What does $300 buy in Aspen? Not much, apparently, at least if we're talking hotel rooms.

I was late in booking a room in Aspen for this past weekend, when we went to visit Tim and Gayle, our friends and former neighbors from Cleveland Heights. They were in town for a week while Tim worked for the Aspen Music Festival and School doing on-site repair of woodwind instruments.

Our hotel was in the center of Aspen, near the spot where Tim and Gayle were staying. When we stopped at the front desk to register, we were informed that there would be a $26 per night additional fee for parking. $300 a night, and I have to pay for parking? (We were offered the option of taking ourselves over to the Aspen Parking Department and purchasing a $7 day pass to park on any city street. If we could find a parking space.)

Our room wasn't ready--in all fairness, it was only noon--so the clerk offered us an "upgrade" for the same price. The "upgrade" was on the second floor, right around the corner from the elevator. The room did have a king-sized bed, which we had requested. It also had a balcony with a view of an alley; a tiny bathroom with no fan and a tub shorter than those in most Days Inns; and a weird decor that was ski lodge architecture--low, oak-beamed ceilings and oak woodwork everywhere--paired with Eurotrash furnishings. Highlights included an all-Formica, Cubist-looking bedside table; a chrome desk chair with a faux white leather seat; and a fake (and fake-looking) fur throw that, a sign informed us, we could purchase for $400. (I think that our friend Marianne may have paid less for one of her real furs at Jacobson's going-out-of business sale a few years back.) The carpeting was a zebra print. Animal print--one zebra, one cheetah--robes hung in the closet for our use, as well as two pairs of fuzzy blue--one pale, one navy--slipper socks designed, I guess, to enhance our chic quotient when we slipped into the robes.

The oddest part of the decor was a minibar with a glass display case on top, sort of like a curio table on top of a dorm refrigerator. In addition to cans of peanuts, bags of M&Ms, and a tin of Altoids, the display case held 1) an "Intimacy Kit" with condoms, lubricant, and "obstetrical wipes;" 2) a playing card-sized box with "Kama Sutra" oils and a vaguely Indian painting of a happy couple on its cover; and 3) a pair of velvet handcuffs. Suddenly the ski lodge/Eurotrash room added a third school of decorating: Truck Stop.

Frankly, our $100-a-night hotel room at the newly remodeled Holiday Inn in Ogallala, Nebraska, where we were stranded by a ferocious spring snowstorm during our move to Colorado, was bigger and more tastefully decorated.

And the parking was free.