Tuesday featured a second run-in with law enforcement officials (they let me off with a warning for doing 55 in a 45 zone), a long drive on secondary highways through several counties that later turned out to be under tornado watch (really need to start listening to local radio!), and a stay in what was easily the shadiest motel I’ve ever seen. Well, I may have seen shadier, but I sure as hell didn’t pull over for those ones!

So, what does $35 (taxes included, cash only) get you on the outskirts of Augusta these days?

Well, for a start, the lock on my door didn’t work properly. My neighbour heard me fruitlessly jiggling the key when I first arrived, and came out to help. “That #4 used to give me fits,” he said. “It’s a real tricky one.” “Oh,” I said, wondering why he knew the rooms so well. “Come here often?” “I been here since my wife left me,” he said, jimmying my door open expertly.

A few minutes later I was lying on my stomach, watching Flavor Flav’s cooking/dating reality TV hybrid (“Flavor of Love”) and wondering whether I should lay out my sleeping bag on top of the cigarette-scarred bedsheets rather than climbing right into them. From my position, at eye level with the TV stand, I was in the perfect spot to see the mouse crawling around the cable wires and up onto the mini fridge. I stayed calm – hadn’t half the student houses in Halifax had mice? hadn’t I slept in rooms plastered with geckos in India? – and moved all my food to the trunk of the car, hoping that with nothing to tempt him, the little guy would stay out of my way. Then I headed out to the James Brown Arena, where the Augusta Lynx were taking on the Texas Wildcatters, leaving my bedside light on to further discourage my furry roommate.

When I got back a few hours later, my room was dark and my neighbour’s door was wide open. His room was dark, too. I pulled up and sat in the car with my headlights pointed straight into the dark opening. Had we been robbed? Had a drug deal gone sour? Then he emerged from room #5, shading his eyes, and I switched my lights off. “Power’s out,” he said, and disappeared back into his room. I looked across the street. Huddle House was lit up. So was McDonald’s. I pulled my flashlight out of the glove box, fought with the lock for awhile, and eventually burst into my windowless, light-less room.

There was nothing to do but sleep, so I climbed into bed and lay, listening to the mouse rustle the paper in the trash can, listening to him scuttle across the floor. I had a feeling it would be awhile before I was able to tune him out and doze off. I tried to tell myself to drop the princess act. The room was perfectly fine, the man next door had been nothing but nice, and the mouse was certainly not going to hurt me. I had almost talked myself into sleep when my little friend abandoned the trash can and ran up onto the bed and across the pillows. I didn’t scream, and I’m pretty proud of myself for that. I did bang the pillows up and down on the mattress for awhile though, in hopes of scaring him off, then lay back again and tried to relax.

When he made a second pass across the pillows a few minutes later, I realized I’d had enough. I could tell myself I was being silly all I wanted, but that wouldn’t change the fact that I was not going to get a wink of sleep. I found my shoes in the dark and headed out into the parking lot, grabbed my sleeping bag from the trunk, and curled up in the backseat for a good night’s sleep.

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For anyone who's keeping track, you can add popcorn shrimp to the list of new foods, and about five new confederate flags to the tally.