texwest44
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2020
- Messages
- 211
(Warning: LONG story)
Life is so weird and subjective, you know? Sometimes I don't even know what to make of it. In this particular case, what might be considered an awful experience by some might considered one of the more exciting and interesting experiences at a hotel.
So I spend a lot of time on the road. A lot. We don't need to get into mileage, but I rack em up. In doing so, I've spent a fair amount of time in lodging of all varieties, from rickety no-tells to places that could really only be described as unnecessary, and that's across the world and spanning a few years. If you do this enough, you encounter just about every kind of situation under the Sun in terms of lodging experiences. Issues with rooms, staff, other guests, you name it. You get used to it, and you develop your own systems of dealing with things. And then, one day, you're on a cross-country road trip with your brother and you stop at the Motel 6 on the south end of Lubbock, TX, and you realize you have much to experience, yet.
It was probably about 5:30 or so in the first week of August a few years ago, and I'm driving my brother and myself back to Montana from central TX from a family reunion. We have a reservation at the Motel 6 in Lubbock, and pull into the parking lot making good time. There was no point in making good time, however, as the front desk staff was moving at a west TX summer pace, which is ironically quite similar to a glacial pace. We wait in line for some minutes behind a couple of other guests until it's our turn.
When our turn arrives, I tell the woman at the computer that I have a reservation and give them my name, and they look on the computer. And they look on the computer. And they look on the computer, still. She asks me if the room is for two. Yes, two, I tell her. She asks if I meant to choose the room with one bed. Yes, I tell her. She looks at my brother, and then looks at me. I tell her that's my brother and I have spare everything to sleep on as we're on a three-week road trip from Montana. This placates her fear (for now), and she gives me my one room key. I ask for a second, but that isn't happening. I thank her and we leave.
We drive around the motel until we find our room - and we notice some things. Things you notice if one of you is a veteran traveler and the other one of you is a veteran of the marine corps. Suspicious people, suspicious activity, suspicious vehicles, the works. I tell him I think I found out why our room was $40 in the neighborhood with all of the $90 basic-rate hotel rooms. He agrees. We find our room, and we begin the several trips we each have to make to unload the car. We have a western adventure worth of gear - fishing stuff, guns, camping gear, the works - and we don't intend to lose it to whomever might be looking for a quick pawn.
After the first trip into the room, we notice that it hasn't been cleaned. And the bedding hasn't been changed. And there's no batteries in the remote for the TV that is still on. And the floor is sticky, and while I know they can't fix it immediately, it's also lumpy and uneven. So I tell my brother to hit pause while I go to the front desk to remedy the situation.
In walking through the central area of the Motel 6 Lubbock, I notice more things. There are many, many vandalized and unoccupied rooms. Doors smashed in (as if with battering ram), windows broken, that sort of thing. But there isn't much garbage around at all, most of the rooms are occupied, and there a metric boatload of kids running around and playing in the pool. And with them are a large number of adults all seeming to have a great time with the kids. The atmosphere seems run down, but the energy in the people is actually quite lively and refreshing. No one seems concerned at all for safety. Except two men who I've noticed seem to be... patrolling the motel? Just two seemingly random guys walking the same route with each other over and over again. Very interesting.
So I make my way to the front desk. And again, the line. I wait until my turn, and I talk to the same woman who I spoke with before. I tell her about the room, and she just kind of looks at me, like I'm waiting to deliver a punch line. She then tells me she can't simply give me a new room. I ask her if someone can come up and clean it. My brother and I can kill some time, and we're not sleeping in someone else's dirty bed and using their dirty towels. She silently screams at me for a moment behind very beleaguered eyes, the begrudgingly summons a housekeeper to come clean the room. The housekeeper says she'll be there in a moment, and gets an apron on. I ask if there's a laundry room, and am told there is one, but it's out of order. I make my way back to the room.
