A big fat Zero

Summer is here, there is rain, there are no crowds, the spring planting has passed, the lawn planted and mowed. Herbs cooked for the Herb tour tomorrow. 2 rooms sold on a Saturday Night is not good. The Valley seems pretty empty, or at least all I see are day trippers or people with Summer houses up for the weekend. The phone has absolutely NOT rung more then 5 times in the past 10 days about a reservation inquiry. Do I sound depressed, well yes I am a little bit. June is always slow for the first 2 weeks and this year seems no different. Not much to talk about this evening so I am going to go to my room and read and maybe watch TV. The Inn is wide open for those who wish to visit...I lowered our rates to historic lows, 89 for a Queen Room (down from 119 and 129 for a King room, down from 159. And we even have a pay for 2, get a 3rd night free at our regular rates until June 17th. So go ahead and give us a call ! We will be glad to talk to you - Art

It's an Herby Day

The Herb Tour weekend is upon us and we are ready. There are 30 people taking the tour. Our herb/spice is Mustard. Yes we know it is NOT really an Herb, it is a Spice, but if you look it up, you can see it listed on the Internet as an Herb....and we all know that if it's in the internet, it has to be true. Sherry is cooking several Mustardly dishes this weekend and we put a small gift package together for our guests. Enjoy the Pictures !

View from the Porch

Another cold and rainy day in New Hampshire. I decided to stop griping and do something. So Sherry and I decided to "shampoo" all the carpets in the Inn. I rented a Rug Doctor from Hannafords and we started on the 3rd floor at aroung 9 am. We worked all day and actually Sherry did most of the heavy lifting because of my bad lower back. What YUCK we pulled from those carpets. But the all look great now. We got rid of all the stains and it really cleaned up nice. At the same time we did a thorough re-cleaning of all the rooms, getting into the corners and dusting and cleaning up even the baseboards with damp rags. It is amazing how much dust we get if we leave the windows open at all. The rooms smell fresh now and they are amazingly clean. I took the time to replace toilet tank flappers. They seem to only last about a year here, is is the water ? Anyway with 16 bathrooms that in itself is a job...but all in all it has been a good day to be an Innkeeper. If only the Phone would ring...we did get a reservation for Mid July, some repeat guests and their mother and they are using 2 rooms so that is great news. Other then that just a few telemarketers and my lawyer working on a problem we are trying to resolve. That's the report for today. Remember I lowered prices this weekend by $30 off retail, so our King rooms are only $129/night and the Queen and Twin rooms are $89/night and that still includes the full breakfast !! You cant beat that can you..

So long from the Porch. The View is beautiful !

Art

Rainy Day Doings

What does an Innkeeper do on a rainy day ? I for one like to play hookey ! So as per usual I was up at 05:30 and out of the house by 06:00. A quick stop at Starbucks then down the Kancamagus Scenic Highway. Along the way I saw 1 lone turkey, 1 silver flox slinking into the underbrush and lots of drizzle. I made a few stops (the coffee had it's usual effects) and stopped at the Sabbaday Falls rest stop. Then on to the summit of the Kanc to take some dreary picture. I had breakfast at "Pegs Cafe" in North Woodstock, NH then continued on 112 to 117 North to Franconia. I missed my turn to Sugar Hill, but instead stopped by the Franconia Inn where a couple of realtors were walking around with wads of paper. I went throught Littleton but there was a lot of construction in the downtown area. I came back down the 302 through the Crawford Notch and back to town. It was still raining so I decided to paint the ceiling in room 3 after I patched it up. Check out the pictures. It is so dark and gloomy and the house is empty so I took a few pictures of the dark dining room and outside it is pouring rain ! At least my garden is getting a good soaking. Enjoy the Pictures

The Back Deck

Still working on the outside of the Inn. We spent Today raking the back lawn, cleaning out the raised flower bed and prepping it for summer Zucinni for those sweet Zuccini Pies this summer. On the Back deck I put up 7 metal trellis and at the base of each we planted Scarlet Ohara Morning Glory Plants. The plan is for them to climb up the Trellis and spread accross the entire deck. By Mid-Summer it should be bloomin beautiful ! Then I snuck around to the Front and pulled out the second to last gnarly old everygreen shrub. I have to sneak because Sherry won't let me do any heavy lifting because of the bad back I have. I am not supposed to lift anything greater the 15 lbs...do you know that just about everything around the Inn weighs more then 15 lbs ! Anyway there is just 1 shrub left, but it's a monster...the biggest we have. It is about 8 feet wide at the base and 10 feet tall. It has about 25 small 2 inch trunks that need to be sawed off first, then a hole needs to be dut half way to China to get it out. Perhaps we can use Sherry's truck to pull it out ?

