Hostels. There are many topics I was planning on writing about today, but hostels just jumped and bit my brain right on the ear. Wait, that sentence made no sense. Anyway. You get the idea.
In my travels around this globe, I have stayed in quite a number of hostels. Some were really nice, even swank. Some were - charitably - a dump. Each of them has been remarkably different. All have a story. Hostels remind me of what I like about SF - everyone you meet has something interesting to say. There’s the cute hostel in the palm trees in Volcano, HI. There’s the revitalized hostel in the theater district in downtown Buffalo, NY. A St. Christopher’s Inn in London. Or the hostel I’m in right now, the Mazama Lodge in Government Camp, OR. Nestled up in the woods, along a dirt road that I couldn’t find in the dark, Mazama is the best of what hostels represent. It’s not really honestly a hostel at all, more of an ex-ski lodge, turned hostel. Fire roaring, breakfast in the morning. I’m in the library, where there’s a book about “The Vikings of Today”, a book about Sasquatch, somebody’s old iPod, a really ancient copy of Trivial Pursuit, and for some reason a classic 1950s era stand microphone. What I’m trying to say is, there’s a story here. I may never know the details, but I can wrap that story around me like a warm cloak.
I always sleep well in hostels.
