I Will NEVER Go To Motel6 Again

Tumwater, Washington. It's a wet, rainy, cold nowhere, just about five miles south of Olympia, Washington. The day is as dreary as can be, with rain falling and the skies hung with a grey cloud veil, blocking out any sense that the sun shone here once, or might shine once again. My mood is easily reflected in the puddles that surround my truck. I know when I get outside I will be made damp by the unforgiving precipitation.

My mood is not only driven by the weather. I am in a dump, a Motel6 which, by any other reckoning could not be called anything other than a dump. The room smells bad, the floors are old and sticky, the bathroom sink has a large cigarette stain and a corresponding chunk missing where someone tried to chip the stain away. You get what you pay for; in this case, not much of both. This is what I get for staying in a place which advertises itself as having the "lowest rates of any national chain". It's a fight for the bottom where quality is the first, and worst, casualty.

The bathroom is the biggest part of this lunacy called an accessible room. First, and most dangerously, there are no safety bars at the toilet. This means I make a freehand transfer to and from my wheelchair. I can do it; it's risky, and hard work. The best part of the idiocy which is this room is the shower seat. It is set at the far end of the shower, a full five feet away from the shower controls. Even if I could reach the controls from the seat, the spray from the shower head would not make the distance. I would get wetter going from my room to my truck. There are other things too; these two are enough to get the idea.

There is one good thing. I will be leaving in the morning, leaving terrible Tumwater forever behind me, leaving the Motel6, the chain at the bottom, forever. I have decided I will NEVER stay in a Motel6 again, unless forced to by circumstance. Although I wonder if I might have done better to sleep in my truck.