I gave this next assignment. Here's what I asked my sisters and me to think and write about:
Write about a discovery you made in 2018 that brought you temporary or lasting happiness and, if it has, how this discovery helped change your thinking or your feelings about something in your life.
Christy's post is here and Carol's is here.
My discovery actually stretches back to the summer of 2017, but it was in 2018 that my thinking really changed about staying in people's homes via airbnb.com.
The Deke and I stayed right downtown in Eugene back in 2017 in a guy's condo. He rents out his home when he's away on biking and hiking trips. I was really happy that the Deke found this place for us to stay. It was everything I wanted. It was within walking distance of nearly everywhere I wanted to go: WOW Hall for the Babes with Axes show; 16 Tons, Falling Sky, the Bier Stein, 5th Street Public Market; and anywhere else I want to go downtown or in midtown; it was a short walk to pick up bagels or to drop over to Starbucks for coffee; it was even close to the house we once lived in on Madison.
In August, the Deke interviewed for the job she's currently working at and we stayed in the west Eugene cottage of our longtime friend, Ritta. She rents it out as an airbnb. Once again, the cottage was perfect. Not only was it sparkling clean, but it was quiet, relaxing, and very comfortable. I loved that it was so close to the New Frontier Market and enjoyed strolling there in the mornings for a cup of coffee and a pastry. It was also very convenient for meeting up with the Troxstar for beers at Falling Sky and for walking to the bluegrass jam at Sam Bond's. The Deke and I stayed in this cottage for three nights and it started to feel a little like home to me, it was so comfortable and easy.
Later in August, the Deke, Melissa, and I shared the upstairs of a handsome old house near the Hudson River in Piermont, NY over the weekend of Adrienne and Josh's wedding. It was my first experience staying at an airbnb when the host family was also living there. Aside from a boyfriend with a goofy laugh, sharing the house with others worked out great. We had access to a coffee maker and our host's back patio was sheltered by gorgeous old trees overlooking a running and walking trail below which both humans and deer enjoyed strolling on. The mornings on this patio were cool and sublime.
While this airbnb wasn't within walking distance of the places we wanted to go, it didn't matter. The drive into Nyack was simple and we made the most of our close proximity to the places we needed and wanted to visit. On Sunday, the day after the wedding, and after a morning of bagels with family and other wedding guests, the Deke and I were worn out and needed to just sleep. I loved having this welcoming, charming house to retreat to rather than, say, a motel room. The house was so much more alive with history, the stories of its owners told in the pictures and other things on the walls, and so much more comfortable.
Having had such good experiences with these three airbnbs, I booked two more. When I went to Eugene for Louise Jackson Harrison's memorial, I stayed in a room furnished with its own bathroom in a house owned by a the parents of one of Debbie's former students. The parents are Sabine and Phillip. Phillip also did some work on our house at 940 Madison. The room and the environment was perfect. It was near the Willamette River in the Whiteaker neighborhood. I loved walking into the heart of the Whiteaker neighborhood on Friday night for dinner at Izakaya Oyazi and again on Saturday and Sunday mornings for coffee and a bagel at the Red Barn.
The hosts and I never got in each other's way. In fact, it was such an emotional weekend memorializing Louise, seeing many old friends from LCC, and retracing some of my old footsteps at Delta Ponds and in Hendricks Park that I was very grateful that they left me alone so that for the limited time I was in their home, I could rest quietly, reflect upon what I was experiencing, and sleep peacefully. I cherished this time to myself on this particular weekend and I was very happy that I wasn't staying in one of the motels on Franklin Boulevard or in a suite in the Gateway area. I loved being in this house in this neighborhood on this weekend.
When I decided to drive out to Billings a couple of weeks later to attend a concert given by the President's Own US Marine Band and spent time with Hiram, I immediately opened up my airbnb app to see if I could find a room within walking distance of the concert hall. I did. And, once again, I stayed in a couple's house in their basement where they had two rooms, each with a private bathroom, and a common space with a kitchen near the rooms. I wasn't at this place long, but it was exactly what I wanted. It afforded me a quiet place to rest after a long day driving, put me within a relatively short distance of the performance hall, and gave me a quiet place to rest my buzzing mind after the concert and after drinks with Hiram and a table of very stimulating band members.
So, these experiences have changed my thinking about travel. Granted, I've heard stories of people staying in airbnb's that didn't work out so well. But, so far, I'm four for four. I love staying with friends when I travel, but there are times, like the three visits to Eugene that I just wrote about, when having one's own quiet space in a lived in home with plenty of time to quietly rest and reflect is just what I want.
Should I have the good fortune of doing some more traveling in the next several months, I will definitely check out the airbnb possibilities -- especially those offerings owned by an airbnb Superhost. In each of my stays, I loved being in a neighborhood, loved not needing my car very often, and loved the feeling of privacy and comfort in another person's home where I was left to my own devices and trusted to be a grateful guest.
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