MOTELS

When I was kid, summer vacations always meant another road trip with the family. Before there were Holiday Inns and big hotel chains, where else would you stay but a small Mom and Pop motel? With any luck, it had a swimming pool you could jump into after a hot day of driving in a car with no air conditioning! Sadly today these roadside classics are either disappearing, drug dens, or so run down no one wants to stay there. Thankfully, some preservationists and fellow roadside enthusiasts have taken on restoring them to their former glory. This recent painting of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee is now the National Civil Rights Museum in honor of Martin Luther King who was assassinated  outside room 306. The motel has been preserved exactly as it was on that fateful day.