For some time now I've been engaged in a road construction project: I'm paving the road to hell with my good intentions. Throughout the fall I've all but ignored my duties around the Auberge in favor of moose hunting (which was a bust) and just trying to keep up with the vacuuming and bed-making during one of our busiest times of the year. But now that the dust cleared and I can look around, I'm confronted with the same issues I've been putting off for some time now. It's stick season, and... Read Full Story
You may have heard about a recent class action settlement between Expedia and you, the traveler. Expedia, it seems, was overcharging customers and labeling those charges "tax recovery charges" and "service fees." That means that if you were booking a room at the Auberge de Stowe through Expedia, you may have overpaid and not known about it. Here are a couple of links to the story: ABC News and NPR.In light of the reckless behavior of large private institutions over the past several years (... Read Full Story
The weather this week to a turn for the perfect. With the contemptuousness of July and August retired, we're left with September, which seems to go out of its way to the best month of the year. A long string of excellent days--highs in the 70s under bright sunshine during the day, lows in the 40s under passionately clear starry skies at night--stretches out before us. Even the light is different, with the sun changing its slant. Just the other day I came around the bend by the new fire an... Read Full Story
"Gregariousness is the enemy of art."Or so said Truman Capote. One of the most interesting--and creepy--things about being a writer is that I always find what I need when I need it. While researching Capote's In Cold Blood for an upcoming writing project, I came upon the above quote while reading the biography Capote, by Gerald Clarke. Capote often retreated from the demanding social scene in New York--ironically, a social scene he had created into one of the most lavish and visible on ear... Read Full Story
It's always interesting to see the looks on guests' faces when they're confronted with the jellies and jams Chantal serves at breakfast. They come in unusual jars, and they're usually unmarked. When Chantal explains that they're homemade from the fruit that grows just outside the window, another dimension is added to the traveler's stay.Chantal learned jelly and jam making from her German godmother, Tante Henny. A robust hausfrau dedicated to the kitchen, Tante Henny churned out buckets of... Read Full Story
It happened again last weekend: One of our guests took a sip of our coffee and said, "Wow, this coffee is soooooo good!" In the nearly ten years we've been innkeepers, we've heard this about once a week from guests. In the interest of fair play, I think it's time I divulged our secret, mostly because there's really no secret. First of all, it's not the equipment. Each morning I brew coffee in either an automatic drip 12-cup countertop machine (and over the years I've burned through dozens ... Read Full Story
Since the innkeeper is a writer and a reader, you're probably wondering what books I'm plowing through--and thanks to my recent surgeries, I've had time to plow: There's nothing like general anesthesia and a team of doctor's up your urethra to slow a boy down. Given all this down time--and the exceptional book sale at the Stowe Free Library--I've been plowing through a collection of books as eclectic as me:The Caine Mutiny: Herman Wouk would never be able to spin a tale like this in the insta... Read Full Story
No, not the Rolling Stones. The kidney stones.A couple of weeks ago, I woke up and went through my regular routine: make the coffee, let the dog out, and start writing. But within fifteen minutes I was writhing on the floor in pain. The pain came from my lower left back, in the area of my kidney. My mother-in-law whisked me to the ER where kidney stones were diagnosed. The pain was indescribable. When the nurse came to see me, she showed me the little scale of faces used to diagnose pai... Read Full Story
