I hope that I am not boring you with my travel logs and my deep affection for the people that I meet along the road, mostly at Inns.  How about flying to Seattle, Washington, renting a car and getting on the road: past Tacoma on to Aberdeen then Highway 101 all the way to the Pacific?

The dark pines, the winding two lane road allowed for a more leisurely trip. I hate to see the strip cutting, big swatches of bare deforested land, and then the dark stretches on both sides of the road: pines, majestic and dense.

The innkeepers we visited, Laurie Anderson and David Campiche, loved this part of the world.  Especially David, he writes a column for the local papers. He took us to isolated places along the river that leads to the ocean…that is where Louis and Clark came along, and this is where they encountered the Pacific. Right here! What a historic spot! Here up on the hill is the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, what a great time we had there.

Full of knowledge of the history of the area, fishing places, birds, and if at their home or in the Inn: antiques are loaded on shelves, tables, collections, cherished collectables everywhere! Books and art and furniture, it’s a collector’s haven.  Can you guess what they did before they became Innkeepers? You guessed right, they imported antiques, mostly from overseas.

At breakfast David prepared mushrooms and fried up a local fish that some person just happen to bring by! Breakfast was delicious!

Laurie shared all of the creative bends and trends, her gift shop at the Inn held some incredible locally made jewelry and pottery and handcrafted ivory items, some were imported. Some afternoons women sat in the entry room, by the fireplace, knitting and chatting, and at other days she volunteered for the visiting bureau. Always busy, and always recognizing the need to promote the place they love.

She was in charge of the mundane tasks of maintaining the Inn, after 23 years making everything look perfect and making the bread for dinner and breakfast seem to wear her down a bit.

She didn’t ride with us the next morning along the ocean on the 26 mile bicycle path (and how could she, I was using her bicycle!), but Bill, David and I had a great ride.

You know they are such interesting people; you should go visit them and see for yourselves. The whole town is a resort community; not fancy, but comfortable with easy access to everything should you have forgotten something.

Exhausted each evening from all the exploring we did, when I packed my suitcase to move on I hate to leave. Well, talk to you soon. Heide

Tags: Inn Partners, Shelburne Inn, Travel