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Top Tips for Choosing a Hotel on a Budget
After we checked in to the hotel in Des Moines sometime after 1 a.m., we pulled around to our parking spot only to be greeted by the flashing lights of police cruisers. It was hard to tell whether they were responding to an incident at our hotel or at the adult establishment next door. We tried not to look too closely.
On another trip, there was a hotel somewhere in mid-Iowa where I decided against taking a shower or putting on pajamas because I was afraid of what I might catch if I took off my socks.
But the final straw was Omaha, where we chose a hotel on a budget that turned out to be popular with long-term highway work crews. The room had a bare tile floor and a small iron bed frame with lumpy mattress. Guys ready to celebrate the weekend were rolling in with armloads of booze, and women soon followed. At least our room seemed to be pretty clean, once you got past the towels.
See, my significant other liked to drive between our home in Colorado and our parents’ homes in Indiana as if it were a race. Choosing a hotel ahead of time would have meant admitting that he won’t drive 19 hours straight through. It would have meant committing to a stopping point for the day. It was only when everyone was exhausted at 10 p.m. and ready to stretch out on a real bed that he would concede, and we were stuck with whatever cheap room…
