Wheel of Fortune. “Will you marry me, Patti?” quipped Pat Sajak. Of course I replied, “Sure!”  I was obviously already married.  I wasn’t sure what to write on my bio card. I wrote, pastry chef.  At the time as I baked a lot of the desserts for our restaurant. It’s why Pat asked me to marry him.  Apparently, he liked desserts. But back up…

Table Etiquette. If you’re of a certain age you may remember fine dining with white linen table cloths, numerous utensils on the table and trying to figure out which fork to use when – always start from the outside and work your way in – and the waitstaff always seemed to know exactly when you were finished and how to properly pace the service.

If I had a nickel for every time someone said to me, “Oh, I’d love to own a B&B, it would be so much fun.” I’d be able to add a couple of dollars to my growing stash of if I had a nickel wealth.

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me I should write a book. A book about our lives in the hospitality industry, I’d be a wealthy woman.  Well, no, actually, I’d have about $1.35 in my pocket but you get my point.

Mt. Rushmore.  After setting up camp in our 3-month rental house, in our new life in Ashland, OR, we had several weeks to call our own before we took ownership of what is now our B&B.  We took care of a few matters of business and spent time scouting out our new town.  When the time was right we packed our son’s car and drove it across country with a plan to cross off Mt. Rushmore from our must see list.

There is something incredibly special about traveling Route 66; The American classic road trip.  I recently connected with someone on Twitter who said he has gone out and discovered something new along the Route over 200 times – very impressive I’d say.

If you’ve been reading this little ole blog of mine for a while, you know that we own and operate a B&B in southern Oregon – and you know that when we’re not hosting guests, we’re out traveling the world.  We’re learning to streamline and we’re constantly looking for the perfect backpacks.

Ah… Julia, I admire you even more now that I’ve read your book, My Life in France. This book had me from the get go and even though I found it to be a little disjointed in places, I understand the reason for it because these were Julia’s words as told to her husband, Paul’s, grandnephew, Alex Prud’homme.

At this point in our trip we had planned to drive the old Santa Fe Loop, which is the section of Route 66 that was used between the years of 1926 and 1937 and it turned out to be an awesome drive.  After this period, Route 66 was constructed near the current interstate.

As we entered Tucumcari, New Mexico, we knew it was going to be one of those places where we wished we had more time so we could stay a day or two.  I’m looking forward to retracing our drive one day so we can plan accordingly based on the unexpected discoveries of this trip.