To B & B or not to B & B?

It seemed the appropriate question as we surveyed our room at Anne Hathaway’s Bed and Breakfast in Ashland, Oregon.  Maybe survey isn't the right word.  Surveying conjures visions of a large expanse.  This room was tiny.  I suppose I should mention that this B & B, located in the home of The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is named after The Bard's better half and not the American actress.  Did I mention that it was small?The room was small enough that sitting on any edge of the bed I could reach out and touch a wall.  It wasn't big enough to swing the proverbial cat in.  I’m certain that at some point as I put our suitcase in the only place it would fit, under the bathroom sink and pondered the nightly rate that Lady Macbeth’s words came to mind; “What’s done cannot be undone.”

To be perfectly fair when I booked this room it may very well have been one of the last available rooms left in all of Ashland.  We (okay - I) had dawdled until the very last minute to plan this trip and when you consider that I was booking for the 4^th and 5^th of July we were lucky that we weren't sleeping under a tree in Ashland’s Lithia Park.  And it isn't as if the photo on the Hathaway website misrepresents the room.  They didn't put up a picture of a suite at the Ritz and call it  Judith (B & B's often name the rooms rather than assign numbers. Ours was named after Shakespeare's youngest daughter).  The photo was clearly taken with a wide angle lens and a discerning look shows it to be small.  While there I managed to take a peek in a couple of the other rooms and they weren't what you would call spacious.  Not surprising when you consider that this home, built in 1908, was originally a boarding house.  In retrospect any downside of the close quarters was for me offset by the innkeepers themselves, the general ambiance of the place and the overall air of friendliness and good cheer among the guests.  Some years back, David and Deedie Runkel committed to running a green and sustainable business; installing an energy efficient water heater, line drying the bed sheets, buying produce from local farmers and eggs "from a local woman who keeps some chickens to supplement her income as a bank teller."  Socially responsible business practices carry a fair amount of weight with me.  Most importantly from a traveler’s point of view, the innkeepers are friendly, warm and welcoming people, attested by the fact that many of the guests we met during our two day stay return year after year. 

Still, during the course of our vacation and three different B & B’s we mulled over the worth of Bed and Breakfast Inns over more traditional accommodations.  Our first stay was at the Sun Pass Ranch in Fort Klamath, Oregon.  I would call Fort Klamath a one horse town but to be fair I encountered at least 8; the ones that are stabled at Sun Pass Ranch.  Fort Klamath does have a post office, a couple of small resorts that rent cabins, an old general store that apparently closed when faxing services were still a big deal and a ramshackle filling station that looks like it closed down when gas was at about two bucks a gallon.  So no, I didn't choose Sun Pass for the nearby nightlife, although I found when we arrived that there is an Indian casino 15 minutes up the road.  I chose it mainly for its proximity to Crater Lake, but also for its distance from civilization (No TV or cell service and internet was spotty).  This ranch doesn't look like the Ponderosa of Bonanza TV fame.  It isn't a dude ranch, there are no wranglers roping and branding calves and the innkeeper, Patty, wasn't even wearing boots (although she did allow that she wears boots when she goes in the corral because the horses, when nuzzling up close looking for a treat, do accidentally step on toes).  This is a modern looking home furnished with lots of western décor sitting in big country, with a vast, cow filled pasture for a backyard and the 8 aforementioned horses.  I've heard of folks who will spruce up an ordinary home that has some extra rooms, maybe add a little theme and then call it a bed and breakfast.  This seemed just like that sort of situation.  It felt like going to a vacation destination, pulling into the driveway of any random home, knocking on the door and announcing, “We’re here!”  Patty welcomed us into the home, pretty much gave us the run of the house and grounds and showed us a nice snack bar that offers candy, cookies and other snacks and a refrigerator in the woodshed that was filled with beer, juices and sodas.  She cooked cowboy breakfasts with yards of bacon and pancakes the size of manhole covers that were bursting with Oregon blueberries; all washed down with all the juice and coffee your bladder could handle.  Before we left for a day of hiking she laid out an array of sandwich makings on the kitchen counter and then equipped us with mosquito repellent.  In the evening as the sun was setting and again in the morning over breakfast as our plates were continually replenished with hearty fare we talked and exchanged stories with Patty and with guests from San Diego, Washington State and Australia.  We learned from Patty things about the area that we never would have known had we stayed in a Motel 6 down the highway in bigger (and more sterile) Klamath Falls.  We learned about the local climate, about the history of the area, about some of the ranchers and the fact that Fort Klamath is adjacent to tracts of Indian reservation lands.  She told us stories from some of her Native American friends, the good and the bad and the problems that continue to plague the reservations; unemployment, alcoholism and crime.  She talked about the local water wars and of conflicts that in the 21^st century still exist between the Indians and local ranchers.  Her conservative bent was rather apparent but I kept my liberalism in check, leaving some telling gaps in our conversations because even though I was a paying guest, it seemed to me disrespectful to her home and hospitality to get into political debate.  Still something about the living situation teetered on the uncomfortable.  But in retrospect that’s probably because the home that we were sharing didn't fit the traditional notion that I have of a B & B; an old Victorian from the early 1900s or a restored 19^th century hotel or a property with quaint individual cottages.

