A little hectic

Been a bit too busy to blog recently. My main activity, aside from school stuff, has been to make all of the reservations for my daughter's college visiting trip. This means finding hotels in a bunch of places ranging from small midwestern towns to big northeastern cities. It's pretty remarkable how many pretty much identical-looking places you can find.

When I was a kid, chain motels didn't really exist. Motels were typically somewhat shabby little places owned by some guy or some family. Then at some point, around 1950 or so, someone realized that the lack of any kind of consistency was an opportunity. His idea was that travelers want predictability, an idea that has been borne out in many forms (for example, McDonalds or Starbucks). So he built a few motels, developed standards and franchised the idea nationally as Holiday Inns. His timing was excellent. The Interstate Highway System was being built and Americans were taking increasing numbers of driving vacations over increasing distances.

Holiday Inns were so revolutionary that the guy (Mr. Wilson, I think) was featured on the cover of Time Magazine. Now, of course, there are a huge number of chains offering precisely calibrated different levels of service. Holiday Inn itself has 3 different levels (that I've stayed in, anyway) and owns a luxury hotel chain as well.

So making these reservations, I'm barraged by an almost incomprehensible array of places to sleep. In even a decent size city there are usually at least 3 types of Hiltons, Marriotts and Holiday Inns, along with all the usual suspects. How do I choose between a Hilton Garden Inn (none of the hotel photos ever show a garden) or Courtyard by Marriott (likewise for courtyard photos)? Or a Holiday Inn Express, whatever that means. I understand what an express train or bus is. I even understand the black-is-white logic of calling US Airways' local partners US Airways Express even though there's nothing "express" about them. But what in the world is an express motel? I am genuinely befuddled. I don't think that word means what they think it means.

The funny thing, of course, is now that the vast majority of motels are part of chains, the older, more individual places have more attraction, at least for me. The vast majority of the places I picked are not chains. I always keep in mind that Stevie Wonder, the blind singer, always stayed in Holiday Inns on tour because every room was identical and he could find his way around easily. That just never seemed attractive to me, but it appears I'm in the minority.