The first time I got to go back to Montauk Point, after moving from there 30 years before, I thought it would be appropriate to stay at the Memory Motel. The rooms were paid for in a bar, and were pretty hideous. Probably hourlies. The pillows had head impressions in them and the covers were worn and rumpled, very recently vacated? Anyway we choose to get our $ back and the bartender said you will not find a better rate which was 80 bucks per room. He was so wrong, found a wonderful oceanside motel (Shepard's Beach) for $100 both rooms not each. have stayed at the later many times since.

The Miss Wool contest in San Angelo is not a joke or an untruth. There was indeed such a contest in San Angelo.
The American Wool Producers Association withdrew support for it, but the city replaced the beauty pageant with a fiesta.

The story as I told it is not a fabrication or an exaggeration.

Bob, I lived in San Angelo for two years, and it never fails to surprise me when someone else has even heard of it! That said, I don't recall a Miss Wool Pageant when we were there, but it sounds like something that would happen there--very in keeping with the spirit of the town! There was a goat festival or something like that in a nearby town, too.

Is this contest for real or is it something you read about in National Lamb-poon?

I'm sure winning the Miss Wool contest must be 'shear' delight, but the losers must feel terribly 'sheepish'.

In lieu of swimsuit modeling do contestants model tight sweaters?

Does the emcee sing "Embraceable Ewe" as the contestants model their sweaters?

Will Sean be at the Festival (from Wallace & Grommit) ..what about the guest of honor-Lambkin & Sherry Lewis?

As a journalist, I'd like to throw in my two cents worth on Nikj's story.

Reading her post, she did not ask for names of the motels, just the location and details of what happened.

Rwilliams, Judy24 and Sluggo are completley correct when they say a reporter must not write a story that names names without attribution. But Nikj could still write an amusing piece on the subject by relating funny anecdotes without giving the name or exact location of the establishment. She could supplement that by using quotes from any of her fellow students who are willing to go "on the record."

Just a thought . . .

I have one from San Angelo, Texas, too. But I think I should get paid to tell it-- it's one of those truth-is-stranger-than fiction stories. The motel was the Monterrey on Chadbourne. The year -- 1973. Anyone Angeloans out there remember this place?

I'm an alumni of Angelo State University, and I'd NEVER stay anywhere on Chadbourne Street. I'd be interested to hear your story!

Jayne1973-- Come on, it's getting late on Sat. night, tell the story, what is it?? Does it have something to do w/the 1973 in your name? Give it up!

Do I ever have one to share! I've blocked the name from my mind, but the motel was located in a small town not far from Susanville (near Mt. Lassen), CA. We were going to the wedding of a friend's daughter, and said friend had reserved rooms for us at the X Motel because it allowed her dogs.

When we arrived at the motel's office we were met by a drunken man who couldn't find our reservation. Over his shoulder we could see a slatternly woman sprawled in a chair watching television.

The room to which we were given a key, after my husband found our name in the reservations book, was at the back of the property. After we managed to get in the door we discovered that the ceiling light fixture had been ripped out and there was only one faint lamp in the room: bare bulb, no shade. The one chair had clearly been used by someone who had been sick. The toilet would not stop flushing, and the shower curtain fell off. So did the curtain in the bathroom, which looked out onto the parking lot. The blinds in the bedroom were broken, and the bedspread had a big stain in the middle.

Right behind the motel was a huge Victorian building that looked suspiciously like the one in Psycho.

We left immediately.

I'm not making this up, you know.

Hotel food! YUK
I found a big hair in my lard sandwich.
almost didnt finish it.

We were driving from Wisconsin to the Gulf coast for spring break, which is about 18 hours of behind-the-wheel time. Sanity prevailing at some point south of Nashville, we began looking for a place to crash for the night. It seemed like anything that was remotely decent was booked full.

FINALLY, outside of Montgomery, Alabama, we found a motel with vacancy. The lobby looked bright and well-appointed. "How bad can it really be?", I figured.

I ushered my wife and daughter out of the cheery, chandeliered lobby into the darkest, most dreary motel corridor that I have ever had the misfortune of encountering -- and I've stayed in some dives. What bare lightbulbs along the way were working were extremely low-wattage. In retrospect, we wouldn't have wanted a better look at anything anyway.

