New Beginnings

Sharon and I both love traveling and thought we might want to work out west for a while.  We started looking for Innkeeper jobs on the internet and found an opening with the Vacation Inn in Manila, UT.  The owners, Warren and Bonnie Lyngle were from Salt Lake City, Utah and had owned this Inn for 30 + years.

We interviewed with Warren over the phone and he ended up offering us a job as innkeeper for a season which ran from April 1st through October 30th.  So, Sharon and I packed up what we thought we would need for 7 months and drove out west to start a new job.    We arrived in Utah on the 28th of March of 2010 and started the training to run a 21 unit hunting and fishing lodge.  It was quite an experience to say the least.

We lived in an A frame cabin/office.  The living quarters were behind the desk and sleeping was upstairs.  It was cramped and tough at times but we learned a lot about ourselves and made the most of the opportunity. We also learned that we worked well together sharing some work and then dividing up the other work as needed.  We had some good staff that took care of the grounds and the cleaning of the units.  Sharon and I handled all the guest reservations, customer service, financial transactions and all of the washing and folding.   Boy was that some work.

I was able to do some great fishing and learned a lot about fishing for Lake Trout from one of our guests who came in a couple of times during the season from California.  Most of our guests came from Salt Lake City, Wyoming and some from Colorado and a few from New Mexico and California. 

As we approached the end of our season we started looking for work again and I had several phone interviews for IT Manager in Alabama but nothing solid was offered up.  So, we thought about plan b which was why don't we try to run a bed and breakfast somewhere.  We started looking on workingcouples.com and found several openings in the northeast and started the interviewing process.

Out of the blue we received an email from one of the jobs we applied for and started interviewing by email at first and then had a long phone interview with Amy Jordan, the owner of the Stone Hill Inn in Stowe, VT.  In the end she offered us a one year contract to run her bed and breakfast and that story will be be continued in my next post.