Congratulations to us!!!!

Well, here we are, our 10th anniversary of moving to Palm Springs! How unbelievable is that? No doubt some of our fellow inn keepers are thinking the same thing!!!!!! Showed them . HA! In your faces!!!  Now I suppose we have to make plans for the next 10 years including retirement. Neither of us wants to be doing this in 10 years time even though we love it. The thing we would both like to do is continue living here but close down as an hotel. I doubt if that will happen but we love it so much it will be a painful wrench to leave. Maybe we'll feel different about that down the line.

Thank you all for making this journey such a joy. When we first moved we had no idea we would meet such lovely people. Most of you know the story of Helen (see blog Feb 23rd), our first long term guest before we opened as Chaps. When she left after staying with us for 5 months she wished us all the best luck in the world. I told her we were keeping the old Colibri sign incase we went bust in the first couple of years we could revert. Well, girl, we didn't go bust but we do still have the old sign!!!!! (for ever a pessimist!!).

The BIG party will be next year, around Easter. We'll keep you posted of those plans. Also we have some new ideas for next summer ..... later!!!

Halloween is coming!!!

I started putting up the Hallowe'en decorations this afternoon and can't believe another year has gone by so quickly. Some of the decorations are from when we lived at Radford Avenue in North Hollywood nearly 10 years ago (more about that later) and some collected from Hallowe'en shows in Chicago when John and I manned a booth in Chicago for 3 1/2 days every March from 1993 to 2001. Oh, happy days and aching feet!!! Not to mention a strain on the old chuckle muscles!!! OK, I'll retake the pictures tomorrow WITHOUT the flash!!

I don't think we'll be splashing out on anything new this year. We are not having a party but if Tony turns up in drag, there's a party right there and enough to scare anybody!!!! It is Tony's birthday on Saturday.

I mentioned we moved to Palm springs nearly 10 years ago. In fact, October 31st will be our 10th anniversary of moving. We can't believe we've been here for so long and still love it. We woke up here November 1st 2000,  both of us having the same thoughts 'what have we done, we don't know anything about running an hotel'. Turns out ... what's to know? Any fool can clean a toilet and make beds. We always treat our guests as we would like to be treated ourselves and that has served us well. Did we make a business plan? No, of course not!!!! We have always treated suggestions for improvement with the urgency that they deserve!!! Shortly after we opened and we were still called the Colibri Inn, two queens stayed here for a couple of nights. As they were leaving, one of them offered up some advice for improvment 'you need to have more hangers in the closet'! Well, girl, there are still as many hangers in the closets today as there was when you stayed with us. Thanks for the advice!!!! See, treated with the urgency it deserved!!
I'll let you know how we decided to celebrate later!!!

Still going on about the weather!!!!

After a perfect Palm Springs weekend and a beautiful day yesterday, our dear friends John, Angela,(aka Doris) their son John and Grandchildren Sofie and Tom drove in from West Toluca Lake for lunch. We had horrendous weather; thunder lightening and rain like we have never seen before in all our 10 years in Palm Springs. Not to be downcast (we English are a hearty lot and never let a bit of rain ruin the day), we went to Escena Golf Club and had a great table inside overlooking the golf course. I hope it won't be another 10 years before they visit again and see how beautiful Palm Springs really is. Needless to say, because of the weather, the San Jacinto Mountains were shrouded in cloud so there was not much of a view. Lunch, recommended. We also spotted our friend Doug power lunching at an adjacent table.

Apart from that, the weekend was a great success and we don't have a day between now and Thanksgiving where we have no guests. Alright you other hotel owners who check out our blog and our parking lot,  the next few weeks and continuing through Thanksgiving, we have several guests without cars. You can't judge a book by it's cover!!!!!

Columbus Day Weekend.

Once again we have the best guests. Returning visitors and new guests who we hope will become future return visitors.  This weekend we have guests from England (London and Bournemouth), la belle France, Australia and from the USA California, Missouri, Utah and New Mexico.  Welcome back to Tracy and the boys. 50 indeed!!! Youngster!!!!

Stuart has been busy running up curtains (!) ... So, two Bob's, number 9 is ready for you!!! Next weekend is one of our favorites, the 'Latham Weekend,' a group of friends from San Diego taking the entire place for 3 nights. Gay, straight and Australian if I'm not mistaken. This must be their third or fourth year. Pictures to be posted!!

Me and my big mouth!!!

What was I saying about lightening without thunder????

Well, Thursday night 10.15 we had a doozie!! I was woken up (yes, we go to bed early in these parts!) by a strange noise which turned out to be rain. RAIN!!!! Then the lightening and thunder started. We both got out of bed and stood on our patio whilst the storm raged over our heads. The guttering couldn't hold the amount of water coming down so it was pouring out of the guttering in sheets, just like Viagra Falls! Anyway. it didn't last long but the next morning I had to wash down because of the amount of sand and dirt washed off the roof and from the trees. But now ... Sunday morning, lovely, clear, blue and calm. Peace returned. AAahhhhhh back to normal.