Category Archives: travel

The Cover of the Rolling Stone

One of my favorite things about twitter, as you know if you listen to me at all, is the opportunity to meet my twitter friends in real life. I know that I can go anywhere and have coffee with someone I tweet with.

Yesterday, it was the fabu @patz313. Patsy and I have been twitter friends for over a year, I’d say, and when I learned we were coming to Orlando, I asked if she could meet me for coffee.

We made plans to meet at the Drunken Monkey, a name I loved when she suggested it, and had coffee. I had iced coffee because it’s warm here. (Yay!) 🙂

We sat outside (because it’s warm here, yay!) and chatted away a couple of hours like old friends. I knew that Patsy was an artist but I was enthralled listening to her talk about her rock and roll lifestyle.

I may have a genuine Indian guru but that doesn’t hold a candle to having been on the cover of the Rolling Stone watching Jimi Hendrix. Too, too cool.

I hope I’ll get a chance to hang out with Patsy again in the future. We could have just kept on talking if I didn’t have to get back. Thanks for meeting up with me, Patsy! So happy to call you a real life friend. 🙂

Hey Sales People, Listen!

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We are currently in Orlando staying at the Hilton Grand Vacation Resort on International Drive. Prior to leaving Tulsa, I received a phone call from a lady asking if we had time while we were here to listen to their sales presentation about becoming an owner in the Hilton Vacation program.

She told us we would have breakfast and listen to the presentation and it would take about 90 minutes of our time. I agreed we’d attend.

We went this a.m. at 8:00 a.m. They gave us a wake up call at 7:00 a.m. so we wouldn’t be late.

We drove about 10 minutes to another property they have nearby.

When we arrived they took our name and then we got some coffee. We found the “breakfast”. It was donuts and fruit. Hmmm….

Finally, sales people started calling out names and taking the other waiting attendees away until we were standing there alone. For a while. So I told the ladies at the front desk that we had been forgotten and they said they had called the agent and she was on her way.

She finally came to get us and brought us back to her station where she found out that we are not current owners and told us that she normally presents to owners and we were on the owners floor. Now, mind you, we didn’t decide where to be, they gave us an invitation and they sent us to her floor.

We then filled out a form to give her an idea of how we travel so she could tailor her presentation to us. We told her that we do not use credit cards. We told her we travel around the world. We told her when we want to go, we go. We told her we learned about timeshares from Dave Ramsey.

She then said, “I don’t think this is for you. Why are you here?” I told her that we now have a granddaughter and we are interested in what they offer with Hilton Vacation Resorts and I told her that in the US we are brand loyal to Hilton. And I’d say that other than for occasional overnight stops like Friday night where we land in whatever hotel we are near, we are. I’d say we’re 98% brand loyal to Hilton.

She did her spiel, showed us the options in the form of actual rooms of what we would be buying. Then it came down to the selling, in her case hard selling, process. We told her that there was no way we were going to make that big of a financial decision before we walked out of the room today. She brought another hard selling lady in. We told her the same thing and that things are really too much up in the air for us to make a decision today and that, most of all, we need to discuss it. We have been married for 35 years because we discuss things like this. Plus, who pays 17% interest on a five year loan?

Then came the third guy. I told him that we might be interested in some point and how do we contact them in the future. He tried to sell us 18 months of time to make our decision for $1,795 dollars, a free trip to one of six places, and only $295 down today. We told him no. And he took his brochures and sent us, abruptly, on our way.

So I end up with this: I had one and only one chance to buy into the Hilton Vacation timeshare program and it was today. Only today. I have no number, no email, no idea of how I would purchase this in the future should I want to.

She didn’t listen to us. We told her how we vacation and even though she said it probably wasn’t for us, she continued to try the hard sell with us. She also tried to undersell us when we had told her which level we would buy at if we were buying. She condescended to us, told us several times that she usually talks to owners and we weren’t owners so some of these things wouldn’t apply. i.e. We would pay more than the prices she showed us.

If you’re going to sell something to me, I would expect you to be listening to what I am saying and not just continue on as if I didn’t say it. Oh, and if you’re going to expect me to make a $94,000 decision, you should probably serve me some eggs.

