Good Morning.
Twenty years ago, as a fifty-something single woman, I decided to take a road trip halfway across the United States
to visit my father who was in a nursing home in Connecticut at the time. I was tired of airline travel with inconvenient schedules, cramped seating, and non-existent food, and of course, it takes divine intervention to get me on a plane to begin with, particularly at six a.m. when I can't have a cocktail. I'd heard too many tales about trains being ridiculously late, so I dismissed that option and elected to drive and stay in bed and breakfast places rather than chain motels. I didn't need the smell of chlorine from indoor pools, thin white towels, and mass-produced artwork nailed to the walls. I wanted leisurely mornings with fat omelets and afternoon tea with petit fours. I would drive only three or four hundred miles a day to get the full B and B experience.
The first night I stayed a a place in Wisconsin that was small, French, and very pink. I had a canopy bed, a thick terry cloth robe, and a multi-course breakfast that took two hours to eat. On the second night I was at a less inspiring establishment, ate dinner by myself at a local Italian restaurant, and was treated to boxed cereal the next morning. The place was by a very pretty lake but that was where the charm started and ended. The following night, however, was sublime. As soon as I checked into my wonderfully appointed room that overlooked a seriously babbling brook, the chef knocked on my door and asked whether I wanted beef, chicken, or some kind of fish for dinner and how I wanted it prepared. I told him I'd have the chicken, please load it up with garlic, and we bonded immediately. Cocktails were served in the library with a variety of exquisite hors d'oeuvres and then we - eight or ten people who had met each other only an hour before - adjourned to the dining room for whatever we had ordered, including my fabulous garlic chicken, a superb Caesar salad done tableside, and the creme brulee of my dreams. Afterward, the owner escorted his guests back to the library for coffee, brandy, and an evening of listening to his recordings of Enrico Caruso that he played on an antique record player. The chef, it turned out, was his best friend from high school who had studied at the Cordon Bleu in Paris and returned home to raise his kids.
I stayed at a large inn within striking distance of Niagara Falls and was relieved of my travelers' checks, commonly used awhile back, while I was downstairs having dinner with a hundred other trusting souls. I did exactly what Karl Malden told me to do on television, called a number, and when I arrived in Connecticut, a new set of checks was waiting for me at my hotel. But back to the trip. I did the Falls the day after being robbed and then wandered across the state of New York to Cooperstown, home of the baseball hall of fame. My accommodations were in a converted barn on an acreage purchased by a couple who had given up their corporate jobs in NYC and were making considerably less money but were a great deal happier, they said. The other guests were attending a class reunion during homecoming at their college, were exactly my age, and invited me to join them for breakfast that took most of the morning. We talked rather extensively about our elderly parents, including one who had recently driven his vintage yellow vehicle through the window of a downtown store somewhere in New Hampshire. The car was known as The Banana Boat, his daughter told us, and was frequently the subject of discussion. She was trying to figure out how to get the car keys away from the old guy and could have been a stand-up comedienne. She was hilarious.
I met people from all over the country, a delicious variety of travelers who were doing interesting things with their lives and wanted to chat with strangers over good food. I took my trip during the first week in October when the foliage was just reaching its peak and the days were still warm enough to have my convertible top down as I drove across the northern tier of the country to small towns carefully chosen because they were away from the noise and key cards and the waitresses with a pencil tucked on an ear. I highly recommend this quaint stuff, a bit rustic perhaps but quietly elegant.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
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