A couple lights still left on

I have broken a vow. Two times. But one time was an accident. Really! And - what’s more - I don’t know if I can say that I’m really sorry.

Last weekend, I went to Grass Valley, quite a ways up north, to camp out at the California Worldfest music festival, and I spent a night on the way up and a night on the way down at two different Motel 6's. After saying that I would never again stay at Motel 6.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was quite happy staying at Motel 6 and paying its low prices, making travel somewhat affordable to me, until a few years ago, until it began having only one bed in its wheelchair-accessible rooms. This forced me to pay for another room for my attendant, which I felt was unfair, discriminatory and immoral (making money off the disabled). (I considered suing, but it turns out each Motel 6 is separate.) Then there was the time when two rooms were reserved for the wrong night, and I was charged for them anyway. This was the last straw, and I swore off Motel 6.

Two or three months before this recent trip, I was telling a friend who uses a wheelchair that I had made a reservation at a Super 8 Motel for the drive home but that, unlike with other Super 8 motels I have stayed at in recent years (they, along with Days Inn, have wheelchair-accessible rooms with two beds and are inexpensive and nicer than Motel 6), this motel’s wheelchair-accessible room had not been so wheelchair-accessible when I stayed there two years ago. When I told him it was in Bishop (I wanted to drive down the spectacularly picaresque Highway 395, after having a picnic lunch at Lake Tahoe, again), my friend suggested I stay at the Motel 6 there. I was surprised, but he said that its wheelchair-accessible room has two beds and is adequate and that he often stays in it.

I called the Super 8 Motel in Bishop the next morning and cancelled my reservation. Then I called the Motel 6 and reserved its wheelchair-accessible room. (You can’t do this on-line or by calling the 1-800 number - a lesson I learned the hard way years ago.) I happily imagined I had found the only two-bed Motel 6 room left that is wheelchair-accessible.

Meanwhile, I had also made a reservation at the Super 8 Motel near Santa Nella on Highway 5, which I had been pleased with a couple years ago, for on the way up to Grass Valley. Imagine my surprise when my attendant and I pulled up late at night and found that it is now a Motel 6. I was a bit alarmed but discovered the exact same, nice, two-bed, wheelchair-accessible room.

Perhaps the light is not completely off at Motel 6 for us wheelchair-using travelers with attendants. Who knew? This recent trip was a big success thanks partly - and surprisingly - to Motel 6.