Frank Llloyd Wright’s Rosenbaum House

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As soon as I read Sheila Scarborough’s blog post at The Perceptive Travel Blog about The Rosenbaum House, I looked to see if there was any way we could include it in our coming trip to Orlando.

You see, I adore Frank Lloyd Wright. I’ve been blessed for the past 10 years or so to be able to look out my window and see his only skyscraper, The Price Tower, located in Bartlesville, OK. We’ve since moved to Tulsa and I needed a Frank Lloyd Wright fix!

I learned that the Rosenbaum House, located in Florence, Alabama, was just a little out of our way so we made plans to go see it.

The house is, in a word, AWESOME! Designed for the Rosenbaums by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1939, the house is very identifiable as one of his designs. After falling into disrepair,the house was sold to the City of Florence in 1999. The sale was based upon the understanding that the house would be restored and used as a museum.

The renovation cost $750,000! And it’s gorgeous.i

The house is made of cyprus wood that is screwed together and was originally around 1500 square feet. The Rosenbaums had four sons and eventually another 1000+ square feet were added giving the family a dormitory for the boys and a new kitchen for Mrs. Rosenbaum.

Mrs. Rosenbaum, a former model in New York, was also a talented piano player and weaver. Some of her work can be seen in her weaving room. It’s beautiful.

The house is one of Wright’s Usonian houses, houses he designed for America’s middle class. There is an incredible amount of built in storage although the house – to two largish people like David and I – seems very small. I felt very tall in it. 🙂

There are also 140+ recessed lights.

The windows are screened with bronze screens and the bedrooms all have access to the outside.

This was a fabulous stop for us. I get so excited to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s work, which I admire and makes my heart happy. There is a small charge for the tour which takes about an hour. I can’t recommend you visit highly enough. So if you find yourself in or near Florence, AL be sure to stop by!

We Are Gastronauts

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I was listening to a webinar yesterday when the gal being interviewed referred to herself as a gastro tourist. Say what? She then described what she meant and I thought, “I love that! We are totally that.”

I also like the idea of referring to myself as a gastronaut. 🙂

We are heading to Florida today. On the way there, we will drive through Birmingham because it’s the most direct route. On the way home, though, we’ll be driving through Nashville. Why? Because we’re gastronauts.

When David brought me the moonshine last year, I spent a lot of time looking for recipes that I could use it in. While searching, google brought me to the Loveless Cafe and I became obsessed. I like them on facebook, I follow them in instagram. I want to go there SO badly and eat biscuits. So we’re going to drive out of our way to have breakfast there. 🙂

Given that we are going the different route, our drive will take us through Atlanta where we’ll have lunch with my friend, Kat, at Mary Mac’s. I only learned of this restaurant yesterday while we were planning our visit so now I have a new menu to obsess over. It looks delish!

I’m not sure what kinds of places we’ll visit while in Florida. We’ll be sharing several meals with old friends and I’m looking forward to the friends part more than the food but it will all be good, I’m sure! 🙂

I love to food spot and you can find me here.

Carpe-ing the java @CoffeeCON2013 style

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Yesterday, was CoffeeCON 2013 (@coffeecon2013) and it was amazing!

Before going to CoffeeCON, I was finally able to meet up with Ruthann (@RAWiesner) for breakfast. She took me to a place where they bring donuts to the table like they bring rolls or chips and salsa at other places.

How can you not love a place like that? I had an amazing frittata with spinach, bacon and tomatoes. Yum!

Then it was off to the event du jour: CoffeeCON!

Just opening the door you know was fabulous because you could smell all of the different coffee offerings.

When we got to CoffeeCON, we found my twitter friend, Debra (@debramariem).

Debra is terrific, too, and we had fun hanging out together, visiting the vendor booths, the classes and our other twitter friends,

Coffee Nate (@CoffeeNate) and Robert Caruso (@fondalo) who were bloggers at the conference.

One of the things I was most looking forward to was talking to the roasters. There were several different options there including a woman who was roasting beans with a heat gun (yes, like the one from Lowe’s) and a guy who had repurposed his hot air popcorn popper to roast coffee. He was very excited with his roaster and was cute to listen to.

There were two roasters, though, that had machines that seem like what I would use to roast coffee which I believe is the next frontier for me.

We watched coffee demos and attended a couple of classes.

