I prefer to go off the beaten path whenever possible. I don’t mean it in a figurative sense, as in a poem by Robert Frost. When I want to experience real America, I hit the back roads. That’s why, if I can help it, I prefer to lodge in rustic roadside motels. At best, these abandoned motor courts have become hotels catering to long-term guests; at worst, they have become seedy backrooms for the world’s oldest profession. If you’re lucky, you find a motel under new ownership that the latter has lovingly restored for the benefit of kitsch enthusiasts. In my travels as a sales representative for a major technology…