Blog 6.

We leave the light on for you, unless it's broken.

Motel 6, Brookfield, Wisconsin, May 25, 2003.

Good: One night cost about $40. Bad: Crummy common areas, including walls that needed paint, concrete floors that showed the scuff marks of thousands of Motel 6 transients, and a warren-like layout to the place that made no sense at all. Accor Hotels, which is reportedly renovating its Motel 6 brand, hasn't gotten around to this one completely.

Good: Fairly clean inside the room. Bad: The little gizmo that opens and closes the sink broke, in the closed position.

Good: There was an overflow hole, so we didn't care about the buildup of dirty water in the sink. Bad: We did care about it, when Lilly got a notion to play Poseidon Adventure, or somesuch tsunami-based game there.

Good: There was an outdoor pool, small but uncrowded -- zero other people there when we were in fact, at 6 p.m. -- very much to Lilly's delight. Bad: It was unheated, and cold as a claims adjuster's heart. This didn't deter Lilly, however.

Good: Basic cable. This is of course as essential to the hospitality industry now as putting doors on the rooms. Bad: Too much Cartoon Network. As I mentioned earlier, I watch little TV, and hotel and motel stays are the only times I see anything on cable.

Good: Popeye on the Cartoon Network -- ones made in the '30s. Bad: Courage the Cowardly Dog, which has a one-joke premise that was amusing the first time I saw it in California in 2001, less so the next time in Montreal in 2002, and not at all now.

Good: The motel was on a main road, as you'd expect, with plenty of food options. Bad: I fulfilled Yuriko's request for Buffalo wings by stopping at the KFC across the street. The "boneless honey glazed wings" tasted like they'd been burned, then coated with week-old glaze, then kept in an employee's locker for a few days, then coated one more time, and then singed again for good measure. It was a low for KFC and for fast food. Yuck.