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16 Responses to Motels: the next batch
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Were I a cad, I just might invite a young lady to Carrizozo. It sounds like the kind of place for a wild tryst.
“But officer, it said free TV! right there on the sign! you can’t arrest me for theft!”
Man, I got excited when I saw the Desert Gem had “refrigerated pool tv” but then I read the blurb and my world was shattered. Nobody ever has refrigerated pool TV anymore.
You’ve got the Columbus Motel in the wrong state.
re: “Refrigerated Pool TV”
Here in the sticks you often see signs that say, e.g. :
ICE BEER WORMS
I always say; “I hope I never get those”. Wives learn to tune these things out.
What, I wonder, is casting the large shadow over the pool at the Del Rio?
“Room Phones – Central Heating and background music.” Is Dennis Weaver the night manager?
We stayed at the Rainbow Inn in Carrizozo (across from the Crossroads) in 2006 (http://www.richardcmoeur.com/2006-1trip.html). Nice little town.
Yuma still has a few great old motels on Old US 80 (4th Ave) in town.
And I’m 99% sure the Beacon Motel in El Reno (behind the Barton) would later become the Big 8 – which was then dragged hundreds of miles west on film for “Rain Man”. We stayed there in 1997 when the old sign was still standing, but it came down several years ago.
My grandparents live in Mt. Vernon, IL, and I stayed at The Lawrence Motel once when I was about nine. My uncle was getting married and there was no room for us at my grandparents’ house what with all the guests.
I was offended, even more so because my mom wouldn’t let us swim in that wonky pool. But I got to eat in the restaurant (big deal, that) and I think I had grilled cheese.
Well, sir, Mr_Hat (if that is your real name), I believe I have stayed in Carrizozo with a young lady, possibly in that very motel. But somehow I remember Del Rio better. Probably not that motel either, and I wasn’t with anyone, but Del Rio was a good place to for a bicycle day trip into Mexico. My ambition is someday to bicycle to Big Bend from Acuña to Boquillas, i.e, not via any of those US highways which knot so gloriously in Del Rio, but via Mexico. Oh, don’t check: Google Maps is quite useless on the subject, even more unavailing than it is if you’re looking in Mississippi for an Ohio location. But if I ever do it, I’ll gather myself in the Esquire first.
I moved to Yuma in 1965, and the Desert Gem had already become the Corcovado Motel, which is still there. According to the sign, “Corcovado” means “Quiet Nights”. In what language, I’ve no idea. The Corcovado is very much a budget motel. Stayed there once on a visit back to family. To borrow James’ metaphor, the train left Corcovado Station a long, long time ago.
Ah, Del Rio. My dad had relatives there. I used to listen to Wolfman Jack on XERF from Ciudad Acuna.
Texas Bix Bender, the announcer for The Riders’ Radio Theater (Riders In The Sky), used to do commercials for his Del Rio Chicken Ranch (just $9.99 for a box of baby chicks).
Definitely a mix-up on the Columbus Motel. I grew up about a mile from there and knew the place immediately. Mississippi it is, not Ohio. There was a nice restaurant next door. The town grew around it and eastward. Kind of sad to see the remains. Never stayed there-lived 20 blocks away and rode my bike to the park just down the road on the left; Propst’s Park on the Luxapilila River, which had several artesian wells where you drank water straight from the aquifer coming out under its own power. The water table has fallen enough that none of the wells work any more.
Who is the lovely brunette propping up the tree at the Desert Gem? Was this some sort of subtle advertising, or just a relative of the owners hoping to be discovered?
You’ve got the Columbus Motel in the wrong state.
And the header at the top of the browser window says “Alabama” for every one of the new entries.
Regarding the HoJo in Willow Grove, PA — look along the roofline above the pool umbrella — isn’t that a HoJo orange-and-blue building?