Coastin'

  The Oregon Coast has to be one of our favorite spots to work. It's so beautiful and when we are not on the job, there are so many fun things to do. Kirk loves to go mountain biking and has some secret spots around Cannon Beach that I have never tried - too tough! He always comes back dirty!

Walking on the beach is much more my speed. Cannon Beach itself is about 5 miles long and all of it is just lovely so, when I get any free time I love to just stroll....

Of course sometimes it is so windy that you really can't get anywhere! This day however was just stunning - brave little kids out in shorts - and I was carrying my parka. Gotta love it!

      

Haystack rock [the biggest sea-stack in front of Cannon Beach]  is a Natural Tide Treasure and sometimes you can see lots of these fat, colorful guys. You have to go at low tide and peak under all the rocks to see where they hide . Fun!

Of course I do love to go "COASTIN'" with Kirk when I can... now this is my kind of biking... a paved path that runs by the ocean and through the forest at Fort Stevens State Park. It's so beautiful there and of course there is a pic-nic in my bike basket! Boy do we know how to live??

                                                     Where is your favorite bike-path??

Smart Start

 In my opinion, the key to being a good [sometimes GREAT!] Interim Innkeeper is to be really well organized. Kirk is a  hard worker and great with the guests but in our team - I'm the queen of organization. Every day I write out a list of how many we have for breakfast and what we are serving, how many rooms are to be tidied and how many to be cleaned and then how many new guests we are welcoming that afternoon. Breakfast is of course where it starts and since I am not naturally a morning person [DARN] I do as much "prep" for breakfast the night before as is possible. This is what I call my "Smart Start".

Each of our properties is different and the amount and type of prep that each inn allows is different but if possible we always like to have at least one pot of coffee ready to go so that we can just punch a button first thing when we get to the kitchen. If we are really lucky our inn will have a pot with a timer and the coffee is ready when we show up. Kirks part of the "Smart Start" is the coffee. We always work with what each inn prefers but one of his favorites is "Seattle's Best". It better be good because guests who stay at B&Bs do expect GOOD COFFEE - right??







For a B&B breakfast the food must be as fresh as possible so you can not do too much cooking the night before but there are some dishes that can be "preped" and then refrigerated to be baked in the morning - what a smart way to start the day. These are my famous Baked Pears ready to spend the night in the fridge. Well they aren't really mine - I stole the recipe from the Hood River B&B Association. I'm sure they won't mind if I share it with you so here it is:

Hood River Baked Pears -

  Take one really nice pear - as you can see I like Red Anjou-
  slice it in half and scoop out the core, slice a small part off the sides so that it will balance.
  Spay a pan with oil, place pear half's in pan and sprinkle with really good granola - homemade is      best- sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar.
  Refrigerate over night and then bake at 375 for 20 min or until pear is soft.
  Serve with vanilla yogurt and more cinnamon/sugar on top.
YUMMMMM!

 
One key to a "Smart Start' is to set the table the night before. Most of our properties encourage this as it is attractive and gives the guests something to look forward to. Actually, setting the table is one of my favorite chores at a B&B. Its always fun to play with someones china and sliver.


                  How do you start your days? Just don't tell me you sleep in cause I'll be jealous!

Frozen Fun!!

                   OK, call us old-fashioned but one of the things we love to do in the winter is -

 ICE-SKATE !!

      We take our skates [L.L. Bean Comfort Skates - the BEST!] with us everywhere we go in the winter and when we get a chance we strap them on for some FROZEN FUN!! So I thought I might share photos of our favorite skating spots. This one is at Devil's Thumb Ranch in Colorado and we skated there after a day of nordic skiing so we were really tired but after skating we went in to their lodge and sat by the fire with a glass of wine. Perfect ending to a great day!

         

 

This tiny rink is in the town square at Grand Lake Colorado. We skated there after a day of shopping and then we went back to the mountain cabin where we were staying and built a cozy fire.

This little pond is in the village center at Copper Mountain Ski Area. We ended our day of skiing with a  a little bit of skating there while the sunset and the lights came on - so pretty!

Evergreen Lake is my absolute favorite place to ice-skate. It has been voted "one of the 10 best outdoor skate venues in the US" by Sunset magazine - and you can see why. It is a big lake that is almost all maintained for  skating. The day that we were here it was so warm that we sat on the deck of the lovely log lodge to have a pic-nic lunch. Can you say "FROZEN FUN"?

Another ski area - Winter Park - so after a day on the slopes we hit the ice for a little more Frozen Fun. These seals are intended to help children learn how to skate but Kirk had fun pushing me around on on one!!

 This little rink is in the town park in Grinnell Iowa just a block from where my parents live. So, while visiting them, Kirk and I would take off to ice-skate. We enjoyed ourselves even though it was COLD COLD COLD!! I love the charming gazebo behind the rink and I loved the nice classical music they had playing for us while we skated.

Here Kirk is on a 5 acre lake at 9,500 ft - Keystone Resort - this is another one of our favorites. The restaurants on either side of the lake have rubber matting laid down so that you can keep your skates on, skate over for pizza and then skate back across the lake for dessert and cocoa. What a perfect way to spend an evening!

But Laurance Lake holds a very special place in my heart because it is just a few miles from our home in Oregon . My daughter and I are skating on Christmas Day and we are having a blast! Note the matching mother/ daughter skates.

So, how do you have FOZEN FUN??

Great Guests!

