h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I stayed in a motel once. I just can't remember if I was the businessman or the 'niece'? It has been so long. It was in the Great Sandhills of Nebraska. A town occasionally known as Thedford. At the junction of highways 83 & 2. An interesting place to visit. I think they only had the one motel. From our room you could reach out the window and touch the train blazing by during the middle of the cold, dark and starry night in the great sandhills of Nebraska.

We drove up, registered, checked into the room, strolled across the parking lot to the diner, dined, strolled back through the parking lot to the motel,(the point of the story is that you don't have to have a point to have a point! Oblio said that I recall, alas, I digress!)back into the room, watched TV, slept, was awaken by a train, slept some more, was reawaken by a train, slept some more, ..., woke up with the alarm as a train was going by, checked out, got in the car, and proceeded east on highway 2.

It was a night that I shall never forget. But not the movie, of course, that was about the Titantic, not about a motel. But, of course, there could be a motel named for the boat, but I have never stayed there. I can't remember if I would be the businessman or the 'niece'? oh well ...

But, if you ever happen to find yourself at the junction of highways 83 & 2 at the point known as Thedford, NE. Check out the motel and say, "When will the train be passing by?"

yojne

People who have trouble differentiating between "businessman" and "niece" should exercise greater than average caution when undressing.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm!? Colour - sky - planet comes to mind

Such a motel as this stands at every lonely crossroads on secondary roads across America. These are the night-sounds motels. In one of them the roar and rumble of passing 18-wheelers kept me awake until dawn when I continued my long journey east. In another I listened all night to couples arriving in the adjacent room, the labored breathing and the gasping moans of their cummings, and the door slamming as they departed. Somewhere else it was an all night wrestling channel on TV that I heard. The night-sounds may vary from place to place, but they are always there. Perhaps that is why I always seek out these solitary, crossroads motels when I'm on a long, long journey. These night-sounds are for America-on-the-move. They are for me--YES, for all of US.

I have a great deal of regret attached to one such motel at a lonely cross roads somewhere in South Dakota. I was coming back from my out-of-school-for-the-summer motorcycle trip to Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. I had pledged to myself not to drive more than 300 miles a day, and not to drive on an interstate if it could be avoided. But the trip was pretty much done, and it was time to get back east to my teaching job. I had been riding hard all day and late in to the night, way over my 300-mile limit, but I was making time, and I decided to drive late and stay in a motel rather than go thru the tent and cooking out drill. I rolled under the canopy of the only motel I'd seen for miles. The long wings of rooms on the motel fanned out from the canopy over the prarie like two arms welcoming me to rest. I put my bike on the sidestand and walked into the office. It was way past midnite and the clerk was sleepy. "Last room," the clerk said as I filled out the paper work.

I painfully threw my leg over the bike and sat there watching as a car pulled off the highway and under the canopy. A pretty girl got out of the car and walked into the office. I fought back the simple and loaded suggestion that we share the last room as I saw the clerk shake his head from side to side. In my head, I tried different ways to make the offer as she came back out and paused before climbing into her car. I sat on my bike there under the canopy and listened to sound of her car receeding into the South Dakata night time before I found my room and went in alone.

Man, that sounds like a Tom Waits song if ever I heard one.

Yeah, and I was singing the blues the next day, riding my motorcycle and thinking of missed opportunities....

I would have been too, but for all either of us know she might of told you to "go and piss up a stick you sick sonofabitch". It's nice to dream though

Yeah, sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for.

Quite true, but then what do we have if we do not wish, or dream, or hope? Not much. Be careful of the wish, perhaps, but not too careful. We might miss our joy, our bliss. Or our dearest, dearest friend. YES.