I was really taken with the siphon coffee maker and think I’m going to have to have one of those. I was sad that we didn’t get to see the Turkish Coffee demo. She had some kind of a water issue but I did get the instructions for making the coffee so will be trying that at home soon. 🙂

Right before I left, I thanked the show producer, Kevin Sinnot (@coffeekevin), for his fabulous event. He wanted to interview me because I had come from Oklahoma for the show. I did that and said my goodbyes.

It was such a great time. Great coffee, great people. I can’t wait to return next year and bring/meet more friends. Will you join me? 🙂

My crazy mixed up day

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Yesterday morning, when I woke up in Oklahoma it was cold, but a sunny pretty day. I was excited because I was headed to CoffeeCON 2013!

I left the house at 7 a.m. It’s super dark to get from our house to the turnpike so I wanted to avoid that if I could be still get to Chicago in time to have dinner with one of my favorite friends I’ve never met, Ruthann Weisner.

By the time I got to Vinita, the day had turned cloudy and overcast. I wasn’t too unhappy with that since it’s pretty hard to drive East in to the rising sun. When I was almost to Joplin, I started seeing patches of snow on the sides of the road and roofs. Oh, isn’t that cute! It really did snow on May 3rd.

By the time I got to Springfield, it was full on snowing including snow plows, cars in the ditches, a flipped over semi truck and an accident on the other side of the road that had traffic backed up for miles.

I was happy not to be on that side of the road and I drove carefully (there are idiots out there!) for a little over four hours until I got to Rolla, MO where I usually fill up the first time when I drive to Chicago.

And this happened:

Please tell me, how on earth I managed to have clothes for six days and four seasons, twelve pairs of shoes, my computer, two coats (winter, spring), my coffee bag, and a pillow but NO PURSE!

LOL! I’ve never done that before. I called David, a.k.a. my hero, and told him of my plight. He got my purse and another pair of shoes (because you just can’t have too many shoes) and headed the over four hours to bring me my purse.

It was lunch time by then and I was hungry. I had brought toll money because I knew I had to travel on the tollway part of the way to get to my hotel but I had no idea how much it was so I asked on twitter if anyone knew.

Yes, that’s what I figured. A bajillion dollars. Illinois tolls are EXPENSIVE! So I looked around the car. I always have money in the center console and I wasn’t disappointed. I found a bag of dimes that must have been left in there from when we had to use the laundromat at some point.

Feeling like a panhandler, but a happy panhandler, I went into McDonald’s and paid 33 dimes for my lunch.

David arrived around 3:45 and I was gassed up and back on the road by 4 p.m.

I had put my winter coat on because it was 31 degrees and after sitting in the car for four hours I was chilled through even though I put the heat on periodically.

I stopped for gas the second time in a blinding thunder storm. When I got out of the car, I realized

It was 68 degrees. I was pretty sick of driving by that point and the rain made it hard to see since it was getting dark. I drove about ten more miles and that was it. The roads weren’t even wet. I opened my sunroof. 🙂

I finally arrived just before eleven p.m. I had left 16 hours before that and I was never so happy to see a hotel room or bed in my life.

I didn’t get to have dinner with Ruthanne but I’ll be having breakfast with her and I’m super excited to go to CoffeeCON. I hope your Saturday is fabu and unmixed up! 🙂

Carpe-ing the java DC style

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So, now that things have slowed down a bit, I really need to tell you about my amazing trip to Washington, DC as the guest of Eight O’Clock Coffee.

Back in the summer when David was doing the project in Amarillo, I got a direct message on twitter from the Eight asking for my email address. I gave it to them and then wondered what they could want. I speculated while talking to David but really had absolutely no idea.

I’ve been drinking Eight O’Clock Coffee since I was 15. I remember going to the A&P grocery store when I was little and they had a bright red package and a grinding machine. I have loved the smell of fresh ground coffee my whole life as far as I can remember. 🙂 I was eagerly waiting to hear what Eight O’Clock Coffee wanted to talk to me about that took more than 140 characters.

Then came the email. They had selected me as a Super Fan and wanted to find out what date would work for me to come to DC for a visit to see their coffee operation.

OMG! I was beyond excited!

“I wonder if we’ll get to cup coffee?”, I asked David.

