The trip was on a smaller scale than our January ski vacation, so we didn't rent a spot on the ski hill. Instead, I stumbled into the deal of the century -- a "theme" motel room for only $50, with pool and breakfast included. Whoa! I will admit, there were some negative reviews of the "Blue & White Motel" on the main drag in Kalispell, but few/none of the reviews said the place was dirty... mostly just noisy. A common complaint was that the motorcycle groups that frequently stopped there in the summer months were pretty loud and the BBQ patio in the public area was often loud into the night as well. March seemed a bit early in the season for motorbikes and BBQs, so I figured we were good there. The other online complaint was that some of the people who stayed/lived at the motel were a bit sketchy. But how sketchy? Other places to stay cost twice as much or more, which is a pretty hefty non-sketchy-premium. Plus, this motel had a Wendy's AND a Taco Bell next door. I decided to just go for it.
Did I mention Theme Rooms? Yeah, there were theme rooms. We got the one with the school-room theme. Apples, ABCs, 123s. It had it all... including a few cigarette burns in the covers (wasn't this a non-smoking room?), and a sink that would only turn off if you closed the water supply valve under the basin. Still, it had a TV of sorts where we could get our March Madness updates and beds for us to sleep in.
Breakfast was included. Perched atop a short bookcase in a dark corner of the motel office, the breakfast spread was not fine dining, but it wasn't much different than I would have gotten, left to my own devices. They had some fruit and whatever happened to be on sale in the bakery section of the grocery store the previous day. One morning, that meant donuts and mini-danishes. Another morning, that meant devils food cake, pre-sliced into a choco-debris-pile, with the "Manager's Special" sticker clearly visible on the plastic casing. They also had a loaf of bread and some English muffins next to the toaster, and a big tub of margarine with a knife jutting out. Lots of crumbs, too. We avoided the devil and the margarine, but the fruit and donuts were great.
Enough about the motel, how about the ice cream? We met up with cousins on Thursday night to play at the indoor Playplace and then cooled off with some 25-cent cones at the grocery store (Cam has all the deals figured out). Scott saw Connor buy a big bottle of flavoured water with his allotment, so he copied him at the next opportunity. I picked up some of those mini-cans of pop that we kept in our mini-fridge at the motel and Katie LOVED to make a big production of going to the fridge, opening it up, taking a sip of her pop, putting it back, and closing the door again. She would narrate the whole process and add comments like, "I love to drink my pop!" You would think that she guzzled huge quantities of pop, but don't worry mom, she barely got through 250mL over a few days. Flat pop -- mmmmm.
The motel staff were very nice. It was an adventure. Will we stay there again? Probably not. But that depends whether the James Dean theme room is already booked.
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