Ponderosa Motor Inn

The room was clean, and so was the bathroom, and the male receptionist who helped us was kind and helpful. But the woman at the front desk made the experience miserable. She didn't greet us when we came into the lobby and was aggressive and confrontational. The room smelled really bad, and the heat wasn't working. Breakfast was a joke.

Those mountains visible from the parking lot were beautiful, almost otherworldly. That was the one bright spot. Climbing the stairs, I got hit by a choking blast of chlorine on the second step, which sent me back to my high school MacBook lab: its screens had a sunset in Switzerland as wallpaper, almost enough to distract me from those overwhelming, half-finished essays about Stalin and the like. The room had a strange, musty smell, like it had been damp since Socrates' time and only just dried out. I found a hair on the pillow and wondered whether the pillowcases had even been washed. I was so unsettled I checked the reviews, which did nothing to reassure me, and slept in my sleeping bag on top of the bed. My brother and I could hardly believe the room was real. My mom washed her face at the sink outside the bathroom while my brother and I checked inside. The water pressure was like a goose drooling, no shade to geese, and there was some mystery liquid by the toilet. We called the man from the office to clean it. He came up with no cleaning supplies, just a white towel the same size as the one my mom had used to dry her face. He pushed it around the floor with his foot and left after wiping up only half the spill. There was a strange yellow crust on the AC, another hair on my brother's bed, and stains everywhere on the floor. I give the Ponderosa two stars. I'm a changed woman, and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to challenge their immune system and do some serious character-building. The scenery is lovely, though. Better to look at Switzerland's sunset without an overwhelming essay in front of you, if you know what I mean.

The breakfast service was terrible, and the front desk staff seemed to have no idea how to treat customers. The woman there was rude and authoritative, constantly picking at everything. She even moved people's breakfast trays without asking. When someone tried to heat food in the microwave, she'd jump in with, "No, stop, you can't do this, this, this and that," and on and on. A horrible experience. I'd never book here again or recommend it to anyone.

The daytime clerk was welcoming and helpful. He greeted me with a smile and offered help whenever I came into the front office during the night. But a few hours into my stay, my sister and I went to get ice and ran into a very abrasive woman. She was curt with us even though we were only trying to get ice, and made us feel like she didn't want us there. There was no hospitality from her at all, which matters so much in this line of work. The sign didn't say ice or other service was unavailable after a certain time, and we'd been told the front office provided 24-hour service. I took that to mean all day and night, but after 10pm they stopped helping us. I'd have recommended the place based on my arrival, but after dealing with the night staff, I'd say steer clear. The woman was completely unhelpful. Friendlier overnight staff would make this place much more welcoming.