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Has anyone here on GB ever spent a night in one of the individual cabins in an early motor court?
dreher
Member Posts: 8,883 ✭✭✭✭
I never spent a night in one of those little individual cabins but I used to drive by one of those motor courts on a daily basis. When I was a little kid I remember that the motor court was still renting out its cabins. By the time I had a drivers license, early 60s, these cabins were no longer rented. The restaurant that accompanied the cabins closed in the late 60s.
I remember seeing those early motor courts in quite a few places in the 50s but shortly thereafter they had became a thing of the past.
Comments
Just as I posted this I remembered I did spend at least one night in one of those little cabins. I was about four and was going with my grandparents from where we lived in Ohio to Florida, for my first visit to Florida. I remembered this because there was a cow pasture right beside our cabin. My grandfather climbed in with the cattle and got a hold of a large set of horns and the cow wasn't strong enough to get away from him! My grandfather was very strong and I can assure you this really impressed me!!
Back in the 50's we were going to Iowa, but got a late start. We stopped at one of the motor courts in Illinois. It was my introduction to a vibrating bed. We could only get Dad to spring for 2 quarters to ride the bed.
I had to go back in the cobwebs of my brain for that one. 🤣
Oh ya! Back in the days when you could spend the night and not a fortune to just get some comfortable sleep! My hometown was a resort, tourist destination and when I was a kid, the road along the bay shore had rows of mom & pop motor court type motels and cabins.
Today they are all gone but have been replaced with very fancy high rise hotels that cost a weeks pay for a night!
...think I was conceived there,,,
That might have been the "No Tell" Motel Joe! 😁
I remember as a kid staying in a couple, one in Traverse city and one just across the bridge in da U.P. Like Brookwood said they are both gone and last June it was $200 a night in Traverse City when we were there for a friends wedding. It would have been more but we booked the rooms last year pre - pandemic and they let us switch the reservations to this year.
Not a motor court but the last small cabin I stayed in was in Yellowstone and it sure cost a lot more than similar cabins used to in Michigan. Of course the added attraction of buffalo bedding down 5 feet from the door and blocking us inside was something I never saw in Michigan. Bob
A friend's parents bought a restaurante with several little cabins in the back. Many years later, he learned that his "aunts" that lived in them were hookers.
my dad hated to drive so we didnt travel very often or very far. he was a big believer in the free road side parks of the day, we would stop and he would get his gas stove out and make a pot of coffee. my sister and i would play while the coffee was made and drank, then we would get back in the car and continue. food, of course, was brought along pre cooked and eaten at times while we were stopped.
Bob, funny you would mention Traverse City! That is the hometown I was talking about! 🙂
About 30 years ago we stayed at one in Northern California that had been converted to a B&B. They brought us a small bottle of cheap wine in the late afternoon, & a cold breakfast in the morning.
Neal
Sure has changed, hasn't it? Still a pretty darn nice area though. Bob
Never stayed in one. I have seen two or three that are still in operation.in some of the more off the beaten path areas of NC
Stayed in quite a few in the latter 80s traveling on business. $25 bucks a night. Had the neon signs advertising Color TVs.
Brad Steele
😀They are still around.😀 😀I have one that I haul behind my truck.😀
Me and wife #3 stayed in one and I've been thinking of where. IIRC it was the Black Hills area of South Dakota. Rustic cabins, restaurant. We were mostly camping on the trip. It was raining and I remember her being being relieved we found a place. This was in 2000.
Sure have in southern Illinois, and south MO. I am one that stopped at off brand motels and such until the Patels took them all over, now not so much.
Heck! I remember when my wife and I spent a night at the Holiday Inn for 20 bucks! 1974 was the year for that rate and yes we had cable color TV!
Spent a night back in "77 in a cluster of cabins just south of the Mackinaw Bridge in northern lower Michigan. A place called "Rays" and I had my choice on which cabin to chose. It was a non busy weekday and every single cabin was a clone of itself! 😯 My wife who is much smarter than I chose the one without all the stains on the mattress!
Parents used to take us on trips, no reservations, stopped where Mom saw vacancy signs some were the best some Mom packed us back up and down the road LOL