I usually make the hotel arrangements using Priceline.com. That has been the most economic way for us to travel. I wasn’t having much luck in my bidding before the Homeschool conference so Jason decided to take matters into his own hands. He found a cheap one yessireebob!
It was a one star motel that boasted a continental breakfast. At least we’d get to eat right? We hoped for the best…until we pulled up to our destination. “Uh this place doesn’t look too great.” My husband said it, not me! Oh well, I’ve slept in all kinds of places in my life time. How bad could it be? I tried to sing its praises and look on the bright side. We’d paid for three nights, after all.
“Mom, there’s a bug!” yelled one of my kids. As Jason jumped up to kill it, I hoped it wasn’t a roach. It was! I tried not to picture them crawling on my children at night.
The next morning we got ready and went to eat breakfast. There were two kinds of cereal, apples and bananas. That’s it! There should be restrictions for what qualifies as a continental breakfast–for crying out loud!
Our last evening I commented that we were probably going to forget our drinks in the fridge the next morning and sure enough we did. Jason mourned his Gatorade as we drove to the Huston Children’s Museum. That is a story for another day, but on the way back he planned especially to stop by the motel and pick up his Gatorade. I laughed. I thought for sure they would have thrown our drinks away. Jason pulled up to the place and ran in. I hid my face. A couple of minutes later he came out with two Gatorade. I couldn’t believe it. “I know there were at least three,” he said, “they drank my stink’en Gatorade!” Hmm on second thought I think we fit right in at that motel!
“Next time I think I’ll let you get the hotel,” was the last thing my husband said on the subject!
I hope you saved a lot of money! As you said, you’ve stayed in worse places in your life.
Love it, Esther! 🙂 We’re rednecks right along with you!
That is just too funny!
One time, I traveled to a Precepts Conference in Chattanooga, TN with some girlfriends. All of the conference hotels were full, so we had to stay at a different location. We found a cheap motel that offered a continental breakfast. The rooms were so inexpensive, that we decided to get 2 rooms, instead of all 4 of us piling into just 1 room ~ what a good deal, huh?
The rooms were so dirty that after checking in to the motel, we went out and bought cleaning wipes to sanitize everything with. The bed sheets were dirty so we called the office and requested fresh sheets. The carpet was so filthy/worn that we wore our shoes at all times. And there was a HUGE gap under the door that bugs were crawling in/out of, so we stuffed the gap with towels.
We laughed about how the rooms did not even have any tissues, alarm clocks, radios, bath mats, hair dryers, ice buckets, or any other items which you’d typically expect to find in a motel. We figured that those items must cost extra money!!
The next morning, our so called continental breakfast consisted of coffee and stale doughnuts : (
It was quite a memorable experience….it gave us a great roadtrip “story” to share with our families when we got back home. But, hey….the rooms were definitely cleaner when we left them ; )