Semi Empty Lots

Out in the suburbs there are seemingly random chain hotels and motels hugging the sides of the highway where woods used to be just a decade ago. I understand the practically of these (people need somewhere to stay while zipping on I90) but they bunch up in clusters. 

Red Roof Inn

Days Inn

Super 8

And a variety of flavors of Holiday Inn.

All within eye lines of each other.

Do these many people choose to stay overnight in Westlake? Pepper Pike? St. Clairsville? Blue Falls? 

People must be clamoring to stay downtown but just can't find a space, I guess?

Or these places are meant to be safety valves for sudden and hidden disasters. Affluence hides crimes behind hunter Green doors and brass knockers. Likewise for awkward exchanges. 

Your wife finds someone else's hair tie on your night stand.

The hot water heater blows.

The rent check bounced.

That is what the place over on Wood and 90, exit 60, is for. 

Or these are places just for the awkwardness. Meeting a lover? Hiding from private detectives? 

Or, my favorite, these places provide relief from fleeing families of the paranormal. This whole place is just loaded with people like the family in Poltergeist. 

I drive by these places each day and imagine all the stories of the few cars in the lot. One that stuck out was a beat conversion van with bubbled out rear windows and Massachusetts plates. Has a sticker that hints to raising Bernese Mountain dogs. Maybe the person in 209 has a pack of dogs in there? Eating strips of precooked bacon and watching Showtime.