“Falling down is an accident; it happens to all of us. Staying down is a choice.” ~ Timber Hawkeye
I hadn’t stayed at a motel in a very long time until I stayed at the Geary Parkway Motel in San Francisco. Ana Krahmer told me about it. She and several others from the conference also stayed there. It was just a block from the Internet Archive HQ, closer than any other lodging possibilities, and so it was in the perfect spot. When I first saw the pictures of it online, I wrote Ana and jokingly asked if it was a “by-the-hour” motel. The truth was that I didn’t expect to see a small, classic American motel in the middle of such a large city. However, the second I pulled up in front of the blaring neon sign I fell in love. The office was just as one would expect: the size of a dime, a “ring bell for service” kind of joint from whence a disheveled middle-aged woman sprang out of a mysterious door like a Haight-Ashbury Jill-in-the-Box. The city’s 24/7 bustle was parked outside my door, which did not lend itself to restful sleep, but my accommodations were clean as a whistle. Every night I stared at the neon sign and wished for more of them to dot the landscape. I’m so glad there are still motels like the Geary Parkway Motel in America. It’s a wonderful antidote to the chains we’ve become.
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