05.17.13 A look back at our first week and God’s blessings

I’ve posted pictures but haven’t written much this week mostly because I’ve been too exhausted at the end of the work day to think straight much less write coherent sentences for others to understand!!  Posting pictures usually is the time consuming part of the blog but it’s also a fairly mindless process, lots of clicking and waiting!   Now that it’s Friday after work and there’s four days off ahead of us I will probably share with ya’ll this weekend about the glorious world God created in the North.  I learned that these Minnesotans are not the rude, snooty Northerners we think of in the South.  These are the friendly, kind, caring Northerners.  Whew what a relief and a blessing!

Our first week consisted of a lot of work!  There are three couples work camping and one couple that are the managers.  The men got the whole outdoors ready and the ladies got the cabins ready.  The owner Tom was here for some of the week so we got to know him a bit.  He’s a really friendly guy who works very hard around here.  He’s owned it for 12-14 years and he has good reason to be proud of this place.  His wife Pat is not here now but we met her when we first arrived.  I understand she was an interior designer which really shows in all the cabin decorations.  There is a model airplane about three feet long hanging from one of the cabin ceilings that I know my brother in law George would love to have!

Roy quickly became a handyman since he can fix, repair or create anything.  The grass was cut, leaves blown away, all the deck (each cabin has at least one big deck, mostly around a couple of sides) furniture was cleaned and arranged, the exterior of the cabins were cleaned, the docks were put out (they float), and the paddle boat and water exercise bikes were put out.  I know I missed a lot of what the guys do especially since the rest of the guys were here for two weeks before we arrived.  There are four wheelers, John Deere Gator wagons and the guys go whizzing around in those which is really helpful since they carry loads of things from the maintenance garage to the cabins and all around constantly.  We’re planning to take one of the four wheelers down a trail nearby one evening or weekend.

The ladies deep clean all the cabins top to bottom and the top can be very high in a lot of them.  Every square inch is sanitized and boy do they shine when we work our way out of the doors.  Most of this isn’t done each week but I’d sure feel comfortable staying in any one of the cabins knowing how thoroughly they have been attended too.  There were 12 beds in the one we mostly finished today.  That’s 12 mattress pads, 12 fitted and flat sheets, 12 blankets (it’s the North), 12 comforters, 15 pillows, 15 pillow protectors and 15 pillow cases.  And that’s just one cabin!  I cleaned 5 bathrooms myself this week.  None were too bad since they are cleaned before they are closed up for the winter and the guys check the toilets for critter visitors before the girls come in!

Every Saturday the guests leave and new ones arrive.  That is the busiest day of the week for everyone because so much needs to be done before the new guests arrive.  Once I’ve experienced a Saturday turnover and have recovered from it I’ll share the experience with ya’ll.

We’re all outside planting grass seed around our RVs this evening in preparation for the next few days of rain.  We’ve always planted St. Augustine sod so this grass seed planting is new to us.  We have a place next to our RV that I plan to make into a flower garden to make our little plot a pretty yard!  We put our new table outside and will probably crack out the new BBQ grill to cook steaks on soon.  Do I sound like I’m loving this!!!?? Wherever Roy and I can be together we will make our home, this is truly a blessing from God.

After the grass seed was spread and raked I turned around and Roy is rolling and carrying these 75 pound rocks and placing them into a circle to form our own fire pit!!  I helped gathering many small to medium rocks and before long it was finished.  Roy then started to shovel out some of the dirt creating a neat fire pit! Then one by one most of our neighbors and the resort owner Tom came over to help us get it started.  They all have experience and we’re new to this.  An organization from town that employees disabled people to make these fire starter things is going to sell them at the resort and we got some of those to start our fire.  They worked beautifully.  The guys started splitting wood and showing us how to pile it up so the fire would breathe and burn.  They were all so friendly and helpful.  Soon we were all seated around the campfire visiting, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows.  We stayed out there until after 10 pm having a blast!

Tom has done a great job providing each of us with a good bit of space for our little home sites, clearing out behind them and providing us with the grass seed.  He helped us a lot with the campfire and visited with us all for a while.  You can tell when talking to him that he truly loves this place and seeing his visions become reality through the years has given him much pleasure.  I can’t wait for the guests to arrive, he’ll really be in his element then!  I already respect him as an employer and as a man and that is a nice thing to look forward to having in our lives.

I’ve written way too much so I’ll stop now.  We’re enjoying our new lives tremendously but miss our son and granddaughter just as much.  We got to speak to them on the phone, through only God’s doing, a little while ago and that will keep us going for a while.  Thanks for reading about our journey!  I have several pictures to include but time is short so I’ll do that later!

Ya’ll come back now ya’ hear! – I just peeked out the back window and saw that Tom and Russ were delivering to us four nice logs for future burning.  We are so blessed!