Late Spring-Early Summer Discounts

Due to popular demand and great weather, we are going to extend our Spring special rates until June 17th. That's right, if you plan right, your 2 day stay can be extended to a 3rd night completely free. If you rent one of the traditional Queen rooms, it works out to $39/night per person, double occupancy. And that includes a gourmet breakfast every morning! Read our reviews on Tripadvisor and you will read how our guests rave about our food. So take advantage of this great offer.

Looking for things to do. Here is a short list:

1. Bretton Woods Zip line - $80/pp


2. Northern Extremes Kayaking - ~ $25-$37/pp


3. Hiking - FREE

Memorial Day Weekend

Alicia and Chris are here for the holiday weekend. Of course Flyfishing is on the agenda for Chris. He is basically addicted to flyfishing and there appears to be no cure known to man for this affliction. If he catches any fish today I will be sure to post a picture. He was skunked yesterday in the Saco and Ellis River. The North Conway Crafters fair continues today. There are a variety of Crafts and Artwork being shown and sold. A musician provided songs for the young and old and he took requests. "I'm a little Teapot" was among his repetorie ! Guests spent the evening on the covered porch, using rockers and adirondack chairs and the Quilts for warmth and watched the world pass by.

Flowers and Wind

Memorial Day Weekend off to a good start here at the Inn. Many Flowers planted and Occupancy is picking up, 8 of 14 rooms sold and it's still early on Friday Night. This weekend in North Conway there will be 2 events. An Arts and Crafts fair, we have 2 craftspersons staying with us and a New England Artisans fair (basically a more expensive crafts fair). They are taking place about a 10 minute walk into town. In addition the Outlet Mall is having a sale weekend. Brooks Brothers Outlet is having 40% off their prices....what a deal. Our daughter Alicia and her husband Chris are coming tonight. Chris the fly fishing addict will be off to the Saco River at the break of dawn..we will have a barbeque on Sunday.

Memorial Day Weekend coming up

The White Mountains are beautiful this upcoming weekend. The weather will be PERFECT ! Today was a hot day in the high 80's but that's the high for the weekend. Saturday and Sunday will be Kayak Days for the adventerous. The Saco river is running just a bit on the high side but there are no restrictions on the river to delay Kayaking. Northern Extremes Kayak just down the street rents Kayaks for a very reasonable rate, plus they will shuttle you to the drop off and pick up points. Today 2 guests from Nova Scotia went up to the Bretton Woods Zip lines. They said they paid $80 for the 3 hour Zip ride. Evidently you have 7 or 8 different segments to get you down the hill and they LOVED it. I have not been, but it is worth a try before I heartily recommend it to my guests. We are not done sprucing up the place, today we scrubbed down most of our 1500 square feet of decking that wrap around the house. A few more plants went in the pots on the decks afterwards and out back the private deck is getting 7 trellis's that will be home to a dozen red Morning Glory Plants for the summer. We hope this will provide a beautiful backdrop and hide the hole where the house next to us was demolished last fall.

The Moose are Loose

The Inn had an odd visitor, a young male moose passed by the Inn on his way to the river. It's not often that moose walk into town, being that we are on a main street with traffic. The moose made 3 attempts to cross the road, twice he turned back because of traffic. Then a car came down the road from behind him and that provided enough motivation for the Moose to dash accross the busy White Mountain Highway. This picture is where he stood for a moment in the small patch of woods on Locust Street before he made his escape !

Spring cleaning - Great Discount Rates

If you don't mind a mop bucket or a paint brush laying around, now is a good time to come to North Conway, New Hamshire. The weather is beautiful (although it may change minute to minute). There are not very many touristas, so you get our full attention. To that degree, we are trying new recipies for the summer and you can help decide which ones are winners and which are Losers... We are sprucing up the place a bit, cleaning off that winter haze of dust off the building and planting new flowers. We started a Perennial garden out front, tore down the old gnarly evergreen bushes that were more brown then green and planted a lovely assortment of fresh flowers. Out back we are putting up some screening from our neighbors who tore down a building and are leaving a blank empty field. Our back deck will become a private garden paradise by mid July. Anyway check our our spring specials..our rates are way down until June 30th.