Matt Webber & Courtney Dillard

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Copyright © 2013 by Courtney Dillard & Matthew Webber

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher.

For information, address !

Breakfast with Strangers LLC, 3519 NE 15th Ave, Box 300, Portland, OR 97212

www.BreakfastWithStrangers.com

ISBN: 978-0-615-93066-4

PHOTO CREDITS!

Front Cover - iStock. !

Page 8 - Bluebird Photography (Austin, TX)

Formatting and Design: Shawn Mihalik

PROLOGUEor, How one finds themselves spending their honeymoon standing outside a Waffle House at 8am in Bay St. Louis,

Mississippi with a giant sign.

ÒA stranger is just a friend I haven't met yet.Ó ~ Will Rogers

Most people spend their honeymoon relaxing in a ro-

mantic setting usually with a tropical drink in hand and

the soft sound of gentle waves breaking on the beach

before them. Most people. For us? We decided to spend

our honeymoon living in a 1997 Ford Aerostar minivan

and taking strangers out to breakfast across America. !

WeÕve been asked more than once how we came to em-

bark on such a quirky adventure. Well, it started like

many things do, at the breakfast table. We were out one

morning at one of our go-to breakfast spots here in

Portland when Courtney noticed someone dining alone

and wondered aloud what their story was. She was itch-

ing to invite them over but that seemed like a strange

thing to do. I mean, outside of the movies, does anyone

do that? So we kept to ourselves and our weekend rou-

tine.

And yet during the following weeks the question resur-

faced: can you ask strangers to breakfast? Courtney thought maybe you could. Matt on the other hand, as the more sensible of the

two, had his hesitations. He felt more comfortable picking up a strangerÕs tab and then dashing out the door. We continued to talk

about it and then serendipity stepped in. One morning while sitting at the counter of our regular breakfast spot, Cafe Vita, we got

into a conversation with a man who was taking a break from his Saturday ritual. Every Saturday he got his hands dirty refurbishing

an old boat he planned to sail around the world one day. A casual ÒHowÕs your morning going?Ó soon turned into conversation that

lasted well beyond our meals. Hours later, we left that experience excited and inspired, thinking about our own dreams. The seed

that was planted now started to sprout roots.

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We decided to post an invitation on

Craigslist, asking people to tell us in

500 words or less why we should take

them to breakfast. While the post may

have raised a few suspicious eyebrows,

being Portland, we got several great

responses. We eventually had break-

fast with a wonderful woman who

even brought her photo scrapbook

along to explain how her recent mis-

sion trip to Haiti had changed her life.

Again, another amazing stranger and

another inspiring story. We were two

for two.

As time passed, we started talking

about getting married. We had been

dating for close to nine years but had avoided tying the knot

in part because it seemed like such a traditional thing to do.

Then we had an idea: Why not start our married life together

by taking strangers to breakfast across America? We got our

pencils out and our grand plan unfolded on a sheet of note-

book paper (which we still have). Very quickly the sheet was

covered with names of people who could help, places we

should visit and supplies we would need. In our hands we

held the blueprint for a five month odyssey of getting to know

ourselves, our country and each other over breakfast.

Little by little and step by step, we moved the project along

from the idea to a reality. !For instance, Courtney asked for a

personal leave from work and Matt arranged things so that

his contract work would come to an end around the beginning

of the trip. We came up with our own wedding registry replete

with gift cards for gas, hotels and groceries, as well as camp-

ing and travel gear. Hoping that others might be willing to

help us pull this off, we decided to post the project on Kick-

starter a the well-known crowd funding website. In essence,

we were strangers asking strangers to help fund taking other

strangers out to breakfast. Why not!? With the help of a few

dear friends and our buddy who not only had the video skills

but also owned an actual camera, we put our video pitch into

cyberspace, as well as launched our website. Word got out

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and people liked our idea. We met our funding goal with time to spare and over 140 backers.

Once we realized that this trip was actually going to happen, we had to answer a key question: how exactly were we going to find

these breakfast strangers? We came up with a variety of ways: bulletin boards, classifieds, flyers, word of mouth, Facebook, Twit-

ter, Craigslist, Reddit, pure chance, and earned media. Matt started promoting the project on various online forums and sites and

soon breakfast and media requests started flooding our inbox. Before we knew it we had close to 1000 emails from potential break-

fast guest from every corner of the country. We were also getting requests from the media now and soon found ourselves in print,

over the radio, and on TV being labeled Ôthat

strange couple doing that neat thing.Õ It also

amazed us how many people wrote to us telling

us how they loved and supported our idea. In

addition to people wanting to go to breakfast,

we heard from dozens of strangers just wishing

us luck on our journey. !It seemed that while all

of us had been adequately schooled in stranger-

danger, most of us still believed in the old adage

that a stranger is just a friend we havenÕt met

yet.

In order to make these new friends, we had to

hit the road. Our next move was to trade our

house full of stuff for a storage unit and a van.

But what type of van? When Courtney thought

about road trips she envisioned herself in a

funky 1970Õs Volkswagon bus or an upscale

modern Eurovan, but Matt had different ideas.

He had his heart set on a Ford Aerostar which

he loved to note was the only all-wheel drive

van built on a truck chassis which also had

enough room in the back for him to stretch out

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comfortably. The way Matt saw it, even the smallest town in the middle of nowhere was going to have a mechanic with Ford parts

if we ever needed them. Since there arenÕt many VW buses still capable of traveling across America and the EurovanÕs price tag

caused us severe sticker shock, Courtney acquiesced. After looking at a number of Aerostars on Craigslist, we went with a 1997

model which we bought from a guy in The Dalles, Oregon named Chester for the cool price of $3,750, at least $15,000 less than

CourtneyÕs dream vehicle. After getting our chariot road ready with a tune-up, a carrier box on top and a custom built bed frame in

the rear, we dubbed her the USS Pancake and ordered ourselves a pair of custom Oregon license plates that read ÔBWS50Õ.

