All posts by Dona

The Inn at Mallard Cove

Places, , , ,

Because Dean had a meeting in Seattle earlier this month and I had some vacation time left, we decided to spend some time with Clare who recently moved to Olympia, Washington. We knew it would not make sense to try to stay with Clare and Bennett so I was tasked with finding a place to stay in the area. At first I thought we’d simply stay at a local motel (although not this one).

Then I got the idea to make it even more special and thought we should stay in a bed and breakfast. It had been a while since we’d done that, not counting the pre-hurricane stay in Cape May last autumn.

Olympia doesn’t have a huge amount of bed and breakfast establishments, but it as a few. I first considered staying at the Swantown Inn which is  5 minute drive from Clare’s house. It had many great reviews on Trip Advisor and is located in a beautiful colorful Victorian mansion. I nearly made reservations there, but I ended up clicking on a link to the Washington Bed and Breakfast Web site and found that there was another B&B a little further away, but right on Puget Sound. According to Google Maps it was only a 20 minute drive from the Inn to Clare’s house and Dean said that was an okay distance to travel. I called the second inn to check if they had room for us and was treated to a delightful conversation with Don, one of the hosts of the Inn at Mallard Cove. As we talked he mentioned that an eagle just flew by. He also brought up the subject of kayaks and said that we could use his kayaks — even in winter. That settled it. I made reservations there because Dean loves to kayak and I love birds.

I spent much of my free between making the reservation and the actual visit to Olympia reading many of the reviews on Trip Advisor. Of the 139 reviews, 134 are 5 star reviews, 4 are 4 star reviews and only one is a negative review by someone that didn’t even stay there — she just complained about their two-day minimum stay in peak season.

Even prepared with the glowing reviews, I was astonished by the beauty of the house (and its location), the hospitality of the hosts, the awesomeness of the breakfasts and the attention do detail in every single thing about the Inn at Mallard Cove.

Don and Linda are simply wonderful hosts. Don is vivaciously friendly and is knowledgeable about almost anything you ask him — especially if it involves the inn or the area. Linda is more reserved, but also very friendly. She, as Don put it several times, is the “brains” behind the operation and it is her attention to detail that makes your stay go smoothly. She is also an amazing cook. Our breakfasts were so delicious and filling that I could have easily waited for dinner before I ate anything more.

On Friday Don took Clare and Dean kayaking on Puget Sound into the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. I’ve never kayaked and didn’t want to start kayaking in 30-something degree weather. They had a wonderful time and claim they didn’t even notice the cold.

I have stayed at dozens of bed and breakfasts in the US and in Europe, but I must say that the Inn at Mallard Cove may very well be the best B&B at which I have had the pleasure to stay.

Clare kayaking
Clare kayaking
Our host, Don
Inside the Inn
View from kayak
Dean
Clare again
Cormorant
Raccoons
Stellar Jay
Raccoon
Olympia Mountains
Our guard cat at the inn
Chestnut-backed chickadee
Pink tipped mountains at sunrise
Loon
Olympia Mountains at sunrise
Olympia mountains at sunrise
Loon

A Chain of Happy Events

Things, , ,

The other day I was checking out Facebook and saw that my friend Alison’s son’s girlfriend posted something on Alison’s wall about the Iona Marble Quarry which got me thinking about my Iona marble ring that Jeremy’s parents gave me for my 21st birthday the year we stayed a week in a caravan park on the grounds of Castle Sween. I remembered wearing my Iona marble ring to the most recent Burns’ Night at the aforementioned Alison’s house, but had not seen it recently. I assumed it was in one of my jewelry boxes, but went downstairs to check. It was not in either of my jewelry boxes.

Iona Marble Ring
Not my ring, but similar

I told myself to not panic and figured I would look through drawers over the weekend. I thought that perhaps I gave it to my daughter — the ring is slightly too large for my ring fingers. I texted Clare to see if I gave it to her along with a similar ring I found on the Internet. She replied, “Whooooa no you never gave me that whaaaaat.”

I was sad (but glad I didn’t give it to Clare after all) so I did check one drawer, thinking perhaps I put it there after Burns’ Night and never put it away. I dumped out the contents of the drawer but could not find the ring. I did, however, find Rupert.

Rupert and the Sunrise
Rupert and the Sunrise

I’d been a little worried that I’d lost Rupert, you see. I was too worried to do a whole house search because if I didn’t find him, then he would be lost for ever and ever and that would be sad. Even sadder if I lost the ring. Rupert, if you don’t already know, was originally found by the aforementioned Jeremy in 2002 when we stopped by Todmorden to pay his family a visit.

I was so happy to have found Rupert that I stopped looking for the ring.

