Don't Touch the Comforter! My love of hotels and motels of all kinds can be traced back to my first experiences in the late 70's.

Vinyl chairs at the Hotel Havana, San Antonio

As far back as I can remember, I've always loved traveling and I've always loved hotels. My earliest memories of traveling are when we lived in Detroit and would take road trips to visit our family in Cleveland. While my sister and I were sleeping my parents would pack us up in the car in the middle of the night and hit the road. My mom said this made things a little easier with toddlers and the quiet of the night. Plus, my mom was a night owl until pretty recently and used to do everything at night - clean, move furniture, go to the grocery store, and whatever else. I was a night owl through college, of course, and for many years afterwards -- and did the same things my mom did, just add alcohol.


Whenever we'd take road trips and have to stop at a hotel for the night, my dad would pull up to see if any rooms were available, get a room key, then get back in the car and hand it to my mom so she could inspect the room to see if it was acceptable. And, yes, there were times when my dad had to return the key to the front desk and we'd continue driving. The walk of shame. But, that's just how it was and I appreciate both my dad's acceptance of the inspection and my mom's insistence on good taste. Something else I inherited from my mom -- being a hotel nazi. But, I am zee master at picking out great hotels and have an eye for lowbrow gems perfect for photography.

I love hotels and motels of all kinds. I have this infatuation with old signs, neon signs, and cheap motels -- the way they look, not necessarily staying at them. Although I have. After graduating from UT and before moving to New York, I stayed at friend's places and hotels around Austin since I'd moved out of the condo I lived in during school. One place I stayed at for a night or two was the San Jose Motel. It has since been renamed the Hotel San Jose and it was much different from the stylish and popular chíc bungalow it is now. Very different images come to mind that are implicit in the names of the hotels themselves, regardless of their simple names. But I still love vintage motels.

The San Jose Motel was a very low-budget flophouse for addicts and prostitutes before Liz Lambert (also owner of Hotel Havana and St. Cecilia) bought it in 1995. It was the kind of place where you'd walk on your tippy-toes in the room if you didn't have shoes on. And you wanted to wear flip flops in the shower. You were afraid to sleep on the sheets and, as my mom taught us, you definitely pulled back the top comforter because (before the boutique hotel phenomenon) those ratty things didn't get washed regularly like the sheets did. The San Jose was the place where shirtless, big-bellied men in Levis and Wrangler cut-offs sat outside their rooms in folding lounge chairs from the 1970's -- a Pall Mall or Harley Davidson cigarette in one hand and a Budweiser in the other. Coolers and little Smokey Joe grills bejeweled the parking lot. It was the place where the lock on the door was hanging on by a thread and you'd find lighters, cigarette butts, and syringe wrappers in the scratchy plaid couch. You know, the maple wood-trimmed couch with a really high back that forced your head forward, putting added stress on your neck.

Well, any remnants of the now trendy and popular South Congress being a sketchy part of town were wiped out in the mid nineties. Hotel San Jose and Trophy's Bar were the last two to go. I love South Congress, but I refuse to call it SoCo.

So, before actually staying there, I did a photo shoot with a friend at the San Jose. I also did a photo shoot at the Driskill. The San Jose shoot was more to have a contrasting backdrop to shoot portraits and fashion-style photos, whereas the shoot at the Driskill was more about the experience of travel, visiting a new city, and exploring the hotel. That photo essay on hotels also involved a shoot at the Austin Motel, which back then, also was not the trendy place it is now.

Austin Motel, c. 1995

I'd post more photos from those shoots, but as I attempted to scan the slides, I discovered my scanner was broken. It must have done the trick when it fell from an 8 ft. shelf to the floor.

Because options are limited in the small town of Burnet, a few years back we stayed at a roadside motel that was also a storage facility. When we have options we pretty much only stay at three to five star hotels. Snobby, you think? Let me defend myself and say that I am practical, a fan of priceline, and of finding good hotel deals and packages. You know what? Who cares -- I like nice things. I like the creativity and art that goes into establishing a boutique hotel. And I'll also say that we finally retired my boyfriend Mike's dad's mustard yellow Coleman cooler that we'd have the bellman bring up to our King room with a balcony that overlooks downtown wherever-we-were. We'd fill it with snacks and beer so we wouldn't have to spend an arm and a leg any time we wanted a snack or got thirsty. $5 bottle of water? No thanks.

I think for my next blog, I'll post a video of that motel/storage facility/meth lab (jk) we stayed at out in Burnet for my birthday a few years ago. I'm probably the only one that thinks it's awesome, but I'll explain why. It has to do with my affinity for horror films and nostalgia.