RUNNING Y RANCH!!! - KLAMATH FALLS

  Last thursday morning a good friend of mine, called me to see if I would like to take a quick trip to Klamath Falls and stay at the Running Y.  I jumped at the opportunity.  I had never been there and as a travel agent had been wanting to see and experience the property.  And, I was not disappointed in the least.  What a beautiful property.  And, only 2 1/2 hrs away.  Crater Lake is a nice day trip from

there.

 

      There is an 82 room beautiful lodge, along with some condo units.  My friend and I were able to stay in a 1-bedroom condo unit, with a full kitchen and fireplace.  Was awesome.  I hope to go again this summer and do some exploring in the area, including a quick drive to Crater Lake.  Thank you dear friend.  It was a great!

     I had a marvelous time.  I got to meet a lot of new friends.  I am putting this on one of my favorite short distance trips to take.  It would be a great family get-a-way!!!!  Give me a call at 541.317.0656 to assist you in arranging your trip or email me at marilyn@tmtravels.net.  You won't be sorry!

Anniversary Get-a-Way!!!!

     The end of March found us wanting to get out of town to celebrate our Anniversary but not wanting to go a long distance.  So we decided to go to The Dalles and stay at The Dalles Inn - which is a way cool older hotel in the historic district of the downtown area.  We love finding out the history of areas and especially when they are older than 100 yrs so it was a no-brainer place for us to go.  And was it ever great.  First let me tell you The Dalles Inn is a very nice historical property that includes free internet access with their reservations along with a spectacular complimentary breakfast every morning - it includes freshly made waffles along with fresh fruit, yogurt, hard boiled eggs, breads, rolls, cold cereal, hot cereal, beverages.  The nice thing about the breakfast area is it is in a room that use to house a restaurant in the hotel so the seating is very nice and the room has early morning sunshine.  The hotel is centrally located so you can walk to the downtown area and take a walking tour of the historical buildings in the area. 

    One of the reasons we wanted to go to this area is to visit the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center.  We spent almost an entire day in the Center and read up on all the history of The Dalles - and Oregon.  It was fabulous.

     So if you're looking for someplace to go close to home, and especially if you are a history buff and don't want to spend a lot - I would recommend The Dalles.  Stay in the heart of the Columbia River Gorge, explore the historial downtown district, visit The Intrepretive Center, dine at wonderful restaurants, visit the local winery, and explore the Columbia River Gorge with it's many outdoor activities.  It's also close enough to Portland that you can take a day and go shopping if you like, or go experience Hood River for a day.  Or, do what we did and just enjoy and explore the area at a leisurely pace and have fun!!!!!

WHITE CHRISTMAS!!!

Wow! How fabulous was the Christmas season this year. Snow falling when you are inside with a fire in the fireplace, surrounded with friends and family! It doesn't get much better than that.

This year found us with our son and daughter-in-law flying into Redmond from Spokane on Christmas Eve.

So yes - this will make the blog because after all it is about travel!

You can imagine there were some anxious moments wondering if they were going to make it. Spokane had 26" of snow and snowing, while Bend had 12" or so. Flights had been canceled or grounded at every turn for the 2-3 days prior to them flying in.

We were some of the fortunate ones who were able to pick up our family at the airport with only a 3 hour delay.

Our daughter Jen and her husband Steve and our two grandchildren Caleb and Jordan live in Bend so we had the entire family with us for 3 days. Christmas Eve found us sharing Taco Soup with one another. Christmas Day found us sharing stories of life happenings this year and gifts and dinner and playing games on into the evening. How fun!

You don't know what fun is until you play , and one of the descriptions that has to be described is Chewbacca. We were all sitting around anxiously waiting for the description when all of a sudden out of nowhere came this loud but very accurate Chewbacca Cry (Star Wars for those of you who do not know) and everyone guesses the word by the cry because it is so exacting to what it sounded like on the movie. And of course, it had to come from Cory. He is our GREAT sound impressionist. We laughed until our sides hurt. Not only at his clue, but that we all were able to guess it so easily. We had some wonderful times and are so thankful that everyone was able to be here. Seems everyone got that something special for Christmas - especially Jordan - he got what he was hoping for - Guitar Hero - WOW! - As soon as he opened it he was gone into another room and not seeming to mind whether he had another gift to open or not.