On Saturday morning I thought I would check my jewelry boxes one more time. This time I dumped out one of the jewelry boxes on my bed. It didn’t look promising, but I did find a pair of earrings I thought I’d given the aforementioned Clare when her earlobe piercings seemed to be closing up. The posts were a little smaller than most other posts and I thought it would help. You see, for the past several years I have been a little sad because my earlobe piercings seemed to be closed. I could not find a pair of earrings that would fit in the holes and was pretty sure I’d need to have them re-pierced, something I didn’t want to deal with. I tried one earring on — it went through the hole! I tried the other earring and it, too, went through the hole. While I was delighting in my earring success I glanced down at the bed and noticed my Iona marble ring.

All because Alison’s son’s girlfriend posted a link on Alison’s timeline.

Time Travel Anyone?

Reading, , ,

Recently on Facebook someone in a group about my hometown (Elgin, Illinois)  posted a video I’d uploaded to YouTube that my grandfather filmed when Jack Kennedy stopped in Elgin on his campaign tour. The Facebook user credited me with the video and requested my friendship on Facebook. I checked out his FB page before accepting the friendship and saw that his name was Dennis Higgins, he lived in Elgin and he wrote a few books. When I asked him about the books he said that two take place in Elgin and one in Chicago. Oh, and the books are all about time travel.

Something you may or may not know about me is that I am a sucker for time travel stories. I am not sure when it began, but I know I liked anything about time travel as far back as when I could only check out books from the children’s part of the library. One of the first time travel stories I remember reading was The Time Garden by Edward Eager. I may or may not have read the other books in his time-travel series, but I think I read at least a few of them. I also remember reading The Children at Green Knowe and other books in that series around that time, which has elements of parallel time in it. While the Chronicles of Narnia are not time-travel stories exactly — I thought of them as such when I devoured them in my teens. When I was teaching I discovered the young adult’s author, Avi, and read his very scary, but delicious Something Upstairs. More recently I have read and loved The Time Traveler’s Wife and 11-22-63.

It doesn’t stop with books — I also love time travel films. Although I don’t remember when I first saw Somewhere in Time, it is a movie I watch whenever it comes on television and is among my top five favorite films. I have not yet read the book by Richard Matheson on which it was based , although I did begin reading it and have it on my Nook. About the same time I first saw Somewhere in Time, I also saw The Two Worlds of Jenny Logan which was another romantic time-travel story, but not nearly as compelling as Somewhere in Time.

I even tried to write a time travel story once for NaNoWriMo. I’d been toying with an idea for a story about a bored 10 year old boy or girl somehow time-traveling to the early 1800’s and meeting young Robert E. Lee while his parents attended a wedding reception at the home ever since we attended a wedding at Robert E. Lee’s boyhood home in Alexandria, VA. While I didn’t finish the story (I got bored with it and lost it in a computer hard drive crash) I did end up learning a lot about Lee and his family. I think if I were to ever write anything about his family I’d write about his mother. Not a lot has been written about her and she was a long-suffering woman with an interesting life.

parallel roads by dennis higgins

Back to Mr. Higgins and his time travel books. I borrowed his first book, Parallel Roads (Lost on Route 66) on my Kindle and began reading it in bed Wednesday night at about 10:00. I read about 25% and decided I’d better get to sleep because I had a ton of work to do the next day. I couldn’t sleep so I read some more. Finally at 2 am I put the book down and eventually fell asleep, having read half the book. I didn’t read much yesterday because I was so busy, but did finish the book this morning.

I really enjoyed it. This one does not take place in Elgin, but there is an Elgin pocket watch in it. It is about a 30-something’s search for information about the disappearance of his paternal grandmother shortly after she gave birth to his father. It is also a bit of a travelogue about Route 66, then and now. I always find it interesting that so many authors have been able to make so many different ways to time travel, and this one is unique. I’m not doing a very good job “reviewing” this book. If you want to read a really well-done review about it, check out Ingrid Hall’s review.

You know how sometimes you read a book and it is completely foreign to you? You learn a lot of new things from that kind of book, but it never really feels familiar? Those can be good reads, but I also like the kinds of books that make me feel like I am in my own living room — books that make me nod and think, yeah, that’s right. Books that might make me  think of a parallel experience I have had. That’s what Parallel Roads was for me, in a way. No, I’ve never traveled in time, but I have tracked down some missing family history through my recent forays into genealogy. I also recently took a cross-country trip with an emotional woman. In fact, the road trip (the 1946 one) in the book really did remind me of my recent trip with Clare in quite a number of ways but if I tell you how it might ruin the ending of the book for you.

I am really glad I uploaded that video that my grandfather took and grateful to Dennis for requesting my friendship because of it. I look forward to reading his other books. Time Travel! Elgin! What’s not to love?