Hotel you what

Why does every hotel feel like an adventure?

Look around. There’s a bed -- maybe two, depending on who your traveling companions are. There’s a window, overlooking anything from a hazy mountain vista to a brick wall across from an alleyway. There’s a desk and some rudimentary writing implements, a couple of nightstands, and a painting of doves in flight that for some reason reminds you of your grandmother. All told, it’s nothing you’re not used to from your own daily life. It’s a life in miniature, nothing exotic or unusual. Yet somehow it feels completely different.

Partly, of course, this is because a hotel room is generic and impersonal. You recognized my description of one because every hotel room is like that to some degree: The painting, the desk, the bed with the sheets tucked so tight you could play ’em like banjo strings. Unless you’re a high roller who’s just plunked cash on the two-jacuzzi suite, a hotel room is only so big, so they’ve got to put the necessities in there and little else. Compared to your living room, with the family photos and collection of ceramic elephants on the mantle, a single at the Hilton is a bit clinical. So a lack of personal touch, yes, that’s a part of it.

Possibly a bigger reason why they feel like an adventure is because they’re usually accompanied by -- you guessed it -- an adventure. Unless you’re home’s being fumigated, there aren’t a whole lot of reasons to check into a hotel close to where you live. For the most part, you’re elsewhere, and every time you’re elsewhere there’s a story attached to it. Which means every hotel room in which you’ve ever stayed forms at least a small part of the tapestry of stories that comprise your life. Whenever someone’s talking to you about a trip they’ve taken and they say something like, “Then, back in the hotel room…” you can be reasonably assured of an amusing anecdote involving cleaning staff, noisy neighbors, or a vending machine that exclusively sells Orange Crush.

When it comes to hotels versus motels, that one-letter difference belies a pretty wide gulf in quality. The last time I stayed at a motel was about a month ago in New Hampshire, in the kind of town that would serve as an ideal backdrop for a Stephen King-esque zombie murder. When I checked in at the front desk, I noticed the clerk had a nose that had broken and then healed incorrectly, lending his visage a somewhat buzzard-like quality. A more recent injury -- you could still see the bruise -- left his mouth swollen, which made him sound like he was talking through a wad of paper towels. A face like that conveys one of two things: 1) I am a professional boxer, and a bad one, or 2) You’re in a town where awful things happen, so run like your ass is on fire.

It was late and I was tired, so I didn’t run. But I did second-guess my decision. While hotel stays tend to be reliable, cookie-cutter experiences with varying levels of perks, motels are an act of desperation, the last tree branch for which you can grasp before you smash into the ground. Nobody checks into a backwater motel for the continental breakfast.

As I was using the electronic key to let myself into the room, I noticed some commotion in a shadowy thicket of woods on the motel’s perimeter. Hearing a loud conversation in a forest is rarely a good thing, especially when you’re standing outside a building that looks like a good place to score a gram of cocaine. But curiosity’s a powerful motivator, so I looked over to see what the hubbub was all about.

Luckily, there didn’t seem to be anything nefarious going on. Barely visible due to the wide net cast by the parking lot’s arc-sodium lights, a group of men was sitting around a picnic table playing cards and quaffing copious cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, the swill of choice for chasers of cheap buzzes. Ordinarily this standard display of male bonding would have soothed my nerves -- I’ve done the beer-and-cards scene, and it’s generally fine -- but I checked my watch: nearly midnight. And the voices were growing ever louder. My father was a bar owner, so I know from experience that escalating volume means one of two things. Either the drinkers are peaking and will soon be slinking away to their suds-soaked slumber, or a fight’s about to break out over who’s got the hairiest neck-beard.

As I watched, one of the men, a denim-clad goliath the size of an industrial refrigerator, tore himself away from the bench and lumbered in my direction, lighting something that may or may not have been a cigarette. Jiggling mightily underneath his Guns ‘n’ Roses T-shirt, I decided it might be best if I slunk into my room. A spare bed and basic cable awaited me -- an unexciting end to the evening, but this was preferable to discussing with an imposing stranger the relative merits of Satanic skull tattoos.

The word “seedy” was invented to describe adventures like that one. At the opposite end of the spectrum was the room I enjoyed for four nights in February at the Treasure Island hotel in Las Vegas. The basic setup was more or less the same -- the TV, the generic lamps, the dusty ol’ Bible -- but the floor-to-ceiling window afforded a view of the iconic Strip and the mountains beyond, while the carpet smelled like fresh baby powder on a cartoon bunny. Miles above the motel experience, and yet they both stand out as unique and memorable outings. These hotel and motel rooms neatly encapsulate our travels, serving as succinct reference points when we think back to the places we’ve been. Plus you don’t even have to wash the towels.

I don’t know if my next stop will be at a filthy backwater or a luxurious hotel/resort. But I bet it’ll give me a story to tell.