International Innkeeper Exchange

A few years ago a fellow from France introduced us to international exchanges between innkeepers. Since then he has become our friend and in many ways, our soul mate.

The idea was totally Philippe's and he has exchanged with perhaps twenty or more inns on four continents. By contrast, we have exchanged with only two international inns: one in France and one in Scotland. Click here to see a list of the inns Philippe has visited.

The photo shows the Hired Man and Missus with Philippe and his mother on a beautiful French day.

After returning from France a few years ago, I wrote a web page about our experience and visit with Philippe at his Gite in La Bastide in the south of France. Poking around the Internet this morning, I found that page translated into four languages on Philippe's website.

The page has lots of photos and links to interesting French things. So, for today's reading material, I thought I could just send you to that web page. http://www.etoile.fr/fr/sejour6.htm (If you want to read it in English, just click on the British flag.)

Philippe is a wizard with web pages, so if you want to follow any of his many links from the page you will find loads of interesting stuff. And, if you ever want to his gite, L 'Etoile http://www.etoile.fr/, in the Cevennes region of France, let us know and we will help you plan your adventure.

The H.M.

What is wrong with the French?

Boy, do I flop around into different topics.

But if you know me you know that I have spent my whole life -- now 67 years-- flopping around.

Well, maybe I can get some sedate controversy going here. Here goes:

Why are Americans always complaining about the French? In my view they do a whole lot of things better than we do. A whole lot! I think they live better. Consider this from a recent survey reported by Arthur Frommer the travel guru. "According to a study published in Gadling.com "The French enjoy an average of 35 days a year of paid vacation. They sleep an average of nine hours a night, an hour longer than us, and also spend two hours a day on eating -- twice the time Americans spend eating. Read more: http://www.frommers.com/blog/? "

I suspect, when totalled, this likely indicates that the French enjoy life more than do Americans with no vacation but lots of toys and little time. We live pell mell. They live leisurely.

And, they have one of the best free health care systems in the world. On the other hand, we have....... Oh, surely you know what a perfect mess we have.

I know, they don't support us in every military incursion we decide on. Are they smart or just lucky in this?

I must be feeling like I want to stir the water a little this morning. If you agree or disagree let me know in a genteel manner.

The Hired Man needs now to earn his breakfast. Vive la France!

www.rockeddy.com

The wanderer awoke this morning

I am still afflicted. I want to wander the countryside. Heck, I am only one week back and I catch myself thinking about how things might be in some of my more popular places.

I believe there is new grass carpeting the Flint Hills of Kansas. It is a deluge of green with praire flowers and small tidy towns tucked down in the cottonwood draws. I would like to see it again....right now.

Another vision that surfaces is of the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The rolling hills, as if huge waves stretched onward on a sea of grass. Ranch houses and barns lost in the swells of green, down little track of roads, miles and miles from little "necessary" towns.

These are just my spring visions; they will change as the year progresses. I will think of other favorites in the summer. And in the fall I will move to the mountains, New England, the lake country.

In Maine, where a little me still lives, the winter is being forced out grudgingly by the gentle persistance of spring. And I can remember enough that I think I could still avoid the tourists running up highway 1 and locate some of the pictures that still swim in my mind.

And there are so many more that I will not discuss this morning. It is just that the wanderer in me just schook in his traces enough that I had to acknowlege him this morning. Ain't that typical! I should be discussing Mother's Day. Kathy is getting Mom's Day calls this morning while serving breakfast to the guests and I am back in this messy little room with the computer. I am sure it ain't right. I am certain that a more refined fella would do things differently.

Happy Mother's Day, The Hired Man http://www.rockeddy.com/

Back from the south now and meeting new people

We are back from our vacation in the south with our camper. We are now back in harness and have a complete complement of guests this weekend. Computer problems while we were away stopped this blog in its tracks.


