Another "Motel From Hell" Story

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What better story to post than this one on a Friday, the 13th....

For those of you who like to travel, whether by air, train or vehicle, you may be able to relate to this story.  It is about another “motel from hell” experience I had while on my September 2025 road trip.  In the past, I wrote a post about a number of other like experiences “from hell” I had in hotels during my decades of travel.  If you want a good laugh, be amazed or just shake your head in disbelief, you can find that post here.

So…I’ll pick up about two weeks into the road trip from eastern Washington state…My two lifelong friends and I left Spokane, Washington after a very pleasant stay in officer’s quarters on Fairchild Air Force Base.  Our intention as we left Spokane was to take U.S. Route 2 all the way across the far northern bit of the U.S. to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Up until this point, all of the lodgings in which we stayed on the entire road trip were just fine.  No complaints.  Since we normally had no idea, day to day, where we would be staying each night, our method was, in the early afternoon, to estimate where we would be that evening and start looking for lodging.  So far, that had worked perfectly as it had for all of our other road trips.  (Calling the hotel’s front desk directly in the late afternoon and asking what discounts are available has saved me a lot of money over the years.)

Along our way east, we wanted to visit Glacier National Park so around noon we started looking for a hotel or other lodging near the park.  I know.  That’s kind of late for a highly visited area such as that national park.  However, we did find lodging near Glacier N.P., but it was way too expensive!  Rooms were $300-$400 per night.  Needing two rooms for the three of us, we decided to look for less expensive rooms a bit farther from the park.  We then looked near Whitefish, MT.  Still very expensive and many hotels having no vacancies.  We were kind of surprised as this was the third week in September and we thought travel and tourism would have died down quite a bit by then.  Finally, we decided Kalispell was our last resort and not too far away that we couldn’t easily drive to Glacier the next morning.  After all, it was just a bit more than 30 miles to the west entrance of the park.  

We started zeroing in on finding a hotel in Kalispell.  I was shocked at how expensive it was there as well!  With it being almost time to close Glacier’s Going To The Sun Road and families pretty much done taking their vacations or holidays, why still so expensive?  It is what it is.  Everything is expensive these days.  We kept looking and found the hotel chains in Kalispell in which we normally would stay having no vacancies or if they had rooms, still more than we wanted to pay.

Finally, one of the guys found a ‘motel,’ not hotel, that was reasonable.  More than reasonable—cheap.  That should have been my first clue.  You get what you pay for, as the old saying goes.  And we did!  I’m not going to mention the place’s name.  I’m just not.  But, needless to say, I had never stayed in this particular chain before and I never will in the future.

When we arrived, it was as we thought.  A very low budget motel—the kind in which a company puts their workers on a temporary basis when a job takes them away from their home location.  That said, I’ve stayed in those inexpensive sort of places (but different chains) many times and none were like this place.

Since there were three of us, we normally paid for two rooms, two queen sized beds each.  Two guys stayed in one room and whomever drove that day, got the single room.  On this day it was me.

When we arrived in the lobby, one of the first things I noticed was there was no elevator.  When packing for a month long road trip and fitting everything you anticipate needing into one suitcase, it can become quite heavy.  No elevator meant three mid-70s guys had to struggle to drag our suitcases up to the second floor.  Second floor?  Why not a room on the first floor?  We asked.  None available.  Of course not.  You get what you pay for…

The place was sparse.  The ‘breakfast’ area was a countertop with a small tabletop refrigerator and a plastic thing that holds pastries, I guessed.  A few small tables with chairs were in the connected lobby area.  Coffee?  Around the corner.  As expected, I thought.  After all, this place was very low budget.  But what I didn’t expect was what was to come as I reached my room.

After I carried or more accurately semi-dragged my 60+ lb. suitcase up the stairs, I arrived at my room.  I opened the door and saw?  Wait for it!  Very low budget.  But, again, that was expected.  Looking around there was only one lamp in the room.  It was between the beds on the small nightstand.  There was one old filthy metal side chair next to a cheap fake wood armoire, no desk chair, two beds with the thinnest brown blankets on the planet—almost see through—and no television.  There was a ceiling light as you come in the door, a light above the sink (which was outside the bathroom) and a bathroom light.  No TV was fine as I usually spent the evening with my friends as well as uploading and looking at my day’s photographs.  YouTube was my entertainment.  No big deal.  Since it was pretty dark in the room I walked over to turn on the lamp between the beds.  As I approached I could plainly see that there was no light bulb in it!  Go figure!

Speaking of the bathroom, the tub was halfway enclosed (the front half) by a wall so, unless you got into the bathtub, you couldn’t easily reach to turn the faucets on or off.  Imagine wanting to take a shower and having to stand directly in the path of the ice cold water when you first turn on the faucets.  You get my drift.  Did I mention you get what you pay for?

