Life at the Lake House

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Originally uploaded by tcboos

Every day at the lake house has been the same. We sleep late and awaken to an overcast and drippy morning. We have coffee and breakfast on the porch if the mosquitoes are busy elsewhere. We go somewhere just to get away. We eat out. We return to the lake house and stay up until the wee hours of the following morning.

We have ventured into the quaint village. It is a town the size of my fist with several restaurants, a dollar store, a grocery store, and several beach-themed tourist trap shops. For the most part, the merchants are open in the summer months and closed in the winter where they return to Chicago to wait for summer. Then they return and open up their shops. I suppose it's a nice life.

We have had breakfast, lunch, and dinner at almost every restaurant in town. We have purchased items from the tourist traps. We have brought home junk from the dollar store. We made it to the beach one evening after the rain had passed. The girls walked the shoreline and collected rocks and goodies. Susan and I sat in the sand and enjoyed the sunset while watching two teenagers bury their friend up to his neck in the sand. When they were done they stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. Entertainment in Michigan.

One afternoon we drove into Michigan City and spent the day shopping at the outlets. We had a nice lunch at an Irish pub and an even better dinner later that evening.

On our last day, we forced ourselves out of bed, packed our swim bags and headed down the road a few miles to Warren Dunes State Park. There we swam in Lake Michigan, sunbathed under the elusive sun, picnicked at the eatery, and climbed (or attempted to) Tower Hill, the highest point in the park at 240 feet above the lake.

It was a nice day and a nice way to end the week in Michigan.

Life in the woods

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Originally uploaded by tcboos

This little gal was outside our home yesterday morning and very unafraid of humans. She roamed from the back of the house to the side of the house and disappeared for a few hours. She returned later in the day after Rusty and Austin arrived and ventured out of the woods into our driveway. Only when Rusty set off his car alarm did she disappear for good.

It is very peaceful and quiet here in our wilderness. The girls are having fun. They like the house and the den and the porch and the pool. Although none of us like the mosquitoes.

I walk daily about the property pretending I'm photographing nature but I also look for signs of trespassing or eyes staring out from the forest. So far, so good on that latter front.

 

We aren't getting much sleep due to our nervousness of living in the woods. We stay up until the early morning light is coming up and sleep until noon. We find we sleep better when the woods are lit with natural light. Crazy, true, but such is our life in the woods.

Day Three - New Buffalo, Michigan

Because of our "Nervous Nellie" owner, Barbara, we just knew that somewhere in this house was a nanny-cam. We finally decided that it was inside this moose and we made daily trips to stand in front of him to report to the owner.

Me: "Hello? We have stopped using the shower upstairs in the master, but we do believe you won't be happy when you see the shitty job your plumber did."

Susan: "This house is filthy. The kitchen is disgusting and the stove is nasty. We are using the condiments in the refrigerator but really, how old is this stuff?"

Me: "The knob on the silverware drawer fell off but I did screw it back on."

We hoped that Barbara appreciated how well we took care of the house.

Rusty and Austin drove up today for several hours. It rained and the high was only 62 degrees, but we sat on the porch and played games, read, and talked. Later we went into town and ate dinner at Rusty's favorite burger place and finished with some ice cream at "Oinks".

Both men made several comments about the overgrown woods, isolation, and bloodthirsty mosquitoes. We were all relieved when we parted at the end of the day.

Day Two - A tad sleepy

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Originally uploaded by tcboos

We were up by 9:00 the next morning ready to call the owner of our rental property armed with questions concerning leaking gas and dripping ceilings. The beginning of the conversation went like this:

Susan: "Hello Barbara (Name changed to protect the innocent), this is Susan, the renter staying in your lovely home in New Buffalo."

Barbara: "I hope you're not calling with a problem! We haven't had a problem in the two years we've been renting!"

We rolled our eyes, but the rest of the conversation went a tad bit more smoothly. Yes, she knew of the leak.

Barbara: "We paid a plumber a lot of money to fix that."

Susan: "Well, you better get your money back!"

We agreed not to use the shower, but she assured us the rest of the bathroom was usable. We did not want plumbers out working on it while we were there so she said she would have them out after we left and before the next guests arrived. We don't believe that she truly understood that parts of plaster were dropping, but that wasn't our problem.

She knew about the gas fireplace shooting out blue flames.

Barbara: "Oh, that's the pilot light. We leave that on because it's so hard to light otherwise. I'm worried it will blow up in my husband's face sometimes. That's why we just leave it on. There isn't any problem with that. We leave it on all year long."

She told us to just take off the pool cover when we arrived and to put it back on when we left. We didn't bother to tell her that the pool was never locked and we decided not to gripe about the dirt in the house. We did mention all the food and drink and she told us that everyone thinks they will consume that and never do so enjoy if we wanted it.

She was quite apologetic about the leak so we felt much better after hanging up. Susan and I took our cups of coffee outside on the screened in porch and sat out there for the next several hours enjoying the woods, the quiet, the rainy weather and the cool air.

Eventually, we hiked down to the pool in the late afternoon. There was a family of three there so the cover was already off. The girls hopped right in and Susan and I lounged in some chairs. We lasted three minutes before the mosquitoes started nibbling. Susan sprayed around our chairs and we settled back down.

Susan's motto for the trip was "Safety first" so I was quite taken aback when she started chatting with the father of the family.

Father: "Do you live here?"

Susan: "No, I'm from Indiana. We're renting from Barbara."

Father: "Hmmm...Barbara. Which house is that?"

Susan: "The third one down"

Realizing she had lost sight of her motto, Susan changed the subject and quizzed him about his life, but the damage was done. From then on whenever we returned to the house we would ring the doorbell and pretend that our husbands were too lazy to answer or that they were still off fishing. Just in case the father got any strange ideas.

On the way back from the pool it started pouring and the mosquitoes chased us all the way home. We showered, left and went into town where we ate dinner at the Stray Dog, a place Susan had eaten at several times. After dinner, we drove around town, stopped in at the grocery for odds and ends, and hurried home to our television, our nightly calls from the husbands, and our bedtime of 2:00 AM.