Several years ago, I was marketing director at a sensory lab and that was where I learned about cupping coffee. We analyzed all types of foods, beverages and personal care products but not coffee because that’s a whole different ball game.

So I gave Jaime my information and waited to find out when I was going and what we would do. When I got my itinerary, there it was, “Plant Tour/Cupping Session”. I was SO excited!

When I arrived in DC, they picked me up at the airport in a limo.

They drove me to the Embassy Row Hotel where I was given a goodie bag full of fun stuff and my room. We all met in the lobby for dinner.

I met my sister super fans, Holly and her husband Bill, Donna and her husband, Rudy, and Ronda. Also, I met Jaime and Lori from the S3 Agency who made sure we were where we were supposed to be.

The first night, we went to dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steak House. YUMMMMY! The only bad thing is that Ruth’s Chris doesn’t serve Eight O’Clock Coffee and I think the waiter was a little intimidated by us coffee achievers when we ordered coffee after dinner.

I was lucky to be seated across the table from Glenn for dinner. Not that everyone wasn’t fabulous. They were. But Glenn had been in the coffee business since he was 18 years old, working himself into his current position where he buys the beans, cups the coffee and makes incredible new flavors like the Chocolate Mint they rolled out around Christmas time and we were treated to the following day.

I transformed, groupie-style, into a Glenn monopolizer and I don’t think anyone else got a chance to talk to him at dinner.

The following morning we had breakfast at the hotel with Alisa, Director of Marketing. She basically held a focus group with us on things that could be done differently or better. I heard a lot of good ideas around that table!

We got fabulous red fleece jackets!

Then it was off to Maryland and the coffee roasting facility.

We were welcomed at the door. And again at lunch time.

We were then taken on a tour of the roasting facility. We had to remove all of our jewelry except for our wedding rings so that nothing would fall into the coffee.

Then we got another gorgeous outfit: white coats, goggles and a hairnet! 🙂

We got to see all phases of the coffee operation including the flavoring which smelled AMAZING. It was Hazelnut!

Then, finally, the moment I had been waiting for. We went to the cupping room and they taught us how to cup coffee. In the end, it really wasn’t too different than sensory testing of foods/beverages that I had already experienced. I was pretty good with a spit cup, having had previous experience. 😉

After that we went back to DC and dinner at the Old Ebbitt Grill which was delicious! I can highly recommend the Peanut Butter Pie. 😉

Then back to our hotel to sleep and get ready for an early trip back to the airport.

And there you have it. My awesome Eight O’Clock Coffee trip to DC. It was so amazing, I can hardly believe it really happened. What I learned on my trip was that the people who make Eight O’Clock Coffee are as awesome as the coffee that they produce. As excited as we all were to be there, they were equally excited to have us there. It was so cool.

I tweet about Eight O’Clock Coffee and I’m so excited when I see my friends trying it and enjoying it like I do. Not because of a trip to DC but because the coffee is truly wonderful and it makes me happy to be the bearer of such great coffee information.

Thank you again, Eight O’Clock Coffee. I had the most incredible time and I will never forget your hospitality!

PS – At Christmas time, I got a box from the UPS man. What could it be?

Coffee!!! I thought, “Oh they love me! It’s my favorite French Roast!” 🙂

Sugar is a slippery slope

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Last week, David asked me at the last minute if I wanted to bring the dog and come along with him on his build route. I was excited to be asked and hurriedly made sure that I packed healthy snacks for the car.

Since beginning to eat paleo, I’ve realized that I can eat in almost any restaurant and maintain the healthy eating style. Having good snacks for the car is important to keep from getting too hungry.

That first day, although I had no idea it was going to happen, or not happen as it were, we didn’t eat lunch. David told me that he’s often caught out, far from civilization at lunch time and often goes without eating.

Needless to say, by the time dinner rolled around – and it was a late dinner – I was beyond starving and any good intentions to eat right on this trip had flown out the window miles before. The healthy carrots and radishes we had brought along barely took up any space in my very empty stomach.

We saw the Dairy Queen.