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From House To Storage To Van

We also decided it might be a good idea if we had a few break-

fasts before we left just as practice, as neither of us had much

formal experience with taking strangers out to breakfast. We

put ads on various online sites and met our fellow Portlanders

at restaurants around the city.

There was:

Mark, a navy reservist and self-proclaimed feminist, liberal

40-something white male who looks like a conservative arche-

type. Mark spends his free time volunteering on the board of a

local non-profit that works to prevent sexual assault and sup-

port assault survivors and sex-trafficked children.

Jennifer, a Floridian who moved to Portland to find the crea-

tive community she could never find back home. She now

lives in a tent on a farm and makes her own dandelion beer.

Jared, a Nebraskan transplant who moved west and literally

shed his old self (he lost 100lbs) to start a new life in Portland

as a video game designer. Even though heÕs from a farming

community, his family views him as a hippie for having back-

yard chickens.

Hannah, who at the time worked for a prosecutorÕs office

monitoring the telephone conversations of prisoners at a

county jail. Every day she spent hours listening to the calls of

strangers, looking for clues of their guilt, eavesdropping on

both the mundane and profound aspects of their lives.

In the process, we learned it was best to keep things informal

and unstructured at the breakfast table and just chat with peo-

ple about their lives and especially what they love to do. These

beta breakfasts also helped us establish our breakfast budget

and set some boundaries on our own food consumption as it

was obvious we would gain a fair amount of weight if we did

not.

So in July of 2012 with all this planning behind us and shortly

after walking down the aisle, we hit the open road. We set off

on our honeymoon, taking a leap of faith not only with each

other, but also with our fellow Americans.

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Van Life 101

¥ You donÕt need to spend $30,000 on a Eurovan. There are plenty of highly functioning Ford AerostarÕs still out there for $3,000.

¥ Gas stations have free coffee creamers, so stock up. The top-tier will also have free condiment packets.

¥ Walmart parking lots are free to camp in.

¥ If you want to put up curtains, velcro is the way to go.

¥ You can get free wi-fi at most McDonalds parking lots across the USA without ever making a purchase.

¥ They make adapters so you can plug your laptop into your lighter (allowing us to watch Downton Abbey for hours!).

¥ Turn off the radio. YouÕre only going to hear the same Journey song played over and over again in every single radio market.

When we decided to take strangers out to breakfast for our honey-

moon we thought it was quirky but certainly not dangerous. After

all, whatÕs the worst that could happen while dining with someone

in a public restaurant? And yet when we told people our idea,

many expressed concern for our safety. Cautious from the daily

barrage of news reports detailing schemes and shootings, our

friends and families warned us to be careful on the journey. The

most insistent of these voices was CourtneyÕs mother who was cer-

tain we would Òend up dead in a gutterÓ (her words, not ours). !

Many strained phone conversations later, CourtneyÕs mother gave

us her reluctant blessing only after she had promised a few things:

1. Stay off the backroads.

2. Never meet a stranger at their home.

3. DonÕt let a stranger cook you breakfast (lest they try to poison

you).

The very first place we wanted to visit on our tour was Frenchglen,

OR which has a bit of a legendary status among a certain set of

Portlanders. Not all of Oregon is lush green, covered with Douglas

Firs, and filled with left-leaning hippies despite the impression

you may have gotten from Portlandia. If you look at a map of Ore-

gon there are these incredibly large blank spaces in the Southeast

corner of the state. ItÕs the kind of place where youÕll pass a sign

that reads ÒNext services in 75 miles.Ó In the middle of that blank

space is Frenchglen whose name suggests an oasis in a desert of

unincorporated towns like Voltage and Wagontire. When a person

gets out the Oregon map to show off their intra-state wanderings,

Frenchglen is a persistent prize. !Eager to see it for ourselves, we

pointed the USS Pancake southeast and drove towards the Oregon

outback that was still unknown to us.

After what seemed like an eternity, we rolled into town parched

from the high temperatures and the remnants of forest fire smoke.

Our choices for a cold drink were either to grab a soda from the lo-

cal mercantile or stop at the only other business in town - The

Frenchglen Hotel. We chose the later. The hotel serves as more

than just a place travelers spend the night, it is also the only place

in town for locals to eat (you have to sign up for family style meals

in advance due to limited seating), talk local politics over a drink

or display their wares for sale. With this in mind we figured the

proprietor of the hotel, John, was someone who had his finger on

the pulse of Frenchglen whose reported population is 12 (accord-

ing to Wikipedia). As we enjoyed our beers on the enclosed front

porch, we gathered the courage to explain our project to him and

finally ask: ÒSo who is the most interesting person in Frenchglen?

WeÕd like to take them to breakfast.Ó It took him only thirty sec-

onds to tell us who he thought would be the ideal candidate for

our first road breakfast: John W., a fourth generation rancher.

A few minutes later and a Budweiser down with the number in

hand, Matt picked up the phone to ask a total stranger, a real life

cowboy at that, to breakfast. After explaining the project to JohnÕs

wife who answered the phone, we waited with bated breath for

their answer. When she suggested that we drive to their mountain

cabin instead and eat with the entire family, we didnÕt miss a beat

before saying yes. It wasnÕt until the next morning when we found

ourselves driving 14 miles into the Steen Mountain Range on a

dusty and bumpy dirt road with no cellphone reception to dine at

the cabin of strangers that Courtney realized it had only taken

three days for her to break every promise she had made to her

mother.

We both agreed, this was going to be one heck of a honeymoon.

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