The walls and worn carpeting were a shade of gray that might have made a person think that the place had experienced a fire and people hadn't quite gotten around to the restoration work. It made Alcatraz look like it was decorated by Martha Stewart. The thick, petroleum-products-laced smell of roach poison filled our nostrils as made our way to our room, reading through the dingy little numbers on doors that all looked more like they belonged on a janitor's storage room than in a lodging establishment.

Arriving at our thankfully one-night-only address, I pushed open the door to find a single bed and a fold-out couch large enough for one-and-a-half people. A broken spring poked up through the middle of the fold-out, so it was important not to roll over it, lest one be severely gouged or impaled. (When WAS my last tetanus shot, anyway?!)

We had taken so many exits and tried so many motels before finding this one and we were so fatigued that there was no point in trying for anything different. We turned back the very used-feeling bedspreads and settled in to try to sleep to the percussion music of hookers' doors opening and shutting up and down the hallway for most of the night.

Lessons learned:

1. We don't do long driving vacations anymore; we fly.

2. We always have reservations.

3. Experience is a valuable thing and after having been to this place for a night, everything I've ever booked since thing seems like the Taj Mahal by comparison.

4. The answer to the question "How bad can it really be?" is: "PRETTY DARN BAD!"

I have one, but I admit it still gives me shivers to think about it and I almost didn't post it. It is also the scariest thing that has ever happened to me while traveling. When I first became an independent consultant, I had a case that involved going to a small town South Carolina. I checked out of my hotel that morning and thought I'd be done working in the evening in time to drive to the larger city two hours away and catch a commuter flight out of this area. But I miscalculated and ended up working til 1 a.m. by myself in this little office (I had to be in another city the next day, so no option to quit working and come back next day). I called the hotel I had checked out of and they had no room to take me back. I called every other hotel in town (which was like 4 of them) and no one had a room. I thought about sleeping in this office, but I was too worried it would be bizarre for the people who hired me to come back and see me there in the morning like that. So I locked up the office as I had been asked to do, and started driving, thinking I'd find a place to stay between this town and the one where I could catch the commuter flight the next morning. Big mistake- never start driving alone in an area you don't know at 1 a.m. I drove over an hour and finally found a real dive "drive-up to your room motel" place on the side of the road, w/almost nothing around it. I stopped and it was pretty much like the other dives people have posted on above. But I figured it would get me off the road at 2 a.m. I sat up in the chair to sleep (no way I was getting in the bed). About 3 a.m. I heard someone outside the room really cussing up a storm, then the banging on the door started. I was petrified, and it takes alot to get me scared. I called the front desk, no answer. I was getting ready to call 911, when I heard the front desk guy at my door yelling at whoever was there. Then the front desk guy banged on my window and said "Don't call the police or nothing lady, this guy sleeps in this room sometimes when he needs to sleep it off and he's mad that it is occupied. Just go back to sleep. But don't call the cops, cuz then you'll have two guys really mad at you." Ohmygod. I was so scared. I really contemplated calling the cops, but I decided that the front desk clerk might have a gun in the office and what if he was nuts and when he saw my phone light up on his board he justs decides to come get me before the cops show up to give him trouble. I stayed put and awake the rest of the night, sneaking peeks out the window, and didn't call the cops. I have never been so afraid in my life, before or after that. I NEVER drive like that in an area I don't know after dark while traveling- that taught me a big lesson.

I've got one, and wouldn't begin to think to get paid for it.

After visiting my husband's relative's in New Jersey, I was able to talk my husband into doing something other then make a beeline home. We traveled along the coastal States, taking in a ferry that the kids loved. Drove on down to Virginia Beach where we thought we should start looking for a hotel for the evening. Decided to drive off the beach and popped into a few of them that were all booked. Kids were getting hungry, so we stopped to eat, then got back on the road to find a hotel.

Hotel after hotel was booked. Miles flew past, and hours went by and we could NOT find a hotel with vacancy to save our lives. Seemed as though this other man was having the same trouble b/c we kept seeing him at all our stops. Got so bad, that a couple of the hotels had hand written signs out front saying "We're booked!"