We had a wonderful time while we were away. Here are a few of the things we did:

We slowed down. For most of the trip we did not get over 50 mph. That is the speed limit on the Natchez Trace and we maintained the same speed up thru the small ramshackle towns of the Mississippi and Arkansas Delta.

We resolved to get some exercise. Before we left we purchased a Wii Fit game. Yes, you actually do get exercise. And it is fun!

We immersed ourselves in the western theatre of the Civil War. Kathy was really excited because she is such a CW buff. In her words she "had a rosy glow" as we visited CW sites. I will include some photos taken at the battle site at Shiloh.

The siege of Vicksburg was quite interesting also.

We met some interesting characters. I think I have already written about one of them. One lady at a small Civil War center was starved to talk. She is 88 years and talked about her early life. While we were their her son, who is my age or older brought her lunch. he said, "Here is you lunch Mama!" She was married at 15. "We didn't have ANYTHING when we got married. Well, we had a little bit of food." Her husband has been gone for 22 years.

Spent family time with daughter and family. That is another topic.

We riffled a few antique stores and flea markets. We found that there are an inferior species of fleas at those places in the south. Found a few things that are truly unique.

I'll try to do a better job now. The Hired Man http://www.rockeddy.com/

Shiloh

They were all Americans. They met by the Tennessee River in early spring and butchered each other. The two-day killing was so intense that it is remembered in history as one of the greatest battles fought on the soil of the United States.

Yesterday we were touring the battleground called Shiloh . We find it interesting how the battle related to the topography, the ground, how the army was pushed up against the river and were only saved by reinforcements by water during the night.

So, during the day we spent tracing the history upon the land, we met another fellow doing the same in company with his daughter. You could tell that he was almost agitated with the excitement of day. We talked for a while. He was a southerner and traced his lineage to participants in the battle. He hailed originally from the Cumberland region of eastern Tennessee. He was a retired college professor and a wholly likable gentleman.

Our conversation touched on a subject that has stayed with me... that started me considering. The question we both wondered was this: How could men who were neighbors be pushed to the passionate savagery needed for this kind of killing. Official numbers put the total casualties --killed, wounded and missing -- at nearly 25,OOO.

Here are my reflections later in the evening, after we had retired to the woodland where our camper is now stationed: Throughout history, wars are fought between groups of people who differ in race/color, language, or religion. Both sides realize that "they are not like us" so savagery is made easier by some degree. For confirmation, simply consider our relatively recent wars: Korea, Viet Nam, and those bloody incursions into the middle east.

But, here at Shiloh there were none of those differences. Both sides were Americans; both were the same color, the same religion and spoke the same language. Perhaps this conundrum is a key reason why we Americans have been so obsessed with the civil war since the 186O's. How could neighbors, brothers and aquaintances do this to each other?

It was an invigorating day with spring in full force. Dogwood and redbud were in amazing flower. The sun shone yesterday upon the killing fields where almost at this same time of year soldiers drank from "bloody Pond" were dead men and horses had turned with water red. That happened on April 6 and 7, 1862.

I wish now that we had our southern acqaintance from yesterday for some more "considering".

Bonus question: Guess which key on my computer keyboard has stopped working? I was gonna put some neat photos with today's blog. But technology is failing us on this trip. One laptop has gone belly up and the ancient backup computer we keep as backup can't read the camera card. So, use your imagination!!

Going footloose for a while

It has been this way for many years. Since I was a kid I have appreciated the feeling one gets just before setting out on an extended journey. It is that way now. We leave today.

And, like many other trips, this time we are also a little weak on planning. We like it that way. We happen upon things and experiences without anticipating them. No schedule!

Here's how we plan: We mark off days on our calendar for travel days a full year ahead. We say, "We're gonna be gone here, on those days that have X's on them." Quite often don't know our destination until shortly before leaving. This time we knew only that we were going to take the RV (5th wheel trailer).