One of the fun things about being an INNSITTER is that we get to meet such Great Guests!!In Golden Colorado we are Interim Innkeepers at the Dove Inn B&B and because the inn is so close to the Colorado School of Mines, we get  guests from all over the world. On this map you can see the little pins indicating the countries that our guests have come from. One morning Kirk and I served breakfast to 12 people none of which spoke English as their first language!

This is Diane from Canada reading the paper in everybody's favorite easy chair. Sometimes a guest will spend all day just reading in the big bay window. It's nice to see them really making themselves "at home".








  Diane was such a GREAT guest - look at the nice things she had to say about us and the Dove Inn..... We really do love to read comments like this in the in-room books. It's so nice to be appreciated, right??

Of course we also get great guests from the good old USA. This is Gayle from Denver [see the Broncos sweatshirt?] playing with the vintage "steropticon" that sits in the great room. It's fun to see how people entertained themselves before TV, computers and smart phones when this house was built in the 1800's.

  And  this is were we greet all those "GREAT GUESTS" - the front desk. The lovely lady standing with us is Elizabeth Padilla the owner of the Dove Inn. We are always happy to give her a break and take another assignment at our "home" in Golden Colorado!




 

Mountain High Tea

  I guess it is now a traditon - every year to celebrate our birthdays Elizabeth and I go somewhere special for "HIGH TEA". This year she chose The Dusty Rose Tea Room in Georgetown Colorado - an old mining town way up in the mountains. And what a charming tea room it is: housed in a mountain home built in 1875 and providing a complete Victorian High Tea experience.... you are first asked to choose a hat to wear to make you feel in the era [unfortunately my dress is not really of the same era!] and then you choose what ever tea cup "speaks" to you.

Choosing a cup is not as easy as it sounds because there are so many fun patterns to choose from. The tea room is filled with cups, saucers, teapots, doilies etc.... just like any Victorian Tea Room would have been.










After you choose a cup of course you choose a tea from an elaborate selection. I chose a Mountain Berry Black Tea that was just delicious and appropriate because we were in the
mountains after all.
                                     

But ok, my favorite part of "High Tea" is not really the tea.... it's the FOOD! This food was really delicious. We started with a potato soup, then meat pastries, cucumber sandwiches [my favorite], little savory tarts and deviled eggs. Then we progressed to the sweet course: "historic" walnut cookies baked in honor of the chef at the old Hotel de Paris in Georgetown and other treats. The most delicious item was a small chocolate pecan tart or maybe the orange scone with clotted cream - I guess I'll have to go back to decide for sure!               

                While we finished our High Tea the owner, Jeannette Peterson, regaled us with stories of local lore and history. Then we were done with our Mountain High Tea and it was time to go home...

           So, we no longer feel Victorian but hey - I told you I was in the MOUNTAINS, right??

Charming Charleston

       Charleston SC  [or CHUCKTOWN as the locals call it] is truly one of the most CHARMING cities I have ever seen! While staying here we did get to take in a few of the sites and tour some of the Historic Homes [there are so many it would take you weeks to see them all]. The Historic Charleston Foundation has restored many of them to their original splendor and the visitors center sells passes that will get you in to 6 different homes and 2 plantations. We managed to visit 5 of the homes and 1 plantation. We were here for work after all so we could not spend all day sight seeing. The home shown above is the Nathaniel Russell house built in 1808 and now lovingly restored. It has beautiful grounds and a very famous free floating staircase.

 This is the center chandelier that has hung in the Joseph Manigault house for over 150 years. Can you imagine having to clean this thing?

 The "music room" in the same house was especially lovely. Apparently music was a great part of the entertainment in those days and no expense was spared to enjoy it.
 Just touring these Historic Homes gives you a real sense of history. So much has happened here. We visited the Hayward Washington House where President George Washington stayed in 1791. It is filled with incredible furniture mostly made in Charleston and mostly made of mahogany. I really wanted to steal a charming little cradle and take it home for my soon to be grand daughter! This home also had beautiful gardens [photo below] and the only restored historic kitchen. The kitchens were in separate buildings with the slave quarters above. Imagine how many slaves it must have taken to keep homes like this running smoothly.

  One of the most beautiful Historic Homes in Charleston was on the same street as our B&B - the Edmondston Alston House built in 1825. It still remains in the Alston family and they live on the third floor while the rest of the house is open to the public. We really loved the gardens just off of the main "piazza" [ long verandas supported by tall pillars to catch the cool breezes off of the bay].

                                                                OK, I could live here!

Pink Palace

      WOW,  this 1848 mansion in Charleston is really called the Palmer Home and it is where Elizabeth and I stayed while attending the Innkeeping Conference. You can see why we called it the Pink Palace! What an amazing place. It is consistently voted one of the best B&Bs in the country and is still run by a descendant of the original owner.            
                                                     My room is on the top floor on the far right.

It is a charming little bay window with just enough room for a bed and stunning views of the harbor from all of the 12 foot tall windows [when the shutters were open]. Above is sunrise from my bed and this is my bed side table lamp. It was just a treat to go to bed or to wake up in that room! Our suite also opened right on to the "piazza" which ran the whole length of the building. It was a lovely place to sit at night after the conference and sip a glass of wine while the light faded over the harbor and the ships sailed into the bay.

                  We had breakfast every morning in the "drawing room" of the Palmer Home.
                                      I tell you we felt like true Southern Belles!!!!