Journey updates for the past 2 days…rushing to publish this before my laptop dies!!!

LOCK AND LOAD!

I’ve had no Internet access or phone service for the past 2 days…was waaaay out in the sticks…so this is a big update.

Man…where to start?

I knocked out 220 miles yesterday! I was on the road the entire day! I made it into North Carolina sometime in the afternoon.

I stopped by a Honda Motorcycle shop and bought a 3.00 x 8 inner tube for the Ruck trailer…just in case…lol. When the guys found out what I was doing, they threw me a free t-shirt!

By evening I was beat. It started to rain and night was coming quickly. I could not find a campground ANYWHERE. I considered sleeping just off the road in the woods but it was raining hard and dark by that point. DAMN…going to have to get another hotel.
I was in such a remote area that I couldn’t even find a motel!
I came up on a convenience store and stopped to ask if there were any campgrounds or motels in the area. The attendant was really nice. He made a bunch of phone calls from the office to find me a campground or motel. His name was Tug. What a cool name…and when you see his pic below, you’ll know why they call him Tug. He is one big guy.

Tug knew of just ONE motel in the area. It was only a half mile down the road. He made a call and they had a vacancy. I jumped on my Ruck and headed over.
I arrive and immediately have a bad feeling. The outside was really run down and there were several broken down cars in the parking lot…well, it wasn’t so much a parking lot as a big area of sand and grass.

I went into the office…again, not so much an office as some really old lady’s LIVING ROOM.
She grabbed the key to room “1″ and said “Let me check it first”. She unlocked the door and opened it…I heard her mumble “Oh, my”. under her breath and close the door. She said “let me get a key to room “4″.
I’m thinking “What’s up with the “Oh, my”? ….she then proceeds to check room “4″. Apparently, room 4 passed and she handed me the key. She then immediately got in her car and DROVE AWAY. I thought that was weird because she was the only person at the hotel. I was the only person there. I walked in the room and almost puked. “What the hell is that smell”?!?!
It was cat urine and mold. What a pleasant combination…lol And where the hell did that lady go? I want my $40 back.
I had a feeling she was going to make herself scarce …so I though, ok try to make the best of it. Maybe look around and check out the rest of the room. Let me give you the grand tour:

Ok, so outside of the deplorably tacky decor, it looks sort of ok, right?

Notice the “pest control” sitting on the desk. The “refrigerator” was a styrofoam cooler covered in cat scratch marks.

moldy ceiling

Dead cockroaches

So I call my sister laughing my ass off…then she started laughing her ass off…”Kimmy, this is hilarious…it’s like a really bad movie”. “I think I’m stuck here for the night”.
So I try to do the Wan “I accept that” thing and I can’t. I started thinking – “Maybe I can just set up my tent in the parking lot”. After a half hour or so, I realized that I was really was stuck there for the night. So I resign myself and accept it. I got one of my tarps and put it across the bed then set my sleeping bag on the tarp. I covered my face with the sleeping bag so I would not have to smell the cat pee and mold.