In 1994, my husband decided he was tired of living in Silicon Valley — tired of relentless sunshine, high energy and population and traffic. He suggested we move, and the process of elimination began.
New England winters wouldn’t be tolerable; Southern summers wouldn’t be tolerable; I refused to live in the Midwest, as nice as people there might be. This left us on the West Coast, but where, we didn’t know.
My husband took a vacation to drive up to Washington to look for locations. After driving around all over the state and considering Wenatchee and Leavenworth, he decided he really liked the Vancouver area. This led to me taking my own little vacation to see if I liked the area.
When I told my parents I was taking the trip, Mom suggested she go with me on a little road trip. Delightful idea! We have always gotten along well and this opportunity for long talks would be lovely.
We took our time and stopped at various parks and attractions. While driving through the Sacramento area of California, one side of the highway was planted and the other wasn’t, and I remarked that the grass really was greener on the other side. We stopped at Mt. Shasta Caves (where I discovered what dark meant) and Crater Lake (where Mom discovered she had problems with elevation). We enjoyed the scenery all along Interstate 5.
Arriving in Vancouver that August, it was gloomy and cool. We started looking for a place to stay while we were in town. I was paying for the rental car, Mom was paying for the lodging, so what she chose, I had to accept. Always frugal, Mom saw the sign for the Value Motel in Hazel Dell, and that’s exactly where we ended up staying. No matter that I tried to tell her it looked seedy, that the turnover rate for occupancy might be hourly, that it looked like a place where the police were called often, she wouldn’t budge. It was inexpensive.
So much has been written about the Value Motel lately. We found the room fairly clean, the bathroom spooky, but the lock on the door meant we might live through the night even if it looked just like the rooms people get murdered in in those cheap horror movies.
I agreed with my husband that Vancouver was a lovely place. It was close enough to Hood River that I could visit friends there, and there were many hiking opportunities nearby. We moved in October, and into our home on Halloween.
Every time I pass by the Value Motel, I remember Mom and her penchant for pinching pennies ’til they screamed. She died suddenly in 2005, making it all the more poignant when I see that enormous sign for the motel. Thinking about it, I’m not sure whether I’d like to see the place gone or have it remain. It wasn’t the worst place I ever stayed.
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