What we’ve learned while driving around Texas is that even the tiniest little towns have a Dairy Queen. I could have even eaten right at the Dairy Queen but I ordered a patty melt, french fries and a Georgia Mud Fudge blizzard (medium sized thankyouverymuch) for dessert. I don’t think I took a breath until I had hoovered the entire meal and, the shocking thing is, I still felt hungry after I was finished. 🙁

The next day, forewarned by the previous day’s experience, we stopped by Walmart to get lunch. And some snacks. Some good snacks. Into our cart went cookies and Doritos and donuts and Wheat Thins and a bag of Snickers. I was NOT going to be hungry on that day.

And then the slide started. Oh, I put healthy things into the basket too, but basically I shopped as if I was still as hungry as I had been the previous day.

Breakfast came. Instead of some healthy eggs and fruit, I chucked it all over for pancakes, syrup (extra syrup, please!) and sausage. And down the slope I rolled. Faster and faster.

Sugar and flour make me feel AWFUL. First my knees ache, then my hips ache, pretty soon all of the joints in my whole body ache and I can’t sleep. It’s bad stuff. So what on earth possesses me to EVER eat sugar and/or flour?

Especially when we’re in a restaurant. That should be the epitome of easy healthy eating since someone else is preparing the meal for me. But that first little bite tastes so good. And I don’t feel bad. Not right away. It takes about three days to start feeling really bad and I can tell myself it’s not that big of a deal.

Ha!

Several years ago, my friend was diagnosed with diabetes. We went to an anniversary dinner and she was drinking sweet tea. Her daughter was trying to get her to drink water but she insisted on the sweet tea. I couldn’t understand why she would do that to herself.

And, yet, here I am basically doing the same thing. Although I just want to keep feeling good and flexible, I’m still hurting myself by giving in to that first bite that will push me over the edge and down the slippery slope.

I’m going to try really hard not to do that anymore. 🙂

Pet friendly?

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Let me start out by saying that Boo Boo is the smartest, most well behaved dog we have ever had. He’s not a barker, he’s not a chewer, he’s had one accident in the house (when we first got him). He’s good. He’s good company and he’s a good traveler.

Shortly after we got Boo, we moved to Oklahoma. In his earliest days, he was staying at hotels like a champ. We stayed in La Quintas from Florida to Oklahoma, staying at the one in Tulsa for a week while we got our new house ready to live in.

On a trip to Washington to see my mom in 2008, I decided to book the Motel 6 on the way there since we would just be stopping to sleep. Well…the Motel 6 is a noisy place. We got no sleep because Boo was on alert. At the end of three long days of driving with virtually no sleep at night, we arrived like zombies in Forks, WA. Appropriate, I’m sure. 😉

On the way back from that trip, I booked us, once again, into the La Quintas. On that trip, we stopped one night at the hotel in Caldwell, ID. I was so touched to receive a dog biscuit for Boo along with a little poem saying how welcome he was.

Boo has stayed in the La Quinta in Nashville, TN and, most recently, Lincoln, NE. All good experiences.

When we got back to Little Rock last week, we chose to stay in the Studio Plus because we were going to be there for several days and, because traveling with a dog makes restaurant eating a little difficult, we were happy to have the availability of a kitchen.

The hotel was disgusting. I tried not to complain. As long as Boo and I were inside and didn’t touch too much in the kitchen, it was okay. But I was never so happy to leave a hotel!

When David checked out, the lady at the desk gave him grief about having a dog in the room. What? The hotel website said it was pet friendly.

It made me mad. To my way of thinking, that non-smoking hotel should be more concerned about the woman on the first floor who had taken her screen out of the window and was sitting in it smoking. Or emptying the many overflowing garbage cans (click the word disgusting above for photos) throughout the property. Or maybe even about the other dogs that were barking endlessly. But Boo Boo? Boo was the least of her concerns.

In the future, we’ll be staying at the La Quinta hotels when we travel with Boo. We know he’s accepted and we like staying at this hotel brand. La Quinta truly is pet friendly. 🙂

Heaven is a bed

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So if you’ve known me for, oh say, an hour or so you will know how I feel about the beds they have at the Doubletree hotels.

We started staying regularly at the Doubletree when I started directing the Mrs. Oklahoma International pageant. The Mrs. International Pageant is held every July at the Northshore Performing Arts Center in Skokie and the host hotel is the Skokie Doubletree.

