Recently in Hotels We Like Category

1:10 p.m. Feb. 23

Rancho de los Caballeros ("gentleman on horseback") corral foreman Tom Secrist sized me up. I did not look like a cowboy, even though I was tumbleweeding around the 60-year-old ranch in Wickenburg, Ariz., 55 miles northwest of Phoenix. I wore my faded Cubs cap, shorts and blue Chuck Taylors.
I looked like an extra in "Bleacher Bums."
I told Secrist I had been on a horse twice in my life. He told me I was going to ride Custard though the high Sonoran desert. If Custard was a train, he would be Amtrak. The 1,200 pound custard-colored horse moved slow. As slow as molasses. Or custard.
In some rusty quarters he would have been called lazy but I will call him leisurely......

1:55 p.m. Feb. 16

I first visited the Double JJ Ranch in Rothbury, Mich. in November, 2006. The historic ranch was a gentle, rural escape from the madness of Muskegon, 25 miles south. I returned with my girl friend on New Year's Eve 2007 to find a new indoor water park and pizza parlor. The vibe was sort of Wisconsin Dellsy. We avoided soggy kids and came away impressed with the ranch's New Year's Eve fireworks show.
But now this?
ROTHBURY--a sustainable camping festival that features the Dave Matthews Band, Jakob Dylan & the Gold Mountain Rebels, Primus, Snoop Dogg, John Mayer and more than 60 other acts (www.rothburyfestival.com) is scheduled to be held July 3-6 around the ranch. Its like Burning Man for the Heartland. Besides the music, there's daily yoga sessions (one with Michael Franti & Spearhead) face painting and DJ master classes. Nearly 50,000 people are expected to attend and there's camping available on 300 acres of land that surround the ranch.
I'd check out Conscious Alliance's effort to get into the Guinness Book of World's Records for the "World's Largest Canned Food Sculpture," which will also generate 40,000 cans of food to be donated locally. The sculpture will be on exhibit all weekend. So if you're planning to go to ROTHBURY or some more tranquil time here's the backstory on the JJ Ranch, whose name is derived from Jack & Jill. Or now its Jack and Jerry as in Garcia....
This edited story appeared in the Nov. 26, 2006 edition of the Chicago Sun-Times:

ROTHBURY, Mich. -- The folks at the Double JJ Ranch & Golf Resort in wild western Michigan rope you in with the tagline "Outside the Ordinary."
Where do I sign up?
The 2,000-acre resort north of Muskegon celebrates its 70th anniversary next year. It features heated log cabins, hotel rooms, horses, three lakes and a natural cranberry bog.......

4:10 p.m. Jan. 26

I'm down with the tradition at the Davenport Hotel and Tower in downtown Spokane, Wash.
Opened in 1914, the Davenport was America’s first hotel with air conditioning. It was also the first hotel with housekeeping carts---designed by owner Louis Davenport.
Bob Hope and Bing Crosby were guests at the Davenport. Der Bingle launched his career as a drummer across the street from the hotel at the newly restored neo-Classical Bing Crosby Theater. Steroid free slugger Babe Ruth was a guest. Authors Zane Grey and Dashiell Hammet wrote scenes while staying in “the house of comfort” as the Davenport was promoted. I always thought “The House of Comfort” was a Bourbon Street “spa.” Here's a hot photo gallery which is part of the hotel's website:
http://www.thedavenporthotel.com/index.php?act=/gallery.
Check it out. And enjoy these other tidbits......
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Originally published in Chicago Sun-Times March 5, 2005,
Updated July 20, 2007 for 30th Anniversary Elvis Week

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- The smallest details can shape the biggest dreams. In 1949, Vernon Presley moved his wife and teenage son Elvis into Apartment 328 at Lauderdale Courts, 185 Winchester, in downtown Memphis. The modestly appointed two-bedroom unit consisted of a living room, bathroom and walk-in kitchen. A public housing development built in 1938 under President Franklin Roosevelt's WPA, Lauderdale Courts was one of the first U.S. public housing projects.
The projects were slated to be razed in the mid-1990s, but Presley fans, along with the City of Memphis and private developers, saved the courts. The 66 red brick buildings of the 22-acre site are on the National Register of Historic Places. And now you can sleep in Elvis' teenage bedroom.......

9:34 p.m. March 29
My mind has been in Mississippi.
I just finished Larry Brown's last (unfinished) rugged novel "A Miracle of Catfish" (Algonquin) and with murky headliners like John Mayer and Rod Stewart, I will pass on this year's New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, perhaps in favor of a trip to the Delta.
This piece was published Jan. 20, 2002 in the Sun-Times. Remember back then? We were in the cold shadow of 9/11 and people set out to retouch America. What went wrong? I went to the Shack Up Inn and wound up being one of the first travel writers to discover the place. I've visited the Shack Up Inn a couple of times since this article appeared and it continues to expand by spirited leaps and bounds I've edited this piece and for more background, please visit www.shackupinn.com. Tell 'em this Yankee sent ya'.
CLARKSDALE, MISS.--- A funky piece of folk art commemorates the intersection of Highways 61 and 49 in downtown Clarksdale. A welded pair of 900-pound metal guitars point toward the heavens because this is supposed to be the place where bluesman Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. The truth is that it is unlikely the mystical 1938 detour took place at this intersection. As Steve Cheseborough points out in his fine road book Blues Traveling (The Holy Sites of Delta Blues), even then downtown Clarksdale was too busy for such an event to happen. I am driving Highway 49 outside of Clarksdale, looking for the Shack Up Inn, Mississippi's "Oldest Bed & Beer (est.1998)." ............

[Originally published Jan. 2, 2005, edited for blogosphere.
Updates and comments are encouraged, I will try to return before Opening Day 2007.]

KEY WEST, Fla. -- It wasn't so long ago that extreme travel was something for everyone. During the 1960s America's roadside attractions were promoted by being the biggest, tallest and always rolling under a bridge of sighs. Just pull over and size it up.
The Southernmost Hotel is that kind of place.
Located on the far south end of Key West, the hotel is the closest you can get to sleeping in Cuba......