Then someone said, "how about we head down to the Natchez Trace?" We agreed that the direction was right, as we would be heading into the northward march of spring. We could piddle around on the Trace we figured, which is something like 440 miles long, take in some neat civil war battlefields while we were about it, and do some serious relaxing. And, since we have been on portions of the trace before, we know there are some interesting experiences to be had under spanish moss-laden trees. Oh yes, and then there are the birds, and flowers and flowering trees and gentle southern breezes.

We were arranging to meet our Canadian pal, Cathy Collins, on the Trace as she returned home from her usual winter in Mexico with her tiny Scamp trailer . But she learned at the last minute that her brother in Scotland had died and she had to beat a direct path home. We will miss her this year.

So, PeeVee (our dog) has had a bath, we are mostly packed, and before long I will hook the whole rig together and get it in traveling mode. Cell phones are wonderful as they allow us to transfer our land line to the cell and get all calls we normally woujld. A laptop with an "air card" usually gets us internet access as we move about. And with a solar (photovoltaic) system on the roof of the camper, we can stop and be quite comfortable virtually anywhere.

Gotta get going now. I'm gonna slap in a photo of some camping spot we have had in the past. We'll see!

The Hired Man, Missus, and dogpal PeeVee www.rockeddy.com

What happened to that big mushroom?

We ate it! We sliced it up, dipped it in an egg mixture then rolled it in flour. The frying pan did the rest. Now remember, the mushroom in question is a false morel, a fungus that the books say can cause some problems when eaten.


Didn't happen! The hired man and the missus at Rock Eddy Bluff Farm http://www.rockeddy.com/ ate their share. We were followed by our daughter, who was here at the time, and her two children (Ages 1 yr. and nearly 3 yrs.). There was no effect from the mushrooms.


That mushroom was delicious! As you can see from the picture, the mushroom fried up well. We actually ate it for breakfast, and, as I remember, we had little else until noon. The picture shows what was left.


We have found nine small common morels in our drive and will escort them to our digestive tracts soon. It occurs to me that with mushroom season coming on strong, you may like some reliable information. Here are a couple of websites: Mid-Missouri M0rels and Mushrooms and see what the Missouri Department of Conservation has to say.

We will be hunting the little morsels this spring. But we are headed to the Natchez trace in a couple of days. We'll send reports from there and also picts of any "scrooms" that we might happen upon.

Think Spring, The Hired Man and Missus

I can't help myself

Perhaps I can be forgiven for staying with a subject. It is just that the first rumblings of the new growing season seem so powerful to me. I will spare you all the talk about renewal and the flowery metaphors for spring. Better, I want to show what things look like this morning here in the Ozarks. The photos are only minutes old.

We discovered this mushroom yesterday and waited to harvest it. In the Ozark parlance, this is known as a "red one". The reason is that most native folk around here recognize only the two most common edible mushrooms. The call them red ones and white ones. The white ones are actually common morels. This "red one" is a false morel. They are larger than the white ones. Now, the experts say to be careful with eating the false morels. They say that sometimes eating them can cause serious illness in some people. However, everyone I know eats them without affect, and so do we (and so will be have this one for breakfast tomorrow).

Knowing that there was a remarkable glade of bluebell flowers under the bluffs at Clifty Creek, we ventured there to see. What we found was a treat; bluebells covering the ground beside the babbling creek, under the giant white skeletons of sycamore trees. There we also found our first view of Dutchman's Britches"

And looking up the creek we see the first hints of color arriving. Leaves the size of your pinkie fingernails are appearing, particularly in elm trees. Red bud trees are just beginning to bloom. So are dogwoods. For those who pay attention to the usual sequence of such things, this year has been odd. Every woodland early blooming tree appears to be in about the same stage: red bud, dogwood, service berry, and wild plump.

And perhaps March 31 is a little early for "red ones", but there it is. We are pumped up for spring. Hope you are too.

From the hills, The Hired Man and The Missus