The idea of a motel is so evocative: it can represent loneliness or sex or both; it can symbolize vapid business travel or a vacation; it can represent an alienating place to be or deeply needed shelter and rest. This photo seems to sum it all up. I saw this view from my motel room in Stanton, Iowa, last month when I was visiting a town called Villisca.
So iconic of so many memories new and old. Nameless locations buried deep in the child, named towns within the adult. Some are very basic, others have been luxurious by comparison. All are merely borrowed. Another non-descript bedroom on the way to somewhere else, a safe harbor after miles of pavement.
You can even be reborn in one: I have. I will never, ever forget that particular room.
speaks volumes to me… but road trip … freedom…breaking away are my favorite sensations…
being a midwest gal transplanted into the desert valley, it conjures up sweet memories of home….i can smell the air…
i spent about 10 years running up and down the road for work. It was great at first, the freedom. Then I got lonely. I started speaking to strangers in the halls and at breakfast and could see the business people were really alone. One night I heard a man gulping and sobbing, and he finally blew his nose and grew quiet. I sure wanted to knock on his door. It happened to me about a year later after my dad died. Sorrow just comes at you like a herd of elephants. I’ve read that many a lonely traveler has been saved by the weather channel’s comforting music, or by the bible tucked away in the bedside stand. Some of my fondest memories are the ones where we headed out in the car with no plan and ended up in the rockies, or at Niagara Falls staying in motels in far out places. Motels are fun, but sometimes they are lonely. Even when they are fun, you are always glad to go home to family. Blessings to anyone who lost family this year. I guess motels make me think of family – the vacations and the separations. They point to no return, but then you do return eventually. Sort of like separating from God. Have to remind ourselves that we will eventually get back, and be One and will separate no more.
i forget how annoying that smiley face is until it is too late!
I undo it!
I love motel pictures. To me cheap motels represent freedom.
Hitting the road and stopping off somewhere unplanned and cheap….and that really interesting mixture of dirty/clean 🙂
zoe
Looks pretty patriotic to me: red, white and blue.
Love the sky in this photo. Nice.
MoonRose