Now I am no picky guy by any stretch of the imagination, but I am pretty sure my tent would have been a much better option than the Sands Motel. For those of you who, like me, shrug off and disregard reviews of travelers that you think are just too high-class and picky, be wary of doing the same for this review.

After the live-in owner (I assume) came to the front window that made me look like I was trying to buy a subway ticket and told me the comparatively low price of about $50 for his rooms, I agreed to stay. Before he ran my credit card, though, I asked if he had a non-smoking room. He said no. I told him (truthfully) that my wife has lung problems and that we really need a non-smoking room. He said they don't have any. So I asked for my credit card back and said nevermind then. By pure coincidence the memory suddenly dawned upon him that, in fact, he does have a non-smoking room! Whaddayaknow? I cocked my head and narrowed my eyes in suspicion, so he gave me the room key and said I could go smell the room. Which I did. Quickly. No smoke smell in the room, and the bedspread was not smoky. OK, I'll take it.

When my wife and I go into the room and get a good look at it, I laugh as I compare it to other dumpy hotel adventures we'd had. But we were to find out that the Sands Motel really doesn't compare to our dumpy hotel adventures--it is not nearly as nice.

After telling the hotel owner about the hair on our sheets that looked like someone had shaved their cat on the bed and pulled the bedspread up to hide it, we had the sheets replaced (read: we replaced the sheets ourselves with the 7.5-count sheets the owner gave me--no fitted sheets of course). I wiped the urine off the toilet seat so my wife would not be too disgusted and let the shower run for a while to wash some of the dirt and maybe some shower curtain mold down the drain before getting in. I wore sandals and my poor wife wore socks in the shower. Then we settled into the lumpy, lop-sided bed that either creaked itself or made the floor creak beneath us--hard to tell which it was.

But hey, if I had known in advance that we would be staying somewhere that had a single rusty metal picnic table out front surrounded by dead plants and between the 6-lane highway and the earthquake-rubble-like concrete slabs of the motel parking lot, I would have brought a sandwich and taken advantage of this luxury amenity.