A couple of years ago, we got a new bed. We decided on memory foam because David and I had done a mystery shop on the Sleep Number bed and had the same sleep number. So that didn’t seem like the bed we should get. I was so looking forward to the memory foam.

That lasted for one night sleeping on it. It hurt me. Seriously, it’s like sleeping on a brick in my opinion. I feel bruised (on my collarbone!) some mornings when I wake up. David likes it and can’t see what I’m complaining about.

Shortly after we got the memory foam bed, it was pageant time. I got to Chicago, slept one night on the Sweet Dreams® bed at the Doubletree. I called David the next day and told him it was SO heavenly. He wrote it off to the fact that we had just driven 12 hours to get to Chicago and I was extra tired. I told him he was wrong.

I was waxing rhapsodic about the bed the next day and the bellman, John, said, “You know you can buy one for your house?” Oh! I can????? He gave me the web address and I looked at it and began my campaign for the Doubletree mattress of my own.

David’s argument was that we had just spent quite a bit of money on the memory foam mattress that was a mere 30 days old.

I added a second pillow top to the existing pillow top.

Another year went by, I went to Chicago, and asked David for the Doubletree bed with renewed ferver.

David reminded me that the memory foam was only a year old.

I added a feather bed.

There was now so much stuff on top of the mattress to try and make it soft that I could barely get the sheets down over the corners. I felt like the Princess and the Pea.

David was out of the country for six months. He recently came back and had meetings in Little Rock. Although they had arranged a hotel for him, we decided that if we could get Boo Boo into Doc Davis’ Doggy Sleep Away Camp a day early, we’d go over and stay a night at the Doubletree.

We got Boo in and I made my reservation, using my Hilton Honors points. I requested an Executive Queen room and prepared for our trip. I was ridiculously excited to go and be just David and me in Little Rock, a place I’d never been before. The highlight, of course, sleeping on the fabu Doubletree bed.

I tweeted about it as I tweet about everything. I couldn’t contain my excitement about the visit to the Doubletree in Little Rock. In a little bit, I started receiving tweets from @doubletreelr. I didn’t even know they had a twitter account.

She asked if I wanted a city or river view. I didn’t even care. As long as there was a bed in the room, I was going to be happy. Then she asked and offered eating and sightseeing recommendations. Wowza! Seriously, I was beyond impressed. On any visit to the Doubletree, I’m just so happy to sleep on the bed that the free cookie seems like the max in great customer service.

We got to Little Rock after dark.

When we opened the door to our room, I saw a staircase. What?!?!

I had seen this room online when I was choosing which room we wanted to book and I knew it was a double story suite. Holy moly!

It was amazing. There was a gift basket on the table. David said, well this room comes with a gift basket. He went to look at it and was surprised that the gift basket had my name on it.

As we explored the gorgeous suite, David said, “Wow, I think I need to travel with you more often.” That made me smile. 🙂

The suite overlooked the river which was awesome. As you know, the one thing I miss about living in Florida or Chicago is the water.

But the highlight of the room was most certainly the awesome Doubletree bed!

We wandered down the street for dinner because the hotel restaurant had a 45 minute wait. I loved the downtown at night. Everything was dressed up for Christmas.

The next morning, we had breakfast in the hotel. I had some fabu pancakes because you know, no road trip is complete without pancakes!

We then wandered around the downtown again, visiting the Old State House Museum before leaving for the next hotel, also a Hilton Hotel but not the Doubletree.

Many, many thanks to Mary Speed, Guest Services Manager for this amazing surprise and fabulous experience. I talked to the staff at the hotel and they love Mary. So, as well as having amazing beds, it’s clear that the Doubletree Little Rock is a great place to work.

I can’t wait for the next time we can go to Little Rock and stay in the Doubletree. If they were pet friendly, we’d be there every time!

P.S. As soon as I know we are going to be here long enough to receive it, I’m getting my own Doubletree bed for our house! I finally convinced David! 🙂

Lauri Rottmayer

Catch the Rottitude!

Category Archives: travel

The Cover of the Rolling Stone

Hey Sales People, Listen!

Frank Llloyd Wright’s Rosenbaum House

We Are Gastronauts

Carpe-ing the java DC style

Sugar is a slippery slope

Pet friendly?

Heaven is a bed