Lake Isabella Motel — Hotel in Tehachapi

Lake Isabella is a resort community, and although it's not particularly upscale (think boats and barbecue, not golf and gourmet cuisine) the price of food and lodging is much higher than it is only an hour away by car in Bakersfield (for example.) This is a perfectly nice old-fashioned motel with some deferred maintenance outdoors (rain damage to the eaves, aluminum casement windows whose cranks no longer work.) Everything inside our room worked fine: coffee maker, plumbing. Cooling comes from an evaporative unit on the roof--no thermostat, just flick a wall switch and a hurricane of cool air comes through an opening in the ceiling (make sure to crack a window to let the air out.) Heat comes from a gas wall furnace. There's pine paneling showing years of rustic use. Mattress was a bit aged. The very friendly and helpful owner told us candidly that the small 2-bed rooms were very small (no room for a fridge or our bicycles) but offered to put the bikes in a storeroom. I opted instead for a more expensive larger room, which turned out to be two good-sized rooms separated by a doorway with a pocket door. The back room had an older fridge, a TV, and the doorway to the bathroom. The front room had the cool-air opening and the heater. There's a pool and a shaded patio area with picnic tables and grill for guests to use. The motel doesn't provide wi-fi, but I was able to pick up an unlocked signal by walking out into the parking lot in the direction of the lake. If that hadn't worked, there's a McDonald's about 0.4 mile away that probably has free wi-fi. The owner recommended Nelda's cafe and we found it great for dinner (real smoked-meat barbecue, cornbread muffins) and breakfast.||||At the moment, one of the earlier reviews by Jonnnoo evidently describes a different motel, the Lakeview, which is several miles away; one of the photos posted with that review shows that name on the motel's sign, and the building in the photo certainly doesn't resemble the Lake Isabella Motel. I've suggested...

There aren't many places to stop so we were told to check out Isabella Motel. It is right off of the freeway and looked nice enough so we stopped. I was surprised at check-in because it was $68 a night for a single bed which seemed really high for the quality of motel but we decided to get the room anyways. The room was very small with barely enough room to walk past the bed into the bathroom. Seeing as we just needed a place to sleep for the night it was sufficient. However, we needed extra blankets so one of us could sleep on the floor, and when we asked our whole experience got worse. The owner brought us blankets and gave us a speech about how she would normally charge but she was going to let us use them and we better give them back to her as clean as she brought them. I have never been told by a hotel that we better keep the bedding clean. Then, having a 2 year old with us, she told us we better keep him quiet because you can hear through the walls. It was about 5:30 at this point and she asked if we would be putting him to bed soon because she didn't want to hear any complaints from other rooms. We told her he is 2 but well behaved and he would be to bed at a decent hour. She said it was already getting late. We asked if she preferred if she would leave and her only response was "you wont get your money back" and she left. We were very uncomfortable so we decided to go somewhere else and she was waiting for us at reception to take our key. We wont...

There aren't many places to stop so we were told to check out Isabella Motel. It is right off of the freeway and looked nice enough so we stopped. I was surprised at check-in because it was $68 a night for a single bed which seemed really high for the quality of motel but we decided to get the room anyways. The room was very small with barely enough room to walk past the bed into the bathroom. Seeing as we just needed a place to sleep for the night it was sufficient. However, we needed extra blankets so one of us could sleep on the floor, and when we asked our whole experience got worse. The owner brought us blankets and gave us a speech about how she would normally charge but she was going to let us use them and we better give them back to her as clean as she brought them. I have never been told by a hotel that we better keep the bedding clean. Then, having a 2 year old with us, she told us we better keep him quiet because you can hear through the walls. It was about 5:30 at this point and she asked if we would be putting him to bed soon because she didn't want to hear any complaints from other rooms. We told her he is 2 but well behaved and he would be to bed at a decent hour. She said it was already getting late. We asked if she preferred if she would leave and her only response was "you wont get your money back" and she left. We were very uncomfortable so we decided to go somewhere else and she was waiting for us at reception to take our key. We wont...