Once you get off the interstates and onto the backroads out west, the towns are smaller and farther apart. And each one has at least one motel, showing their age by the style of the signs out front and the rooms out back.
The main street in Laramie, Wyoming had the motel above and the one below, within two blocks of each other. It would be hard to figure out which one to pick, but maybe the Gas Lite would have won because of the proximity to a restaurant, but the spelling of “Lite” kind of soured me on it.
The sign at the Thunderbird Lodge, farther up Main Street, made me want to stick around till dark, just to see if that neon still lit up. It would be an amazing sign if it did.
About a thousand miles away was this motel on Highway 93 in Idaho. Not close to anything else, but boasting the only gas stations within an hour’s drive, they didn’t have to sell much for customers, I imagine. A long day of driving, a quick meal at the local burger joint, and the beds in this place would probably be just fine for the night.
As these smaller cities and towns get hollowed out, I wonder how long the motels will hang on. They are part of a bygone era, when families piled in the car for summertime road trips and people got off the interstate highways to see the real America. They are still hanging on, but for how long, who knows?
Camping is nature’s way of promoting the motel business.
Dave Barry
It’s interesting in that no matter where one travels, backroads or main highways, Indians seem to have a major market share of motel ownership/management. I’ll bet many of these mom and pop motels have foreign ownership. Nothing wrong with that, of course.
I enjoyed this post. Your photos are *great*. Seeing the old signs, noting your thoughts on their styles and placement… They made me pause and think about by-gone eras, what may have been gained since these places were built, and what has been lost. For Americans in general, and for my own family. I think you’re right about how families used to pile into cars and stop at places like these. Not as much now, it seems.
I remember doing the family marathon trip thing, although we always went to a relative’s cabin when we did. But it was something I looked forward to as a kid, the trip as well as the stay. I’m not so sure my mom was all that psyched to spend 10 hrs together in a car and then rough it in the bush, but we did it, year after year, and we loved it. It was a family event that stopped happening once we hit high school age. Then, I got a horse and didn’t want to leave at all; the siblings had their things, too. Friends became much more important at that age than family-togetherness, and the car-trip family vacations drifted to a halt. That was replaced by weekend ski vacations or boating fun until we went to college.
Change is like death and taxes – inevitable. I, too, wonder how long those places will hang on. Anybody else still do long car-travel vacations w/the family?
Those old motels remind me of road trips with the my Grandma when I was a youngster (40+ years ago). Good memories.
Laramie Wyoming is the seat of a huge university. Each year at convocation those motels are booked to overflowing! I know Annie because I was a little late booking for my son’s graduation….. we were almost sleeping on the streets. It is a friendly but interesting community where the gun rights posters were in frequent view for this sheltered Canadian. I think they will last.