On my way back, I take a different way around the motel, and begin to investigate a bit. I was able to tell 20 minutes ago that this night was going to be some kind of fiasco, and now I'm out to effectively prove it, which isn't taking much. I look at rooms, and I watch people. The same two guys are still making their same rounds, being very casual but still very obvious. I observe the pool area - all women and kids. I watch a couple of other guys who seem to be making rounds to specific rooms. I walk by the laundry room - it's fully operational, and is filled with tattooed young men washing their laundry.
When I get back to my room, my brother is standing, waiting for my return. He's been watching people too, and has noticed what I've noticed. Our room is on the second floor, so we watch over the events of the afternoon and evening unfold. He informs me that he went to check out a pickup truck loaded with junk behind the building, and he noticed that there is a lot of organization going on among the guests in the hotel. We quickly come to an agreement that this Motel 6 is some kind of crime hub, and we agree to forego usual TV and early bed to watch the local show.
Just then the housekeeper arrives to the room - and she is unhappy. Not with us, but with the housekeeper who told her she flipped this room already. Now she's wondering what other rooms she'll have to do after this. She hits the bathroom, mops the floor, and flips the bedding with impressive speed and is on her way. The night is ours after that. Beers are open, bubblers are bubbling, and we are officially people watching.
As the afternoon becomes evening, and the families go back to their rooms, all that remains are the characters. And things start quickly - too quickly. My brother and I watch the interesting characters with the pick up truck fiddling with their sorted goods, while drinking beer and consuming things that are... less-than-legal in the state of TX. We hear loud footsteps coming up the stairs directly behind us, and turn around to see a guy leading three large, grumpy looking police officers right for us. We instinctively freeze (not all instincts are great), and the guy and his police ensemble walk right past us and down the corridor to a room that the guy opens with his keycard, and they go inside. My freeze breaks, and I grab my brother and run for our room and close the door and lock it. That was a very, very close call.
We wait for the police to leave, which they eventually do, and we go back out. When we get back out to the corridor where the police had emerged, we see the two guys who had been making the patrols all afternoon, they've come to see what the fuss was about. No answer on that front. It's clear at that time that they are indeed some kind of improvised security team for whatever is going here.
(part II contiunes below)
Life is so weird and subjective, you know? Sometimes I don't even know what to make of it. In this particular case, what might be considered an awful experience by some might considered one of the more exciting and interesting experiences at a hotel.
So I spend a lot of time on the road. A lot. We don't need to get into mileage, but I rack em up. In doing so, I've spent a fair amount of time in lodging of all varieties, from rickety no-tells to places that could really only be described as unnecessary, and that's across the world and spanning a few years. If you do this enough, you encounter just about every kind of situation under the Sun in terms of lodging experiences. Issues with rooms, staff, other guests, you name it. You get used to it, and you develop your own systems of dealing with things. And then, one day, you're on a cross-country road trip with your brother and you stop at the Motel 6 on the south end of Lubbock, TX, and you realize you have much to experience, yet.
It was probably about 5:30 or so in the first week of August a few years ago, and I'm driving my brother and myself back to Montana from central TX from a family reunion. We have a reservation at the Motel 6 in Lubbock, and pull into the parking lot making good time. There was no point in making good time, however, as the front desk staff was moving at a west TX summer pace, which is ironically quite similar to a glacial pace. We wait in line for some minutes behind a couple of other guests until it's our turn.
When our turn arrives, I tell the woman at the computer that I have a reservation and give them my name, and they look on the computer. And they look on the computer. And they look on the computer, still. She asks me if the room is for two. Yes, two, I tell her. She asks if I meant to choose the room with one bed. Yes, I tell her. She looks at my brother, and then looks at me. I tell her that's my brother and I have spare everything to sleep on as we're on a three-week road trip from Montana. This placates her fear (for now), and she gives me my one room key. I ask for a second, but that isn't happening. I thank her and we leave.
We drive around the motel until we find our room - and we notice some things. Things you notice if one of you is a veteran traveler and the other one of you is a veteran of the marine corps. Suspicious people, suspicious activity, suspicious vehicles, the works. I tell him I think I found out why our room was $40 in the neighborhood with all of the $90 basic-rate hotel rooms. He agrees. We find our room, and we begin the several trips we each have to make to unload the car. We have a western adventure worth of gear - fishing stuff, guns, camping gear, the works - and we don't intend to lose it to whomever might be looking for a quick pawn.
