Hi Gram,
I’ve had pretty good luck with hotels when I needed them along this road trip. They’ve all been clean (enough), felt safe (for the most part), and were located well, near the highway if I was passing through of near my friends or a local attraction if I was at a destination. My streak of luck ended at a Ramada in Cockeysville, MD.

I was on my way north to visit and stay with my friend Alex. I would be getting in late and just wanted a shower and some sleep, so I decided to grab a hotel nearby and connect with him in the morning. Using my usual method of searching online and finding a hotel in a price range I was willing to pay, I landed on the Ramada. It looked alright from the outside, but I walked in and the lobby was small. The cooler with beverages to purchase was barren and the shelf of snacks had been picked through without being replenished. As I approached the counter, I saw a sign stating “No breakfast health and safety because Covid”. Clearly nursing the pandemic so they could spare the lavish expense of cereal and orange juice, I discounted it and asked for a room. Not interested in the obvious life tragedies that led to the clerk’s attitude, we mumbled through the transaction, initialed and signed where I needed, and repeated his directions to my room. I drove around back and carefully parked my car, being careful that the bike on the rack be as far out of the way of passing cars as I could manage then carried my luggage up to the room.

The stench that swept over me as I opened the door and stepped into the room tried to push me back out the door. I’m guessing the previous guest had a rager of a time judging from the cigarette burns, the freshly washed but not quite dry carpet, and the overwhelming smell of cigarettes, bad cologne, and strongly scented cleaning products. I deliberated for a few seconds, then turned around and walked right back to the lobby to ask for a different room. Annoyed that he had to talk to a human again, the clerk reluctantly took my key back and exchanged it for a different room – the one right next door to the party barn I had just left. I pleaded with him to give me something a little further away, but he insisted that it was the only room left. I shrugged and took the key, knowing I would just bring it back and demand a refund if it was equally offending. I can always find another hotel or I’d even rather sleep in my car than to spend the night absorbing the putrid waste I had encountered. Luckily, this room was a little better. It also smelled of heavily perfumed cleaning products, and the bed either raised on the sides or sunk in the middle, but I was tired and decided it was good enough that I wasn’t willing to go gamble on finding something else. I showered up and went to bed.

Surprisingly, I slept soundly and woke up feeling refreshed. I had expected to have some sort of crick in my neck or ache in my back, but I felt fresh. I chose to do my morning exercises on top of the sheets after pulling the comforter off rather than touching that carpet with my skin, did my morning brain exercises, then loaded up the car and headed toward Alex’s place, planning to stop at a grocery along the way. Oddly enough, as soon as I left the hotel, which had been along a busy road of shops, restaurants, and hotels, my GPS took me along country roads past pastures, up and down rolling hills, and within sight of oversized farm houses and mini mansions all the way to Alex’s place, not a sign of commerce in sight. I lapped past Alex’s and found an Aldi a few miles away, where I grabbed some yogurt for breakfast before circling back and going to see my friend.

It was great seeing him, and reminded me how lucky I am to have so many friends along my route. We chatted for a while, then I headed out on my bike to get in a workout while he got some chores done around the house. I wasn’t near any trails or paths, so I just rode around the neighborhood for about 10 miles. A planned development, I found it was full of loops and cul-de-sacs so the map of where I rode looked like a hub and spoke diagram with few straight lines. After an hour of riding, I headed back to Alex’s house, loaded the bike back onto the car rack, and lounged on the couch for a while. We eventually both got hungry, so we found a Peruvian restaurant a few miles away. I had some delicious chicken and black beans, we talked about life, families, and travel plans, then we headed back to watch a few episodes of “I will teach you to get Rich” on Netflix. It was an interesting show that some friends in our FI community had recommended. It was obviously crafted and produced for television and I think there was some manufactured drama, but the stories kept the viewer engaged and it had some good basic lessons about budgeting, planning for the life you want to live, and controlling unneeded spending. Eventually, we were both tired and called it an evening so he could get up early for work and I could get on the road.