What I've discovered is that you can be fairly sure of the types of services provided at the various stops along an interstate for the travellers' convenience: you'll get the Holiday Inn, Comfort Inn, Days Inn, Wendy's, Arby's, Various family restaurant chains, gas stations, and of course the golden arches. After a while it can become a bit of a junk food/chain motel hell. I haven't yet used any of the chain motels, except for my night at the Day's Inn in Winnemucca, but that was only because of the casino voucher I received as part of the price. If I'm not staying in the back of my van, I've opted for a motel of the locally owned variety - thinking that these would be cheaper & not so sterile - a bit of character. This had led me to experience both friendly local hospitality & a basic but clean room, and also possibly the grubbiest motel in the Western world - I wont name it specifically, but it subsists in Minnesota somewhere.
In Sth Dakota at this time of year, the motels seemed to be populated mostly by hunters - who were all vacating their rooms by 6.30am. There's been a bit of a hunting culture in the mid west that I've seen - bumper stickers & t-shirts displaying phrases like: "Vegetarian: An old Indian word for Lazy Hunter" or "Wild Animals of the Forest ...belong right next to the potatoes & Gravy." There's even an entire cable TV station with shows devoted to showing you more efficient & fun ways to shooting wild animals. Seems the Elk, Moose & Deer don't stand a chance?
1 comment:
Oh, we've got a few tricks up our sleeve ...
Post a Comment