Finally back at it
I have been home from the Pay It Forward Tour for a little over a week. I did a really bad job keeping the posts going while I was on the road. I was exhausted a lot of the time and just couldn’t really think to put things into words. Now that I am relatively rested, I want to get back to it.
I left off with going to the Grand Canyon. My next stop was Barstow California. When I say stop, I really should say a brief pause.
#Vanlife sucks in the heat
I realized pretty quickly into this trip that I had taken the wrong route for sleeping in the van. It was brutally hot in the south. I should have gone north and then south but the schedule didn’t really work out for that.I ended up staying at cheap hotels when I didn’t have a friend or family to stay with. The cheap hotel I chose to frequent was Motel 6. For the most part this worked out pretty well. I didn’t always have an accessible room but I am pretty good at making do. The other times left me either a bit scared, sometimes disgusted, and overall wishing I had just slept in the van haha.
Sketched out in Barstow
Barstow was one of those places I wish I had kept driving or slept in the van. I didn’t usually make reservations just in case I decided to keep going or stop early. I ended up just winging it and hoping they had a room. After getting to the Motel 6 on Route 66 at about 9 pm. I went in and did my usual spiel asking if they had a room for the night. The guy behind the counter said no at first. Immediately after saying no he did a 180 and said let me go check. Mind you the room I ended up getting was maybe 100 ft away from the office. He was gone at least 10 minutes just to check the room. I wondered the whole time why he couldn’t just check on the computer but ok I got a room.
Can I help you?
I get to the room and a woman follows me right to the door. After getting it closed before she got there, she proceeds to knock. I opened it slightly and she asks if I have a microwave. I quickly said no and shut the door. I really didn’t have one. She walked away and never bothered me again.
Grossssss!
I turned on the lights and began to look around the room. The walls were disgusting. There were streaks of red and yellow. I could see what looked like claw marks. They were supposed to be white but were actually a dirty white. The kind of dirty white caused my smoking for years in the same room I went to check out the bathroom. To make it accessible they had basically ripped out the bathtub but didn’t do anything else. The drain was still in the same place and it looked like they didn’t even bother to put any tile or floor covering on the floor.Once again the walls were disgusting, the floor was disgusting and I kinda wanted to just keep driving. I decided to try to sleep anyway.
I’m outta here
About 4 am I awoke and figured I might as well drive. I was only 6 hours from my aunt’s house and I just wanted a non sketchy place to be at that point. I proceeded to try out that shower which as expected didn’t drain correctly. Water leaked all over the bathroom floor soaking everything on it including my towels and clothes. I made it work anyway.
LIfestyles of the rich and famous
I packed up to leave and headed out to the parking lot. In the parking lot of a Motel 6 I see a Bentley Continental GT. This car costs right around $215,000 brand new. If one can afford a @200,000 car, I am quite sure they are most likely not staying at a $50 per night hotel. So I did the math, woman following me to my room, desk clerk appearing to make someone move out of the room so I could have it, and a high end luxury car in the parking lot. My math came out to something shady is going on like a possible brothel.
I had heard that Barstow was sketchy before this experience. Maybe I am wrong about my math and things just added up the way I made them. I can guarantee I will never stop in Barstow again.
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