Like I mentioned before, Dad had a knack for making cheap motels even cheaper. Basically the only way we could've spent the night less expensively was to sleep in the car, which thankfully we never had to do. Wherever we went, no matter how small or remote the town, we were always able to find a suitable motel and regardless of the town it seemed like most motels were created from the same mold.
The first few years of the trip the road offered mostly the "mom and pop" independent type motels, and most of those were nice, even superior at times. The big chain motels were the Holiday Inns, which we stayed at occasionally but was always considered a treat since they tended to be slightly more expensive. The Holiday Inns were consistently clean and full of amenities like big Coke machines and pools with diving boards, slides and adequate deep ends. I think Mom liked the Holiday Inns the best because they represented the height of luxury for our trips. Other chains included Best Western, which we only stayed at out of desperation since Dad considered them outrageously expensive and pretentious. Another was Imperial 400, they were kind of a hybrid of the chain and mom and pop motels since they didn't have a unique brand or design architecture, but were typical "big town" motels. They've since gone out of business, but we were always pleased to stay at an Imperial 400. Another early kind of chain motel was the Friendship Inn, basically these motels were mom and pop but belonged to an association or some kind of franchise that united them in reputation. Dad, and Mom loved the Friendship Inns since they were both cheap and promised consistent quality. Friendship Inns also had this neat little policy in which they gave you a token when you checked out and if you presented the token at another Friendship Inn you got a discount. This became a fun little game seeking out the Friendship Inns in new towns or planning some of our destinations because a Friendship Inn was in that town. We were all sad when we started the trip one year and found that Friendship Inns were gone, Dad was irritated at this fact noting that anything that is good or he likes always goes away.
But getting back to making cheap motels cheaper, these were the days before most motels had the "kids under 12 stay free" policies, and motels at the time had certain rules of charging that was both by number of persons and the number of beds to accommodate those persons, essentially you couldn't get a room with one queen size bed (or 2 single beds) and stuff 3 people in it. Dad found these rules to be completely unjust and couldn't understand why he was charged more for a room with the same amount of beds only because we had 2 adults and a kid, while the couple with no kid got the same room for less, we never heard the end of this all during the trips. Dad always stated that he was perfectly happy sleeping on the floor, or more the case was he was perfectly happy having me sleep on the floor... sleeping on the floor of cheap motels became an art for me and Dad, and sometimes sleeping on the floor was preferable, but more on that later. Dad's solution to this unfair policy was simple, he would sneak me in to many of these motels. Mom reluctantly went along with this, and I was completely uncomfortable with this obvious dishonest act, I actually dreaded it every time Dad would come to a motel and tell me to "duck down". The whole ritual was always nerve-wracking since I had to stay hidden in the back seat on the floor, next to the ice chests, while dad registered, a process that could take up to 30 minutes and was full of risks. Often the manager wanted to come out and see the car, check the licence plate or something, or I even thought they were suspicious of people like us sneaking in and wanted to check the back seat, but whatever the case I needed to stay hidden until we were registered and Dad announced it was all clear to sit up. However... that didn't mean the risk was over, many times after being snuck in the situation called for evasive action on my part during the whole stay, For instance, if we got a room right next to the managers office, or dad sensed the manager was a mean, nasty and a suspicious control freak and somehow suspected Dad was up to something (which he was). This became a problem for me when it meant I couldn't use the pool or swing set for fear of being seen and caught trying to get out of paying for the room. This is why I always loved Holiday Inns and Imperial 400's, since the office was always tucked away from most of the rooms, and even so, the atmosphere of these chain motels was so anonymous that the managers probably didn't know who's kid belonged to who, and even then they probably didn't care if a few kids got snuck in. I would guess that is why nowadays most big motel chains have kids stay free, they couldn't stop everyone sneaking kids in, so they just gave up and made them free. Mom and pop motels were different, they were intimate, old-fashioned and the managers most likely were the owners, they cared if you cheated them out of $5.
A couple of times we were actually caught sneaking-in, I think it because we acted somewhat suspicious (we learned how to be non-chalant later with practice) but sometimes it was just impossible to hide the fact I existed, even dad would have to make concessions and not sneak me in when it seemed impossible, or denying me the use of the pool outweighed the extra cost. But the plan did backfire a couple of times, and the manager did call our bluff, often threatening to throw us out and call the police. Dad however had an ingenious excuse and was very good at acting innocent, he would apologize and explain that we were accustomed to staying at Holiday Inns, and kids usually stayed free at these motels (which at the time wasn't exactly true) and he was just in the habit of registering for only 2 adults and forgot that this motel charged for kids. The managers always reluctantly believed the excuse and took the additional payment, letting us stay the night and not alerting the authorities. When this happened it always embarrassed Dad and he would forgo sneaking-in for a few days, Mom usually gave dad the "I told you so" look. But after a few days of paying premium Dad would go back to the "sneaking-in" and I would protest in vain to this petty criminal activity.
I never liked the sneaking-in.
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