But as always the best gift of all at this Christmas time is family and friends close by and sharing in the gift of Christmas itself.

So with this wonderful season coming to a close we at T&M Travel would like to wish everyone a fabulous and Happy New Year!!!!

Ingredients for a Memorable Family 4th!

Our friends are starting to roll their eyes at us when the camera comes out.
"Is this gonna make the blog?" they ask.
Of course it is! After all, it involved traveling...

This time we headed up to Spokane to Mary Kay and Gary's cabin on the Pend Oreille river. (I don't know...it's french. They pronounce it Pondoray) Actually, the cabin was past Spokane in a cute little town called Newport at the Idaho border. The last time we were there it was November so we celebrated Thanksgiving and my fiance's birthday and went shopping the next day for my wedding dress. That was 16 years ago. Ouch! Has it been that long?! I remember very vividly how much snow there was and how i shivered in a sleeping bag on the floor all night only to hear dad complain in the morning that he was so hot up in the loft that he'd kept the window open all night! Dads!

But in the years since then we've heard tales of summertime. Tales about bugs and bats and jet skis and Gary's margerita's... so when we heard there was a July 4th invitation...we packed the car.


Apparently the Spokane area is a good place to spend the 4th. I've heard from more than one source that the fireworks you can get from the Indian Reservation are unbeatable. My sources were good. Scott gave us a fantastic show. We discovered that some of those really good ones will even explode under water! That was our favorite thing. We ended up putting holes in the rubber raft from the sparks, but didn't kill any fish or start any fires that i know of! The neighbors might have though :-).

If you read our blog, there's some chance you have family and that you like to vacation with them. We do too...obviously. And here are some of our reccomendations for really great families and great vacations.

1. Have a cabin somewhere on the water.
in lieu of the cabin, you could also have really incredible, long-time friends with a great sense of humor whose kids you grew up with and are in many ways closer than your own family because they've just always been there with you...even when you went shopping for your wedding dress...and they could be the ones with the cabin. That was our approach.)

2. Have a jet ski for the water.
be prepared to pull the kids around a lot. Or you could have your older brother do it and he could flip the Jetski with 2 kids out in the middle of the current and float downriver a mile or two before he got it flipped back and then be unable to get it started again so that you have to ask the neighbors to take you out with their boat on a search and rescue mission. That works fine too.)

3. There should also be some brothers and their friends and a little girl to pick flowers and think the bugs are gross.
(or maybe the little girl could talk the boys into swimming out to the island in order to bring back golf ball sized pollywogs in a plastic ziploc so that she could gross out all the moms instead.)

4. Have a really old dog named Daisy. (this is a non-negotiable)

Thank you Mary Kay, Gary, Scott, Niki, Mallory, Bethany, Cory, Dieanna, Ryan, Sam-sam, Daisy! We had a blast!

Glamping!

My girlfriend Kelly emailed me the other day raving about a little family vacation she took. She described it so sweetly I couldn't resist asking her to send pics so I could post it here. Here's Kelly's report.

"We had a great time on San Juan Island. We went "glamping" (glamour camping) at Lakedale Resort. We stayed in a canvas cabin.

It was furnished with a queen bed and a futon covered with down comforters that were oh so cozy. It was so nice with a table, chairs, side table, mirror, etc. It was clean and new looking. No electricity or water in the cabin, but we didn't miss it.

There were nice bathrooms a short walk away. The Lodge looked wonderful, but didn't allow children under 12 or 15, I can't remember.

We played Yahtzee,

watched dragonflies spread their wings,

went out on a rowboat on the lake.

Around the island we visited an Alpaca farm and saw the babies, Way cute.

It was a very relaxing and fun vacation."

Nice review Kel! Sounds just about perfect to me...and I LOVE the San Juans. Thanks so much for the info :-)

-jen