The $35 "Hotel"

After a mostly smooth drive through Pennsylvania and Ohio, Kyle and I hit Indiana on the home stretch to our first stop. Around 4:30am we follow directions from the GPS guiding us off I-80/90 into Elkhart, Indiana. Tired and ready to crash we hunt for the hotel, unable to locate it we call the for directions. A sleepy manager (owner?) answers the phone and tells us it's behind the local Steak and Shake, which we had just passed. We double back, locate the very tiny Knight's Inn sign and make our way behind the Steak & Shake. As we approach, we only see a pretty nice looking hotel that's not called the Knights Inn... had they been purchased by a larger chain? Will we actually be staying in a nice place for $35? Hopeful that our $35 was going to bag us a nice place to sleep for the night, Kyle runs inside to ask if this was the right place. The manager of this hotel, comes out of his office wrapped like a mummy, complete with arm caste and beat-up face. To our dismay, he says our hotel, was just around back. Kyle got back in the car and that's when we saw this fine establishment (try to imagine the image at night).

After checking in with the manager of the Knights Inn and negotiating to let us check out 30 minutes beyond their 11:00am policy, we proceed to our room knowing full well what was waiting for us behind that badly water damaged door. Walking in we were immediately hit by a fantastic wet, moldy smell in the overly warm room. After shaking off the odor, we enjoyed the fantastic medieval? decor... I guess it goes with the whole "Knights Inn" theme. Dark wood beams with paintings of swords & shields adorn the ceiling

and walls. Particularly attention grabbing was the painting of an open window that had vines quietly growing up and around it, kind of made me yearn for some fresh air. After a few more good laughs, we elevated our luggage so that it wasn't in contact with the ground and dismantled the beds hoping that at least the sheets would be clean. Even though the mattress and pillows didn't appear to have been replaced since the late 80's, the sheets did look cleanish-- the bedspread, however, was disgusting and immediately pulled to the ground. Upon removal of the bedspread I discovered a little friend. It was dead, and seemed to have been for a while so this blanket too hit the floor. After a few more laughs and a little more inspection, we finally decided to call it a night and turned in.

Morning seemed to come way too fast. We receive a call from the front office at around 10:45am telling us that we had to be out by 11:00am. I tried to explain that the guy who was there last night agreed to let us stay until 11:30am, but the woman on the phone wasn't having any of it. She says, "if you stay until 11:30am it will be an extra $5". Well, we weren't going to pay another dime to stay at this place any longer so I asked her nicely to give us an extra 5 minutes, she agreed. We quickly cleaned up and got out the door on our way to Chicago.

Moral of the story? $35 and Hotel should never be in the same sentence.