In My Words: Kimberly Burton Allen, Writer

Mission accomplished.  We had a very enjoyable and successful meeting this week with Dina and Ralph, and beginning next April, they will be taking over the reins of ABM for 2019 Spring and Summer season.  Buoyed by equal parts excitement and trepidation, I s lept poorly the night after our interview. Woke numerous times worried that I was going to be sick. This is our baby! Stepping away and letting others run the inn we've created, nourished and grown is going to be tough. But, as I keep reminding myself, it's the only way to move forward instead of marching in place. Snow filling in the spaces in the rocks Driving home to California from Colorado, it appears a snowstorm had passed west of Denver in the time we'd been visiting. While (for the most part) the roads were clear and dry, snow scaped the peaks and canyons of the Rockies. Even prettier, the fine snow had settled into the wind-and water-carved sandstone buttes of lower Monument Valley, creating dim...

Winter sabbatical. This is the time we are generally parked on a bench on the boardwalk of Laguna’s Main Beach, watching the waves and the Lagunatics.  Yet yesterday we tossed computer, a small suitcase, and one very confused dog into the back of the Subaru and hit the road East.   We’re en route to Denver, currently winding through snow-skirted red sandstone mesas in Utah. A third of the way back across the country.  While a road trip is always an adventure, the purpose of this one is to enable a new adventure altogether: We are interviewing the top candidates to manage our bed and breakfast next season. That’s right, Chris and I are looking to step away from being the active, onsite innkeepers. Turning over the reins is going to be a huge adventure, one that in a way feels like stepping off the stepped buttes currently surrounding us into the abyss. So much as yet unknown. Will this work? Will new managers breathe a little fresh life...