Perks

Of all the perks that come with innkeeping, the best of all has to be having the opportunity to meet and get acquainted with all sorts of people I wouldn't otherwise meet. The Tea Rose Inn breakfast table serves as a nexus for common interests and experiences astonishingly often.

Then there are the guests who return again and again, becoming friends in the process. The pastor whose congregation gives him and his wife a Tea Rose Inn gift certificate each year. The local couple that spends each Valentine Day here, the eastern Kansas family that stays here once or twice a year on their way to Colorado, and many others. Then there are those whose jobs keep them travelling to Hays on a regular basis, sometimes for two years or more. It's so gratifying to me that they choose the TRI over all the other choices in Hays, and it's great to welcome them back each week.

Last weekend I had a visit from an African boy who stayed here with his father last summer, as he was getting settled into boarding school in Hays. We shared a pot of tea and caught up with each other. I keep in touch with the father by e-mail, and his son knows that, besides his school community so far from home, he has one more friend and haven to count on in Hays.

These are the rewards that I never expected to reap when I began innkeeping, but they are at the top of the list of why I've been doing it for nearly 11 years!