Day 51 - Stay at a Real Bed & Breakfast

Date: February 26th, 2010

This week its 365 Brand New Days: The Travel Edition!!! Michigan is on break and I'm taking it on the road. Specifically, I'm heading to Washington DC and San Francisco for tons of adventures in bad decisions. And first on the list of life-alteringly bad decisions, fraught with peril and sure to result in a lifetime of regret, to kick it off right, I spent the first night in a bone fide Bed & Breakfast in Amish Country. WOO! Spring break!!! OH YEAH!

I wanted to get off the grid for a night, so to speak. Hotels generally have plenty of amenities to make people comfortable in our modern state. There is a TV with cable and often movies on demand, wifi internet, phone service, built-in wall hairdryer, several room service options, in-room temperature controls, sometimes a pool, eletronic key cards, and, of course, those bathroom space heaters. Those are awesome. I love those.

That being said, I wanted to spend a night without all the usual distractions. It can be genuinely overwhelming to be online all the time and talking to people. I wanted to just... stop... for a little while. So I rolled into the Candleford Inn in Volant, Pennsylvania. Volant has a fairly large Amish population in the rural areas around town, so I got to see a little bit of how life is as I was coming in.

There were more of these than tire tracks around town.

I felt immediately at home when I got to the Candleford. I don't say that because it reminded me of my home - it didn't. It more reminded me of a home in a Norman Rockwell painting. It was beautiful. There was a dining room and a parlor set aside for guests and the rest of the house was for the private use of the Innkeeper (who, by the way, was an absolutely delightful woman). She had couches, a couple pianos, books and games set up for guests.

Now, when I say I wanted to go off the grid for a night, I wasn't kidding. I specifically requested the Amish room. They had a room set up to be as simple as possible, with just the bed, a clock, and a bathroom. It was exactly what I was looking for. My hotel experience has always consisted of taking my whole life, or as much of it as possible, and transporting it to a new location for a night. This time, I wanted to leave things behind for a little while.

Pictured: Almost none of my daily life.

I worked hard to avoid my usual pattern of going to my hotel room and shutting the door. That's what I'll do at normal hotels, still, don't get me wrong. A bed and breakfast is supposed to be different though. It is supposed to be a calming, charming experience that is wholly different from just travelling from one place to another. Once I got settled in, I went over to a local restaurant for some country food and then went back to the Inn.

Instead of going up to my room, I decided to stay down in the parlor and put together a jigsaw puzzle. The result was a lovely, calming evening. I had a wonderful conversation with the Innkeeper and her son about live in Amish Country. She even showed me a local paper that had notes sent back and forth by local members of the Amish Community. They use the paper to share news across local townships. What was nice about it, in particular, was that none of the Amish notes were editted before being published.

That means that "Smile." is an actual Amish emoticon.

I have been noticing a lot, recently, that my attitude about things has changed a lot. Though I hadn't stayed at a bed and breakfast before, I felt a strong desire to spend the whole evening up in my room, wishing I had internet. Instead, I decided the experience wasn't worth having if I just treated it like a hotel. What's the point, really, of going there instead of Motel 6? Motel 6 is $50 cheaper, after all.

What I got out of staying downstairs was a delightful conversation with a wonderful woman about a community I didn't know anything about before. It wasn't just that. It felt like I was stepping back in time a little bit. The room was comfortable and warm. I didn't feel at all strange or unusual for just wanting to sit there, calmly, and take in my surroundings. While I enjoyed the puzzle, I found myself bothered that it ended so quickly. It took three hours. They flew by, but not in the "life is too busy" kind of way. Instead, they flew by in the "this was such an enjoyable activity" kind of way.

I went to my room and fell asleep around 9:30pm, which is not something I usually do. So in addition to having a calming, slow, homey night... I also got a full night's sleep before the last half of my drive. I woke up to breakfast at 7:00am. It was homemade and delicious. What was more touching and wonderful was that the Innkeeper had woken up a few hours early to prepare it for me. While I know that's part of the bed and breakfast experience, it was still lovely of her to wake up for me before she normally would so that I could get on the road.

The bed and breakfast experience is only what you make of it - if I'd just stayed in my room the whole night, I wouldn't have gotten anything out of it. For me, going and sitting down in the parlor, and just... relaxing... was outside of my comfort zone. I don't know why, but it was. Making the decision to get as much out of the experience as I could led to something great that I wouldn't have ever seen or heard about otherwise. It was also the perfect way to start my vacation. I have a lot of travel ahead and starting off reminding myself to stop and smell the freshly baked, homemade banana-chocolate-chip muffins was definitely the right way to go.