Dropped as LOBOC host hotel!!!!

We heard a rumour last week that LOBOC (Long Beach and Orange County) motor cycle club have dropped us as their host hotel after 9 years. No explanation, nobody bothered to call us even though they made the reservation for 2011 when they left this last March. Oh well, such is life.  No doubt we will discover the reason but there are several members not happy about it. There is an individual who has made no bones about preferring the other place. Good luck to them.

Groups who book the hotel for two nights at weekends and think they are doing us a favour are not. They block people who want to come in for a longer time. We actually lose by it.

We are looking forward to our new landscaping staring Monday. I will post before and after pictures. Five Palos Verdes in the parking lot with a collection of cactus. It'll be lovely when they finish; our bank account will not!!!! Oh well .... that's show biz!!!

Same building ....... different flags!!!!

This is Leather Pride weekend and here we are, decked out for the party!!!! We are so pleased we have the balconey to fly our flags from No doubt there is a local ordinance which limits the number of flags that can displayed at one time.

Lovely weeked forecast, mid 80'sF. Eat your heart out, people. Just look at that sky!!!  Visitors from Australia and Germany left this morning. We have guests from Scotland checking in later this afternoon. Don from Toronto and guests from all over the US; AZ, OR, CA, NM, WA. Tonight is the Palm Springs Mr. Leather competion of which we are major sponsors (so we get in free, sort of!). There was a Skip sighting at the Tool Shed parking lot fair last night. We will try to avoid him if he makes an appearance tonight! Maybe I should put a copy of his bill in my pocket!!!

Happy Gay Pride!!!!!!!

All decked out for Gay Pride weekend, mmmmmmm .. must be room for more flags!!!

Looking forward to the weekend although we will miss some of our regulars this year, DJ and Al amongst them. 10 years ago this weekend was our first weekend in the hotel and it was Gay Pride weekend. We were full, not for gay Pride but for a maths convention!! A maths professor from UC Santa Barbara had booked the entire place for himself and students at a bargain rate. Apparently an annual event. Boy, was he pissed off when we told him he couldn't book for the next year!!

10 years ago we had our friend Todd staying with us, and also our friends Bill and Dave. Sadly Todd passed last year and we heard from Dave that Bill died this last week. :(

Also, today in the United Kingdom is Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Day ... not an offical holiday but one where people light fires and set off fireworks in celebration of the capture of Guy Fawkes trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. An effigy of him is often burnt on  fires but nowadays  it is often an unpopular politian. Maggie Thatcher was one of the most popular figures burned and long shall it remain so!!! Guy (Guido) Fawkes jumped from the scafolding and broke his neck before the hang man got is hands on him and thus he escaped the painful hanging, drawing and quartering which was so popular in those days. What? No flogging?
Here's a silly little ditty we used to sing in the school playground on November 5th ......
Build a bonfire, build a bonfire,
Put the teachers on the top.
Put the prefects in the middle
And burn the bloody lot!!!!!
(Witty, eh?).

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!!