I heard really heavy footsteps on the front porch. Suddenly the front door was being pounded. I could hear the sounds of ring-shank nails that achored the latch being pulled out. “Err, err” the door latch was about to be breached. No time to worry about the unstable floor. I flew out of my cocoon and found a table to lodge against the door. I felt about the room in the dark for a weapon, but couldn’t find anything.

Then I stopped and stayed still. There was silence. Whoever was there had heard me. Were they waiting, had I scared them off or were they coming around to the open window? I felt my heart pound in the silence. After a half hour of silence, I got back into my straw cocoon. I wasn’t sure if my shaking was from the cold or fear of a  battle to the death.

It took awhile for the shaking to subside, but I never really felt safe after that. Finally I was back in my cycle of dozing and waking from body shakes. This was truly the longest night I’d ever experienced. I’m not sure how long I dozed, but eventually it began getting light. I waited a long time because I wanted it to be warm before getting up.

Finally I decided I had waited long enough. I popped my head out of my cocoon. It wasn’t morning, the light came from the rising moon. I remembered it had come up about midnight a couple of days earlier. So my longest night had only begun. I heard something outside and I looked through the window. In the moonlight I saw burros in the yard. I thought there had been two separate intruders that night. The burros were the last.

Feeling more at ease now, I continued the rest of that night dealing with the little critters and dealing with hypothermia. Eventually the morning did come. I waited as long as I could so that the temperature wouldn’t be too cold. It was about 7AM when I decided to go, I was in perpetual motion to generate heat to offset the cold temperatures. I left…but only after getting some video of this memorable budget hotel.

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