Motels - part 1.

Dad was an expert at finding cheap motels, and even better at making them cheaper. The thing was is that outside appearances were often misleading, a fancy looking motel with a pool with a slide and swing set could turn out to be a dump, while a crummy looking mom-and pop motel in the middle of nowhere charging $5 a night could turn out to be one of the best motel experiences on the whole trip. The thing was you could never tell, but Dad, and the rest of us got to be pretty good at spotting a good motel or not.

One important criteria was: did it have a pool. That alone could be a deal-breaker and was usually not negotiable when a choice had to be made. Seldom did we have to sacrifice the pool privilege, and it was usually because there was nothing else, and it was Summer, hot, and even dad saw the advantages of full immersion in water after spending 5 hours in a car traveling through the desert. If it had a pool with a slide, one those turquoise fiberglass water slides that endlessly dumped kids into the deep end that was a bonus, but not fully required. The pool slides took a little getting used to, the had to be smooth, not weather-beaten with a powdery look, and they had to be wet, usually aided by a little sprinkler system embedded in the fiberglass to keep the slide moist and slippery. If one attempted to descend down a dry slide, or even a partially dry slide, you risked getting a nasty rash the first time down accompanied by a tell tale friction squeak of skin passing over the dry spot, and every kid in the country who has ever used a motel pool slide knew this. If you came to use the pool and nobody has obviously been swimming, you had to check the status of the slide wetness, see if the manager has turned the sprinkler on. Even if there was a group of kids already swimming it was customary and polite to inform newcomers the status of the slide so not to injure new swimmers with a nasty friction burn comparable to a bad belly flop off the high dive board. If the slide was indeed neglected and dry, a brave volunteer needed to trail blaze the slide and descend it with wet swim trunks to adequately moisten the slide so future trips down were fast and painless. Even so one had to be careful since even a small unnoticed dry patch could catch flesh and inflict a stinging burn with a familiar and dreaded squeak. But when the slide has taken a few passengers and everyone involved is convinced to the safety, small, frenzied but organized lines would form up the ladder and kids would joyfully plunge into the pool, going down on their butts, on their stomachs, backwards… the joy would last for hours and hardly ever turned nasty by bullies or rude behavior.