I was just a kid when Dad bought the Four Pines Motel. He called it a "diamond in the rough," but I couldn't see much promise in the shabby building with the mint green paint peeling off the siding and the sign that lit up only three out of fourteen letters. All credit to Dad; within a year he had it looking like new and running at full occupancy practically every night of the year. He even had to turn people away during peak season.
"The key's the location," he'd say, pointing at the old roadmap framed in the office. "Four Pines is nestled smack dab in the middle distance between three big cities, plus two major highways cross each other right here. People can't help but pass by on their way to . . . well, everywhere. They need to stop somewhere for the night, which is where we come in."
I guess I'd always known I'd inherit the motel, but Dad surprised me by retiring early, handing me the keys to the office the very day I told him I'd proposed to Sandy. I'd smiled, knowing our future was secure.
A week later, they'd announced the invention of teleportation.
At first, I was amazed at the scientific breakthrough. I'd watched a scientist enter a booth in Italy and exit an identical one in Finland and gawped at the TV along with everyone else. I'd listened to them speak about the applications for this technology and tuned in live for the ribbon cutting on the first factory to mass produce the booths. Sandy and I started planning our honeymoon around the world. The question wasn't where to go, but what order to go in?
The instantaneous nature of teleportation made it possible to go anywhere on a whim, and for far less than any other form of travel. We'd still have to save up for such an ambitious trip, but within a year, maybe two, we'd make enough from Four Pines to see all the wonders the world had to offer. Or so we thought.
We weren't surprised when, one after another, the airlines went out of business.
Next came the couriers and postal services worldwide. Why mail something you could hand deliver for the same cost or less?
Soon we stopped seeing trucks rumble down the highway. Still, we weren't worried. So what if trucks didn't pass by? Weary travelers would still need a place to rest their heads, wouldn't they?
Except the weary travelers didn't show. Not even during peak season.
We tried to attract customers with perks like complimentary breakfast and spa quality robes, but we couldn't compete with the luxury resorts that were appearing in places that had once been isolated and were now rebranded as sanctuaries where nature remained undisturbed.
Big city real estate went down the crapper too, as people moved out in droves, buying places in the picturesque countryside while easily commuting to the office within seconds.
Those highways Dad had loved, the two big ones that intersected right at our motel, lay empty. Some days it was so dead I'd stand by the road looking down its length seeing nothing but potholes for miles. Potholes that went unrepaired because who needed roads anymore?
Sandy was doing the motel's accounting by that point and most nights she'd go to bed in tears. Our dream honeymoon was history—it'd be a miracle if we managed to keep the motel running at all.
Somehow, amidst all the stress, we managed to conceive our son Tyler. On nights when worries about staying afloat robbed me of sleep, I'd watch him in his crib, thinking of all the places we had the technology to show him, if only we could afford it. Sometimes I'd shed a tear or two myself, thinking of the successful motel he could've inherited, had things gone differently.
We managed to hold things together by offering half-price specials to the few Luddite travelers that still preferred the old way of getting around. It meant Tyler played on the office floor behind the check-in counter rather than go to daycare, but at least we were surviving. Plus, the kid could play for hours with his little cars on roads Sandy made from masking tape stuck to the linoleum.
It would have made me smile if it didn't make me want to cry. I'd spent my childhood watching car after car pass out the window. Big ones, little ones, new ones, antiques. I'd loved them all—asked my dad to tell me all about them. And then there was Tyler—Tyler who had only ever seen a handful of cars. Who had no idea what it was to see a busy highway. And yet, his little toy cars were his prized possessions.
It was while watching Tyler play that I had a thought: who needs a roadside motel when we no longer need roads? Car guys, that's who. The ones who never grew out of it like I did. The ones who slip on their leather driving gloves and feel free—at peace. The ones for whom the whoosh of guzzling gas is like music. The ones who threw around words like ‘horsepower' and ‘throttle' while filling up the old tank.
They were who I needed. They were who the motel needed!
I managed to convince some asphalt guys I knew who had also seen their careers go down in flames to patch up as much of the highway running alongside the motel as they could, and to add a track that ran around the Four Pines. Even with them taking a cut from their old wages it cost a good chunk of our savings, but this was my Hail Mary pass.
I then borrowed, bartered, and downright begged my way to ads inviting car enthusiasts to host their shows on our property. I highlighted the newly paved track for them to drive on, and comfortable lodging for the night. I even changed our name to the Four Wheels Motel.
After that, all we could do was wait.
For weeks, I jumped every time the phone rang, wondering if this was the call I'd been waiting on. It never was.
I should have known it wouldn't be a call. I should have known that a car guy would want to drive the road, to feel it under his tires. I should have known when I saw that old beauty pull into the lot.
Three weeks later—with the bank breathing down our necks—we hosted our first show. It was a huge hit. The only one with a bigger smile on his face at seeing all those cars than Tyler was yours truly.
Since then we've hosted more shows than I can count, with a big one called the Four Wheels Derby every spring. People come from all over to see the cars. We even had to get a teleportation booth installed on site, and now we're turning people away again at the old motel.
Sandy's talking about an addition these days, and maybe adding a bike track, since she says people need the exercise now that they're walking less on account of the tech. But I told her first things first. I still owe her that honeymoon.
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