La Quinta Inn Bakersfield - Bakersfield, USA 

Found this hotel in a Visit San Francisco magazine and stayed a night after visiting Sequoia NP. For the price it was fine, I had the best night's sleep yet of my week on the road. The rooms are a little tired but perfectly functional, the swimming pool is great and the breakfast was pretty good. Plenty of oilworers around the hotel but no noise. The only downside was the terrible food from the Mexican takeaway place over the road.

My work has taken me to Bakersfield about once a month for the past several years, and I have stayed at nearly all the moderate- priced motels in town, all of which are disappointing. Guests tend to be oil field workers and the like, who like to shout at each other outside my door at 530 am. La Quinta seems to be the best of a bad lot. I like the relatively quiet location. The back wing adjoins the open space belt along the (usually dry) Kern River. The pool area is nicely landscaped. However, the place is starting to show signs of wear. The plumbing makes peculiar noises and malfunctions on occasion, and the elevators were out of service on one visit. Doors are scuffed and sometimes splintered, and water collected in a puddle at my front door on one occasion. Once or twice I have had to move to another room when the maid has not cleaned properly. There are two La Quinta Inns in Bakersfield - this is the one on Riverside Drive (the new LQ Inn and Suites on the north side of town is somewhat more expensive.) I have found the reservations and pricing to be particularly devious. The LQ website has consistently quoted higher prices than the phone reservation service. I have to keep asking for the lowest rate on the phone, and even then I have arrived to hear the clerk quoting a lower price to the visitor ahead of me in line. Access is tricky. LQ sits well back from the street, near a busy intersection with heavy traffic, and you have to negotiate a narrow driveway past an Arby's. Soooooo, it's not too bad overall but I hope that LQ can clean up its act here. I probably will switch to another place after I earn enough points for my free room stay.