I walked back down to the front desk and the first thing I did was offer an apology to the desk clerk as I didn’t want to be a bother (The desk clerk was obviously not in a good mood when we first checked in).  I told the clerk I had no bulb in the one lamp in the room and no desk chair.  The clerk then said he or she (I’m not going to specify which gender) was not aware that my room “also” had no light bulbs.  He or she would try to find one for me.  Evidently, no desk chairs were available either.  He or she then disappeared in the office and told me that the one I was getting was from a lamp in the office.  I thanked the clerk—more than once.  After I thought about what I was told, I came to the conclusion that my room was evidently one of the rooms cannibalized to furnish other rooms.  That tells you all you need to know about this place.  I returned to my room.

I screwed the bulb into the lamp and then tried to turn it on.  Huh.  No little knob on the bolt that comes out of the side of the socket.  You know, the one that allows you to actually turn on the lamp.  Back to the front desk and another apology offered.  This time the clerk looked like I was really a bother.  The clerk said there were no little plastic knobs available but would try to look for one.  I was told he or she would bring the knob to the room if one could be found.  About 10 minutes later, I received a knock on the door and a knob to screw onto the lamp socket.  I was told it came from a lamp in the office—again.  Light, at last!  Okay!  We’re doing well now!  Or so I thought.

I then opened my suitcase, removed my iPad with the intention of looking at and backing up my day’s images.  I moved the metal side chair to the desk (I sat on a towel) and as I sat down I noticed food crumbs all over the desk.  Not only food crumbs but cut gray human hair scattered about!  The hair was about an inch or inch and a half in length and there was quite a bit of it.  Obviously, this room had not been cleaned.  That was it.  I had had enough.  Back down to the front desk.  I was willing to face the clerk one more time—take my life into my hands, I thought.

As I arrived the clerk was not at all happy to see me—The Complainer—I thought she must have labeled me.  I told the clerk about the food remnants and human hair scattered about and said I wanted a different room.  I got a lot of resistance but finally was ‘granted’ a move.  I handed over the key cards, which were then re-keyed to the new room and then they were given back to me.  I was really hoping the new room would, at least, be marginally satisfactory.  I started to worry if I might be in danger as the clerk had master keys.  I started to imagine the clerk sneaking into my room in the middle of the night with a butcher knife…. Yikes!

I gathered up my belongings and walked down the hallway to the new room.  Upon initial inspection, it was shabby but all looked at least tolerable.  Two lamps—with bulbs and knobs.  Desk chair.  Side chair.  No food nor human body parts left behind.  Okay.  I unpacked my toiletries, other stuff, etc. and then headed to my friends’ room to go out for dinner.  By the way, dinner was great! It was a little ‘hole in the wall’ looking place by the name of The Forge.  We were told not to be discouraged by its outside looks.  We each a great meal and the manager and staff were super friendly and very attentive.  Good senses of humor as well.  My kind of place!  So, at least there was one thing going right in Kalispell.

It gets better….NOT!

The three of us spent some time after dinner in my room talking about what we would do the next day and then it was time to go to bed.  Over at the sink, which I previously mentioned, was outside of the bathroom, I cleaned up, brushed my teeth, etc.  I went to dry my hands and face on one of the two white hand towels on the rack.  I pulled one off and what caught my eye was what looked like several long brown stains on it!  What?  To me it appeared—and this is gross—that someone wiped their rear with the towel and then folded and placed on the rack.  No kidding.  Seriously.  Jeez!  So I threw that towel on the floor and grabbed the other towel.  This one appeared as though someone with muddy boots walked on it, folded it up and replaced it on the towel bar.  Are you kidding me?  The only other towel was a bath towel in the bathroom.  I retrieved that, inspected it very thoroughly, then dried my face and hands.

I then pulled down the blanket and sheet all the way to inspect the bed.  It looked okay.  It looked clean.  No bedbugs or any other bugs or stains or dirt or hair or anything else.  Eventually I fell asleep—albeit a bit restless, arose the next morning, packed my belongings and hightailed it out of that place—never to return!  

What a nightmare of a stay!

But that is not all.  I didn’t mention there was not a working ice machine anywhere in the motel.  Also, when looking for another towel, I realized there wasn’t even any tissues in the room!  Additionally, the internet connection was very slow and intermittent.  But, I guess both of those things were to be expected.  You get what you pay for—and a few more surprises!

So, another addition to my ‘motels from hell’ series.  A room 1/2 the price of what other locals were charging resulted in exactly what I got.  Maybe I didn’t even get half?

I normally like to stay in moderately priced hotels such as Hampton Inns, Holiday Inn Express, some of the Marriott properties, etc.  Even though many of the lesser expensive hotels are clean and functioning, I just don’t like surprises after I check in.  I’ll gladly trade a few extra dollars for nicer amenities, guaranteed cleanliness, everything working and consistency.  Consistency is the key for me.  Your mileage may vary.

In the end, I didn’t get sick.  I wasn’t injured.  I didn’t have to sleep in an automobile seat during the cold Montana night.  So, being the eternal optimist, I’ll chalk this up to another interesting story to tell in my journey through life.  If everything went well all the time, life would be boring.  I just don’t want too exciting!

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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