Mark Wants To Know: How Much Are You Willing To Pay These Days?

From Cars...

I check out various license plates in our hotel parking lot every morning when I'm walking in. I like to see where everybody is from. I also am looking for potential attackers. It's not the best neighborhood before the sun comes up.

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In traffic when I see a personalized plate, I'll always try to decipher what the plates are saying. It's kind of like the old bottle tops from Rainier Beer that were puzzles to solve.

Not a clue what "RENTME5" means, other than maybe this person has at least four other cars that they rent. I know some folks in Bozeman who bought a couple of Suburbans a couple of years ago and started their own rental car business. That sounds like a pretty smart idea. I'm told that renal car prices are up pretty high right now, apparently.

To Hotel Rooms.

If you didn't hear last week, I stopped at the front desk to ask how much rooms in our hotel cost. He told me that they started at $450.00.

This leads me to wonder what people's hotel budgets are for vacations. I paid about $200.00 a night in Missoula about a month ago. At no point will I pay $450 a night for a hotel room in Montana. Since I'm too old to sleep in my pickup, I'll just stay home.

I realize that because of my age, I can remember when rooms were cheaper. I recently explained to my daughter how much cheaper rooms used to be. When Super 8 opened in South Dakota in 1974, rooms cost $8.88. Completely serious.

So, that RV purchase just got moved up a little bit.