After the first trip into the room, we notice that it hasn't been cleaned. And the bedding hasn't been changed. And there's no batteries in the remote for the TV that is still on. And the floor is sticky, and while I know they can't fix it immediately, it's also lumpy and uneven. So I tell my brother to hit pause while I go to the front desk to remedy the situation.
In walking through the central area of the Motel 6 Lubbock, I notice more things. There are many, many vandalized and unoccupied rooms. Doors smashed in (as if with battering ram), windows broken, that sort of thing. But there isn't much garbage around at all, most of the rooms are occupied, and there a metric boatload of kids running around and playing in the pool. And with them are a large number of adults all seeming to have a great time with the kids. The atmosphere seems run down, but the energy in the people is actually quite lively and refreshing. No one seems concerned at all for safety. Except two men who I've noticed seem to be... patrolling the motel? Just two seemingly random guys walking the same route with each other over and over again. Very interesting.
So I make my way to the front desk. And again, the line. I wait until my turn, and I talk to the same woman who I spoke with before. I tell her about the room, and she just kind of looks at me, like I'm waiting to deliver a punch line. She then tells me she can't simply give me a new room. I ask her if someone can come up and clean it. My brother and I can kill some time, and we're not sleeping in someone else's dirty bed and using their dirty towels. She silently screams at me for a moment behind very beleaguered eyes, the begrudgingly summons a housekeeper to come clean the room. The housekeeper says she'll be there in a moment, and gets an apron on. I ask if there's a laundry room, and am told there is one, but it's out of order. I make my way back to the room.
On my way back, I take a different way around the motel, and begin to investigate a bit. I was able to tell 20 minutes ago that this night was going to be some kind of fiasco, and now I'm out to effectively prove it, which isn't taking much. I look at rooms, and I watch people. The same two guys are still making their same rounds, being very casual but still very obvious. I observe the pool area - all women and kids. I watch a couple of other guys who seem to be making rounds to specific rooms. I walk by the laundry room - it's fully operational, and is filled with tattooed young men washing their laundry.
When I get back to my room, my brother is standing, waiting for my return. He's been watching people too, and has noticed what I've noticed. Our room is on the second floor, so we watch over the events of the afternoon and evening unfold. He informs me that he went to check out a pickup truck loaded with junk behind the building, and he noticed that there is a lot of organization going on among the guests in the hotel. We quickly come to an agreement that this Motel 6 is some kind of crime hub, and we agree to forego usual TV and early bed to watch the local show.
Just then the housekeeper arrives to the room - and she is unhappy. Not with us, but with the housekeeper who told her she flipped this room already. Now she's wondering what other rooms she'll have to do after this. She hits the bathroom, mops the floor, and flips the bedding with impressive speed and is on her way. The night is ours after that. Beers are open, bubblers are bubbling, and we are officially people watching.
As the afternoon becomes evening, and the families go back to their rooms, all that remains are the characters. And things start quickly - too quickly. My brother and I watch the interesting characters with the pick up truck fiddling with their sorted goods, while drinking beer and consuming things that are... less-than-legal in the state of TX. We hear loud footsteps coming up the stairs directly behind us, and turn around to see a guy leading three large, grumpy looking police officers right for us. We instinctively freeze (not all instincts are great), and the guy and his police ensemble walk right past us and down the corridor to a room that the guy opens with his keycard, and they go inside. My freeze breaks, and I grab my brother and run for our room and close the door and lock it. That was a very, very close call.
We wait for the police to leave, which they eventually do, and we go back out. When we get back out to the corridor where the police had emerged, we see the two guys who had been making the patrols all afternoon, they've come to see what the fuss was about. No answer on that front. It's clear at that time that they are indeed some kind of improvised security team for whatever is going here.
(part II contiunes below)
