A Night at The Ashley Inn

My roomie is a very spontaneous person.  Here's a perfect example:  last week when I was griping about wanting to get out of town, even if only for a day, she said that her kids were on spring break the following week, so if I wanted to take Monday off we could drive up to Cascade Sunday afternoon, spend the night, then grab lunch in McCall the next day.  After confirming that she wasn't joking, I figured why the hell not?  I got the OK from my boss, made sure I had some money that wasn't doing anything better, and it was all set.

The selection wasn't exactly arbitrary.  The Ashley Inn has long been one of her favorite places, and was actually something of a Christmas tradition with her for some time (apparently, they go all out with the decorations).  It's a lovely hotel that sticks out like a sore thumb in middle of Cascade.  We headed out mid-afternoon, once my co-pilot had a chance to get a few hours' sleep after working night shift at the hospital.  It's a pretty quick drive when the roads are clear and the traffic is light, and less than two hours later we were checking in. The first thing you notice as you enter is that the place is nowhere near as classy on the inside.  Which is not to say that it's dirty or anything like that, it's more like someone hired your slightly-off old auntie to decorate a hotel.  The roommate just said I should be glad we weren't staying in one of the blue rooms.

Everywhere you look, there is patterned wallpaper, carpeting and upholstery.  There are cabinets full of knickknacks and tables that hold teacups full of fake tea.  The staff is incredibly friendly and very helpful, and before I knew it we had our room keys and were headed up the stairs...

...where the eyesore parade continued...

...and to our room...

...where the patterns just got bigger.

Minutes later, the kids and I headed back down to take advantage of the hot tub and small swimming pool while their mommy finished a little school work.  Unbelievably, there were more cabinets full of curiosities in the pool room, and an interestingly labeled supply closet...

There was no whiskey, no whiskey at all!  LIARS!

We were down there for a while, until an influx of noisy fellow hotel guests irritated us into leaving.  Back upstairs to rinse off in the shower and start thinking about food.  All we had seen on our drive into town were two pizza joints and a greasy spoon diner, so we decided to play it safe and hit up Subway for dinner.  I make no apologies, I actually enjoy them on occasion.  Then it was back to the hotel, and subsequently the pool again, now that it was empty.  After a little more splishing and splashing, we tore the children out of the pool for the Inn's nightly ritual.

Every night at 8:00 PM, they serve freshly baked cookies and ice cold milk at the front desk.  People get a little aggressive, though it's really not necessary.  I have it on good authority that you can take as many as you want, that people have brought plates and piled on several before returning to their rooms, and that they just keep baking them as long as it's necessary.  We grabbed a variety to sample, including standard chocolate chip, sugar (which actually had kind of a shortbread texture), and one with chocolate, nuts and coconut in it.  Then it was back down the hallway...

...and all the strange things therein...

...to our room for a good night's sleep.  After the kids had gone back downstairs for seconds on cookies.  Or was it thirds?

Yes, a good night's sleep.  But short.  You see, I had no intention of missing the complimentary breakfast spread that Ashley Inn puts on.  I had never, ever in my life had a decent hotel breakfast, but the roommate had gotten my hopes up a bit.  That having been said, if the same crowd that had descended on the pool the previous evening were planning on having breakfast as well, I wanted to take a pass over the selection before everything was pawed and mangled.  So, that's why I woke everyone else up at 6:30 AM on a day we didn't have any other reason to be up that early.  There was some minimal grumbling, but in the end everyone made some attempt to look presentable and we trudged downstairs to the Cascade Room, where we were greeted with what I would consider a pretty wide array of foods.  I mean I'm used to lumpy oatmeal and a steamer tray of graying scrambled eggs, or maybe a muffin tray.  Laid out before us were...

...coffee, juices, cocoa, tea, and even one of those gas station cappuccino machines...

...assorted fruits, cereals and oatmeal...

a make-your-own waffle station, with a variety of toppings and syrups and pre-portioned batter...

...biscuits with sausage gravy, and ham strata with and without veggies...

...and finally a baked goods table with bagels, English muffins, blueberry scones and some kind of strawberry pastry I don't know the name for.

Biscuit with sausage gravy, and ham strata with vegetables.

On my first pass I tried the strata and the biscuits and gravy.  The food would have been very decent at most diners, but for a complimentary breakfast at a little country inn, it was amazing.  The biscuits were nice and crumbly/flaky, the potatoes in the strata were shredded so fine they kind of resembled rice, and neither the ham or the sausage were cheap, nasty bits.

Yup, it's a waffle.

On my second pass, I opted for the waffle, which I did very well on if I do say so myself.  Well, the perfectly portioned batter, explicit instructions and audible timer on the iron all helped.  And this was my favorite kind of waffle: the kind with way too much butter and syrup.

As we sat by ourselves (totally worth getting up so early) in the cozy room with the giant fireplace, munching and talking, I had to admit that the place was really growing on me.  Even the garish decor was starting to win me over.  The waffle did me in though, so I never got to try one of the strawberry things, which I regret because the roommate really dug them.  I took the kids back to the pool while the roommate went back up for a nap, and then we switched places.  After that it was time to clean up, pack our things, hit the road, and see what McCall had to offer us for the afternoon....