A B C Motel

I hate doing this. Really I do. But you should be warned.
I am sure this motel was once ok. Maybe twenty or more years ago before the owner’s wife passed, before the place started falling apart.
My husband and I stayed here wanting to stay at an older motel on the historic Route 30 in PA. We pulled in around 11PM on a dark winding mountain road and were introduced to where we would be staying.
Normally I would have just left. But we weren’t sure what, if anything was up the road. So we stayed. The room reeked of something between mothballs and mold. The bed linens were clean. But the bed itself was probably 50 years old — there were suspicious stains on the towels, sink. walls. An actual mushroom was growing on the bathroom window. I thought we would be murdered in the night — just because it was straight out of a horror film. We had to go across the street and get drunk so we could sleep.
The man that owns the place was very nice. He talked my ear off when I handed him back our room key that was attached to a shower curtain ring covered in blue tape with our room numbered scrawled on it with a sharpey. He handed me his business card in which he had crossed out with a pen the amenities no longer available — coffee — in room phones etc.
He also charged us $ 60. It was so strange. I don’t know what else to say except that the drive was absolutely stunning after that– through the mountains and the clouds.