You can imagine the "conversation" that went on between me and my husband during this enjoyable search.
Kids were very young at the time and started arguing and crying from being over-tired, but would not fall asleep.
Finally, at 1:00 a.m. we found a hotel with vacancy in Roanoke, North Carolina.

While my husband checked in, they gave me the key so I could start getting the kids settled. They hotel was in the middle of nowhere, but when I went around back to our room and was trying to get the kids and our supplies out of the car, I looked up to notice that the "establishment" right next door was a strip club! Oh, Gross!
By this time, the kids are crying from being so tired and throwing themselves down on the bedspreads while I'm trying to find their p.j.'s, diapers, etc. UGH.
I called to ask for a crib and find out why it was taking 30 minutes for my husband to check in while everyone was having a breakdown in the room!

The boy finally brings me a crib without, no lie, a crib mattress! ??? Just a piece of plywood on the bottom of it. Now what in the heck am I supposed to do with that? So, I asked him about the mattress and he said he couldn't find it, so he thought I'd still want the crib! Unbelievable.

Kids still crying, husband STILL has not joined us (me wondering if he went over to the strip club for a drink! Ha Ha)
Finally, he brought us a roll-a-way that we put up against our bed and chairs on the other end.
What a disaster our little exploration ended up being.

OK, you asked for it... this story isn't about dirty sheets or roaches, although I'm sure this place had all that and more. It's what happened that May 1973 night at the Monterrey Motel that will haunt, amuse and amaze me for the rest of my life.

My friend and I, both high school seniors, were on our way home from visting colleges in South Texas. We had picked up two cute hitchikers somewhere around San Antonio and had already dropped one off before we decided to stop for the night in San Angelo. We picked a motel on Chadbourne because it was the only street we had heard of in town. (We were in that young, naive and broke catagory.)

The Monterrey Motel was a old courtyard style motor lodge with about 15 rooms, complete with vintage metal lawnchairs in the "courtyard," and a friendly older woman who managed the place. My friend and I took one $10 room and the cute hitchiker took another a few doors down.

Before we went out in search of some dinner, we sat for a while in the courtyard chatting with manager. An old 1950s car playing loud Mexican music drove into the circle entrance, and the manager went inside to register the new guests. She returned and informed us that they were "newlyweds."

"Aww...how sweet," we gushed.

After dinner, we retired to our respective rooms and my friend and I were settling in for the night in the new babydoll pajamas we'd received as graduation gifts.

I was in the shower (which was made of little more than plywood if I recall) when I heard a lot of commotion.

When I came out of the bathroom, my friend was peeking out the window and I could hear someone screaming in Spanish.

"Come here, come here," she whispered with urgency in her voice.

I peeked through the ratty drapes to see the "newlyweds'" car right in front of our room. The "bride" was standing outside the front passenger door with only a sheet covering her naked body. She was still screaming in Spanish.

Suddenly, the car sped away, dragging the woman over the gravel drive. The sheet was caught in the car door! We ran outside as she her rolled into the middle of Chadbourne Street and the car disappeared. In almost the same instant, we saw the hitchiker, dressed only in his levis, dash out of his room and into the road, scooping her up in both arms and carrying her back towards the lobby.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," was all the "bride" could say.

By this time the manager was outside, too.

"I'm going to take her home," she said. "Would you mind watching the lobby for a few minutes?"

Still in shock, and being good samaritans of 1970s peace and love, we agreed.

And so, for about half an hour late one night in May 1973, two teenage girls in babydoll pajamas and a cute blonde hitchiker dressed only in Levis did a fine job of guarding the lobby of the Monterrey Motel in San Angelo... definitely NOT the best little whorehouse in Texas.

Great story Jayne!!!

I'm still laughing!!!

My, very proper, parents were visitng us-and we had just moved into a small place-so they had to stay in the nearby hotel.

The next AM , going to b'fast, they walked out their room-to find the SWAT team ! yelling at them to Get back in your room. Big drug bust going on. !

That night going back to their room, in the lobby, was a large Indian wedding going on (the country not Native Amer.), so they figure it'll be over soon - wrong - went on till 3 am - noise went thru the walls !

Everytime we get together - that's the big memory I have to live thru' - almost - like it was my fault.