goblin
Noble
I just saw the same pic was posted at UFO trail.
so yes it is confirmed it is Gene
When I looked at Gene's twitter posts the other day and followed the link those have to his beg post at Tech Night Owl, he had added that image to the page on Tech Night Owl. So it was posted by Gene, on one of his sites.
You can see (as I think you point out) they were indeed staying at an Extended Stay America, as suspected.
But where are they now? Gene says they moved to another motel (a cheaper one, begging the question why they weren't there to begin with), so who knows.