MERRY CHRISTMAS- 2102 saw new adventures for us.
The most spectacular change for us came in the summer, when Dick’s son, Rick, looking for waterfront property to buy, took us along to see an inn from the 1920’s with 6/10 of a mile of frontage on a beautiful lake. As the real estate person predicted- we fell in love with the place and ended up going in with Rick and his family to purchase the 32 room Lake Shore Farm Inn- which you can check out on its website if you so wish. The former owners never threw away anything from cardboard boxes to defunct freezers, refrigerators, washers and dryers to medicine that was seventy years old. Sometimes it seemed like a treasure trove of history and sometimes like a heavy albatross around our necks. But it was never boring poking into remote corners to see what besides dust balls, was hidden there.

But to go back to the beginning of the year, we stayed up north until my granddaughter, Gracie’s, first birthday on January 9th, then headed back to North Carolina.

After getting our little house in order there, we flew to San Diego and spent a few days at the zoo and safari park there. Dick’s cousin , Nancy met us there for one of the days. We rented a car and drove up the coast to Half Moon Bay where we stayed with Dick’s daughter Cindy and her husband Chris. One of Dick’s birding buddies that he met on line joined us there for a day of walking the beach looking for birds. Then we flew to Kauai where we spent a week with my sister Chris and her husband Bill. It was great visiting all our favorite places there and we got in some good snorkeling plus helped Chris on her Saturday beach clean up day. You can’t beat Kauai for sheer beauty! One day we went to a waterfall and saw countless rainbows along the way, another emerging each time one faded. We feel so lucky to have a home on Kauai anytime we want to come!

In March Dick took me to New Orleans for my birthday and it was great fun. The carnival atmosphere on Bourbon Street was just what you’d expect and we did the dinner cruise on the paddlewheel Natchez and saw the waterfront of the city. We walked through the eerie cemeteries where people are buried above ground and had beignets at an outdoor café while listening to a live jazz band. On the way back to North Carolina we stopped at many beaches and were very encouraged to see how pristine they are once again.

In April we met Rick and family on the Outer Banks and saw the Wright Brother’s Museum at Kittihawk and Fort Macon on the way down to Sunset Beach. Christy, John, Liam and Gracie flew down and we all stayed in a lovely house on Sunset Beach for a week. We revisited a number of their favorite restaurants, went to a local petting farm and spent a good deal of time in Myrtle Beach. Hollywood on the Beach was a favorite for Ripley’s Aquarium where you walked through a glass tunnel with sharks swimming overhead, and had rides for the kiddies and Margaritaville where we watched the hurricane show and had a fun meal. We had lots of beach time as well and warm weather so Liam and Gracie could splash around, dig in the sand and fly kites. A good time was had by all!

My spring project was making shell wreaths from the shells I’d collected lo’ these many years and they turned out very nicely if I do say so myself.

In the summer the inn was purchased and a great adventure started. The inn was built in three sections- the old historic inn, a motel like looking annex, and the building which joined the two and holds an attractive bar on the ground floor and rooms above. There’s also an adjacent building known as the barn which has a lovely large area for wedding receptions and other affairs. In addition there are three other buildings- a machine shop, a chicken coop/ summer bunkhouse for staff, and a cottage by the water. There are two beaches- one just below the inn, next to a small peninsula with a fire ring. Further down a trail, used by snowmobiles in winter, is Secret Beach a lovely little swimming spot.

The basement below the reception barn was so chock full you couldn’t walk around in it, so organizing that and the three small rooms off it was a major, dusty task. The upstairs was left just as it was when functioning as an inn, with beds made up and tons of dishes, silverware, serving pieces- even soap, napkins, sugar envelopes, shirts for the inn‘s 75th anniversary- you name it. The dressers, desks, and serving buffets were all emptied and their contents triaged for usefulness. Much was either disposed of or put in a yard sale on a weekend when there was a contest across the street- with snowmobilers attempting to cross a pond. Some sunk like anchors right away while others roared around the pond for a dozen or more laps.

Some of the things we found in old cabinets were fascinating such as old medicines and family memorabilia (which we have piled up if they want to come and get it) and other things more macabre- like a jar with an old tonsil, a gold tooth, and a cast cut from some child long ago. Anything we thought might have value was put on eBay in the fall and brought in a respectable amount of money to go into the inn’s fund. Dick has taken care of incorporation and other business details while Rick has been very hard at work roofing the entire inn and winterizing it as well as keeping up with renovations at the other houses he is flipping and attending to his real estate business.

In October we took a tour to Peru and Ecuador. We learned a lot about the Aztecs, saw Machu Picchu, and visited families on the reed-constructed floating Islands in Lake Titicaca. The altitude was challenging at times, but the guides were very knowledgeable about how to avoid the worst problems of altitude sickness. From Peru we flew to Ecuador where we stayed at a lodge in the Amazon Rainforest for a few days as well as touring Quito and visiting the famous Otovalo Market. My favorite memory from that part of the trip was floating back to our lodge on a balsa log raft the guide laced together before we got on. Among Dick’s favorite memories are the two guided bird tours he took with very knowledgeable people he found at Birdingbuddies on the internet.

We came up north early to help with the winterizing and have found plenty to do to help out- including picking up tons of torn shingles scraped from the roofs. Tuesdays we‘ve had fun times with Gracie and Liam- now almost two and almost four. They seem to change every week! Dick gets to spend plenty of time with Ricky and Randy his grandsons, since we‘re all living at the inn.

Rob continues at UNH in geology and Heather is writing her Master’s thesis in Nepal. Cindy and Chris continue to love working for Apple. Christy likes juggling motherhood and her psychotherapy practice.

So life was good in 2012 and 2013 will certainly hold interesting changes as the inn evolves into what it will become. We hope you have a lively interesting 2013 as well!

Sandy and Dick