Making Our Own Memories

Cat we met at the marina who wanted to sleep in our room

It has gone down in family lore: the time my Mom, Dad and I drove for hours around upstate New York looking for a hotel to sleep in.  We kept driving further into the foggy night and finding only no vacancy signs.  Evidently Saratoga was racing and hotel rooms needed to be made in advance.  The three of us were making our way back to Ohio after visiting my mom's sister in Montreal.  We were stopping in Cooperstown to see the Baseball Hall of Fame and we needed a place to stay.  After briefly considering sleeping in the van at a rest stop, we kept driving almost all the way into Cooperstown and stumbled upon Gail and Larry's Roadside Motel.  I, in all my adolescent glory, said no way to the scary looking 50s style motel, but my Dad went in and through a stroke of luck was given the key to the last available room.  The room was wood paneled and covered in plastic, the linens were from the Carter era.  I was convinced there was a camera in the tiny shower.  On the plus side, there was a lovely diner attached to the office of the motel.  The diner had the most delicious pancakes.

Milo running on the docks

I was reminded of all this last week as we spent a night at a lodge along Lake Cumberland.  The room had the same funny smell, the same wood paneling and the same discomfort that had me laying awake all night imaganing bugs crawling all over me.  Still as I tried to get comfortable in the small room - Leo in a pack and play in the closet, Milo in a cot and Chris in the other twin bed - I listened to all the sleepy breathing around me and realized we were making our own traveling memories.  Memories of me locking us out of the room and the office staff spending two hours trying to get us back in the room.  Memories of us all walking along the docks trying to make the best of a situation that wasn't turning out at all the way we envisioned when planning the trip.

The four of us now have our very own Gail and Larry's.  Just without the pancakes.