Hotel Living

Sometimes I feel like hotels are my second home . . . and in a reality they are and have been for much of my early life—and now they are beginning to again.

This past semester there was a two month period where I was gone almost every weekend either at a youth conference, small group training, or some kind of meeting relating to youth in some way—on many of those trips I stayed in hotels. And though it might have seemed like after a while that would have gotten old, I always enjoyed checking into a new hotel, exploring the building and grounds, and seeing what it had to offer.

Why am I thinking about all this tonight? Well, because I’m staying in another hotel. I flew out to Salt Lake City this morning for a food tasting tomorrow for the Society of Adventist Communicators Conference, which will be held in SLC this October.

Sleeping in another hotel tonight made me think back to all my trips this year and then further back to when my parents used to remodel motels and hotels for a living while I was growing up. We’d stay sometimes for a month or more at a time in various motels/hotels. Two of the most memorable ones were the Days Inn in Nashville, Tn (because we stayed there so long) when I was seven and the Holiday Inn on Long Island, New York when I was 16 (because that trip had so many miracles take place).

Maybe that’s why checking in and out of hotels is no big deal for me now. I’ve been doing it for years. Sure it was a little different, the stays are shorter now and the destinations are further apart. Yet, there’s still something similar about it. No matter what hotel I’m staying at, something about it just feels like coming home. And the hotel I’m staying in tonight is no exception.

Oh and I always seem to notice the wallpaper—especially how it’s hung under the sink—cause that was my job in New York! Haha . . . ;) 

My job as a kid was to glue the paper for my dad. I'm the little one on the left. I guess, I've always been a little over dramatic as well! haha

This was the last motel/hotel job my dad took. It was close to home and I took off a couple days from college to help him by gluing paper, just like old times. This was in 2011 when I was 21.