Breakfastwith STRANGERS€¦ · amazing that we were sitting down with,” Matt says. “Each had their own vision of a dream, and it didn’t matter if they succeeded or failed,

STRANGERS

By Barbara A. SchmitzCourtney Dillard spent her hon-eymoon traveling with her new husband and eating breakfast with strangers they met through-out their trip. After all those miles, she discovered that she didn’t have to go far to get her favorite breakfast — truffled egg toast made and served at home by her new husband, Matt Web-ber.

Matt, a community organizer who quit his job to take the trip, says they wanted a unique hon-eymoon, but they also wanted to challenge the ideas of “stranger danger” and a divided America. To find the people they would be eating with they posted notices on Craigslist and reddit, and had people write back in 500 words or less why they wanted to eat breakfast with them. More than 1,600 people replied.

“Breakfast with Strangers” came about from the two eating out in Portland for breakfast. “We noticed people who were eating

alone and wondered what they were all about,” says Courtney, a continuing instructor in the rheto-ric and media studies depart-ment at Willamette University. “Then we both got in a conver-sation about why is it strange to ask a person to join you. We decided it wasn’t that strange.”

They first paid the bill of a few strangers, but their first meal with a stranger was at a Portland café where they talked to a man who was building a boat. They had five or six “beta breakfasts” with strangers before they decided to take their idea on the road and catalog the stories they heard. To see some of the stories, go to www.breakfastwithstrangers.com.

“Once we decided to do breakfasts with strangers, we thought it would be great to be part of our honey-moon,” Courtney says. “The only problem was that Matt hadn’t asked me to marry him yet.”

But he wasn’t far behind in popping the question. They married July 12 with immediate family present in a

church ceremony, and then they repeated their vows with the same minister on a Portland rooftop on July 14.

The two traveled for five months across the lower 48 states on their quest to eat breakfast with strang-ers, and were back in Portland by Christmas 2012. “The honeymoon

BreakfastwithSharing meals, conversation with strangers makes for unique honeymoon

Courtney Dillard and Matt Webber took to the nation’s highways for their honeymoon, traveling 21,000

miles in 39 different states over five months. But they didn’t just see the sites.

The couple ate breakfast with about 60 people they had never met before. Why eat breakfast with

strangers? Perhaps the better question is, why not?

Courtney and Matt spent their honeymoon meeting strangers. But they also managed to see some sites, such as the world’s largest ball of sisal twine in Cawker City, Kansas. Started by Frank Stoeber in 1953, the ball weighs nearly 18,000 pounds and contains more than 7.8 million feet of twine.

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Courtney Dillard and Matt Webber hit the road for their honeymoon in this modified Ford van as they began their quest to meet people and find out the key to happiness.

was a lot more difficult to plan than the wedding,” Courtney says. “As we planned the route, the biggest thing was to go somewhere it was warm.”

They went to each breakfast with a list of about 25 questions, of which they picked five to ask depending on the situation. But one question they asked of all the people they had breakfast with: What makes you happy? “It was really a neat conver-sation to have,” Courtney says.

Matt says the happiest people they met were the ones who were living the lives they wanted to live or taking chances. “Each had their own vision of a dream, and it didn’t matter if they succeeded or failed, but they were all the happier for just having done it. Those who didn’t take risks still had the regret on their faces.”

Sometimes they stayed with cou-ples through the Servas program, which connects hosts and travelers throughout the nation and provides opportunities for friendships to begin,

ideas to be exchanged and cultures to be shared.

One couple stuck out the most. “We live in a society of instant gratifica-tion, but they said that marriage is work,” Courtney says. “They told us there may be days, weeks, months and years that it feels more like work than pleasure, but part of the gift is to stick with something and commit to someone.”

So where is the best place to have breakfast in the nation?

Tower Café in Sacramento has the “best French toast ever,” Matt says. Courtney liked The National in Mil-waukee, which featured BeerMosa, or “the working man’s mimosa” made with beer and orange juice.

But while the food they ate on their trip was good, the meal was second to everything. “The people were so amazing that we were sitting down with,” Matt says.

“Each had their own vision of a dream, and it didn’t matter if they succeeded or failed, but they were all the happier for just having done it. Those who didn’t take risks still had the regret on their faces.”

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They ate with the curator of the National Mus-tard Museum, in Middleton, Wis., who “had a great thirst for life and making people smile.” But he didn’t smile, they recall, when Court-ney asked for ketchup — instead of mustard — on her eggs at breakfast. “He turned kind of white,” she says.

But they also ate breakfast with the Cowboy Chocolatier of Meeteetse, Wyo. and Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger of Montana, whose term ended in Janu-ary 2013.

“We met some wonderful characters,” Courtney says. And not all of them were met over breakfast. The two also stopped at bars in the middle of nowhere in the early afternoon, and shared a couple of beers with many people. “We didn’t meet one mean, crabby or rude person the whole trip.”

Courtney says their honeymoon became part of the story as they traveled. “We had a lot of sweet moments with people, and not all at the breakfast table. A couple in New Mexico drove up next to us on the highway after hearing a news story about us earlier in the day. They saw the stickers on our van and motioned for us to pull over because they just wanted to give us a hug,” she says.

Another time they drove into a campground in upstate New York and the ranger wouldn’t let them pay for the night. “It’s on the house,” she told Courtney and Matt. “We love that you are on your honeymoon and we wish you the best for your marriage.”

The two are writing about the trip, with the goal of hav-ing it published as an e-book by November. After that they plan to find a publisher and get “Breakfast with Strangers: 50 Meals Across America” printed.

“It would be nice to sell a lot of copies of the book,” Matt says. “But the gift has been just doing this and starting our marriage by meeting other people.”

The couple came out of this trip without debt, using their savings to pay for much of their expenses. Howev-er, their wedding registry also helped to provide things they needed for the trip, such as camping gear, sleep-ing bags and gas gift cards. But 142 strangers also gave them money for their adventure through a kick-starter campaign that raised nearly $8,400 online.

While the couple is now busy setting up a home, they did say they are looking for another interesting project to take on for the future. Maybe it will be breakfast with strangers in Europe, or maybe it will be something com-pletely different.

But there is one more person they are hoping to take out for breakfast— President Obama. “That would be the crème da la crème,” Matt says. “If we manage to get that breakfast, we’ll close up shop after that.”

Courtney and Matt had breakfast with Tim Kel-logg, the Cowboy Chocolatier of Meeteetse, Wyo. Kellogg originally sold his chocolate out of his truck to raise money for a Bronc saddle. But now people come from all over to devour his artisan chocolates.

The “other half ” of the Phoenix couple who motioned for Court-ney and Matt to pull over so they could congratulate them on their wedding.

Courtney and Matt’s honeymoon be-came a news story as they traveled the nation, meeting and eating breakfast with strangers. One day after hearing their story on a local AM news station, a couple motioned for the newlyweds to pull over as they passed their van. The Phoenix couple wanted to meet and congratulate them.

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