Sunrise at Sun Pass

The Smith River at Sun Pass

We moved on to Bybee’s Historic Inn located in Jacksonville, Oregon.  The Bybee House was built in 1856 by, appropriately enough, William Bybee who was a local swell in the community.  The rooms here are large and beautifully appointed with Victorian furnishings.  The home has a spacious sitting room and a cozy library.  Breakfast is served on the back porch, cookies are put out in the afternoon and a refrigerator with drinks and ice cream is available for guests.  Being mid-week, we were the only guests during our two night stay.  Over breakfast we chatted with the innkeeper, Tina Marie, who told us that she went into the bed and breakfast business, more or less to be her own boss and escape workplace politics.  While you might say that she’s her own boss after listening to her story it seems that her B & B is the boss.  But that’s okay with her because while it can be a demanding boss, at least it isn't a political, ass covering, overbearing, pompous, two faced jerk like most bosses can be.  She and her two cousins run the place and handle most of the improvements and maintenance.  Over the years she’s learned to be an electrician, lay concrete, install plumbing, design landscape and, of course, cook.  She described years of tears and fears during the recession when they had to go out and get jobs to help make ends meet.
    

Bybee's Parlor

We've revisited the question and when vacation time comes again will revisit the question yet again.  Do we B & B or not?  They aren't cheap.  And they can be old, with old fragile furnishings and run by people who rightfully request that you follow rules to keep the old building and furnishings intact.  Lamps don’t always work right.  At Bybee’s it took me a good half hour to get the window to open and I never could get the shades rolled up.  Spike heels and rolling luggage were not welcome on the more than 100 year old floors. Years before I was married a girlfriend and I stayed at a B & B in an upstairs room with a bed that had a creak so loud we imagined it was audible down the block.  It had the effect of a cold shower; which by the way as with many B & B’s was down the hall and shared, along with the commode.

Innkeepers can be quirky people who aren't constrained by corporate rules. While they realize the importance of customer service and the double edged swords of Yelp and Trip Advisor they aren't as likely to yield to an unreasonable demand as the managers at a Best Western. They'll take heed of dietary concerns, make sure you have clean towels, make up your room every day and try their best to make your stay pleasant and comfortable.  But if you complain that the 100 year old bed isn't firm enough the innkeeper might point out that the bed is after all older than your grandmother and might suggest that for extra firmness you try sleeping on the floor or move to the Motel 6 up the interstate.  

At any of our destinations we could have gotten away with a room for 25 to 100 dollars a night less at a chain motel.  Depending on the property we could have gained a more spacious room, a TV, flawless internet access and probably a swimming pool and a small gym.  We could have dined on the standard motel continental breakfast giving a perfunctory nod to other guests as we all wolfed down our yogurt, Costco pastries and assorted fruit in an antiseptic little lobby decorated with plastic flowers and hackneyed prints.  I wouldn't have worried about dinging the nearly indestructible corporate, faux wood room furnishings.  For all of that convenience we would have traded away a warm summer evening talking on the porch swing; listening to Julie from Australia marveling about her first visit to a "real American diner with the stools and juke box"; meeting interesting people and hearing about their travels; the stories that the innkeepers told us about the local communities and about their experiences of  running a B & B; falling asleep to the sounds of cattle in a nearby pasture, horses in the corral and coyotes in the woods; reading a book in a 150 year old sitting room; homemade macaroons in the parlor or port wine in the library.  It is in essence the difference between treating a vacation accommodation  as a place to lay your head at your destination or making your accommodation a destination in itself. 

I would recommend any of the bed and breakfast inns that we stayed at during our trip.Their links follow:
http://www.sunpassranch.com/
http://www.bybeeshistoricinn.com/
http://ashlandbandb.com/