.

More along these lines:

  • !975 Pontiac Grand PrixThey don’t build ’em like this anymore
  • Travels in Trumpland
  • smith center statue of liberty replicaIf it’s not burning, it’s not the West
  • Mystery photo number seventeen
  • Mystery photo number three

Filed Under: road trip

Comments

  1. Ryan says

    August 11, 2010 at 10:53 pm

    I don’t know how the truckers do it. I really don’t. I was on I-80 at night on the way back from Notre Dame during that snowpocalypse we had and the lanes were covered, couldn’t see the lines, visibility was bad, and the truckers were doing sixty easily. I don’t understand how they do it, especially after passing a mangled, jackknifed one off the side of one of the Ohio exits.

    It’s good to know you’re not a hotel snob though.

Recent posts

  • The cold, hard West
  • The talented Mr. Santos
  • Reich of fools
  • Mad about Harry
  • The Cartwrights
    stand their ground

Recent comments

  • John H. on The cold, hard West
  • Dave Knadler on The talented Mr. Santos
  • John H. on The talented Mr. Santos
  • John H. on Reich of fools
  • Erin on Reich of fools

FInd something

send dave cash

The obligatory PayPal donation button. Go ahead: Make my day.