Angie and I went to the state of Washington during the 4th of July week. Our main reasons for going were three fold, however we found a fourth thing to do, other than enjoy the weather. It was cherry season in Washington and BC. Getting fresh cherries right off the tree is OH SO GOOD! There is nothing like fresh cherries and even better is fresh cherries dipped in chocolate. MMMMM! Enough of that, I am getting hungry so we need to get down to business.
As I was saying the first item on the agenda was to get an article to a newspaper in Washington about the area that we live in, Cochise County by name. The article was written by Mike, as the Benson Arizona Chamber of Commerce President. The article was a piece that gave information on all the things to do in Cochise County, located in the southeastern corner of Arizona. The article discussed the different parks, towns, historical locations and wineries that can be found in the area. We made the contact and hope that the article gets published in the travel section of the paper.
Second thing on the agenda was to go antiquing in this part of the Northwest that we haven’t gotten to visit before. We were looking for some items that we could use at Down By The River B and B. Among the items we were looking for were Northwest Native American art work to compliment the pieces that are already on display at the B&B. With luck we found a hummingbird carving that we could use. Hummingbirds show up at the BnB during the early spring and are here until they head south in the fall. We also went into Vancouver, British Columbia to the Chinatown area. This is one of the better places to find oriental artwork. Many Chinese were working in the old mining towns that dotted the old west. This being said oriental artwork does fit into the theme of our place. We did find some artwork and believe that they will fit in perfectly with the décor we have. We also found other antique stores and Native American art stores in this area.
- Inside Out Solutions from L to R – Mike Hug, Angie Hug, Pat McCauley, and Jim McCauley
Lastly we paid a visit to our web hosting company, Inside Out Solutions in Sequim, Washington. We were able to meet most of the people that worked there and now we have faces to go with names when we have our discussions. It is always nice to have met the people when you are doing business with a company. We sat down with Pat McCauley, the President of Inside Out Solutions, and started our discussion about what we were looking at changing on our website.
When we started Down By The River B and B, I developed the website from scratch during lunch breaks and after getting home from work. The current website was started almost 10 years ago and has grown to the current size and complexity. 10 years is a long time in the technology field and the site, though still functional, doesn’t have some things that will enhance it. Over the past year, we have been looking at other sites on the internet. We saw things that we thought were good to have on our site. Unfortunately, we could never find enough time to make the changes we would like and I finally decided that if I wanted to get this done, I needed to get help from outside.
Pat showed us ways that would improve the navigation and provide a new spark to our website. Pat offered some ideas on the set up of the site that we agreed were a definite improvement. It is always good to have a knowledgeable person review what you are planning to do. I have found that a lot of time is saved in correcting mistakes that you have to fix later because you didn’t get it right the first time.
So now we have some new things that we are adding into the B and B for our guests to look at during their stay. Our website will have a new look and should be much friendlier to smart phones in the coming months. Enjoy the rest of your summer and when you come back to check us out for your trip to AZ, we hopefully will have a fresh look to our website. If you are looking to improve your site or just want to look at web hosting, take a gander at Inside Out.