You say it’s your birthday
It’s my birthday too, yeah
They say it’s your birthday
We’re gonna have a good time
I’m glad it’s your birthday
Happy birthday to you.
Yes we’re going to a party party
Yes we’re going to a party party
Yes we’re going to a party party
I’ve been singing this Beatles song all day in my head! We closed down Moose cabin and cleaned Bear cabin this morning and my manager Debbie baked me a birthday cake tat we enjoyed after lunch. I’ve enjoyed calls from family and lots of birthday wishes on Facebook. Kind of makes turning 59 not so bad! Roy and I are going to a local steakhouse for dinner tonight to finish off the fun! Thanks to everyone for the well wishes.
I’ve been asked what it is we do when we close down a cabin so I’ll explain. I took some pictures when we closed down Teton cabin this week. All of the plates, glasses, utensils, pots and pans have to be removed from the drawers and cabinets, each one scrubbed clean and dried, inventoried and put in big bags where they remain over the winter. The cabin we closed today had around 20 place settings of dishes and utensils!
Since fabric softener sheets help keep mice away as well as adding a really nice scent they are placed inside every drawer and cabinet in the whole cabin, on top of every mattress (after it is taken off the bed and leaned against a wall), box springs, sofa cushion (that is leaned up also). We make sure nothing is learning up against an outside wall since there can be a lot of snow here which would cause moisture to get through the walls and onto things like bedding.
All the pillow protectors, pillow cases, flat and fitted sheets, blankets and comforters are removed and bagged for the cleaners. We had 7 bags about 4 feet tall each full from the cabin we cleaned today which is the 2nd biggest cabin.
All lamps, TVs and moose/deer antlers are covered with plastic bags. Every electrical thing including refrigerators is unplugged and opened. All decorations are taken down (which includes the forest of pine cones on top of the cabinets) and bagged. All the blinds are closed and windows locked. Any window that doesn’t have blinds gets a sheet over it.
It’s a bitter sweet site because closing down a cabin means we don’t have to clean it again (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) yet it looks kind of deserted and lonely which is a little sad 😦 . You do see many ! and only one :(, don’t you! The guys have been cleaning and staining decks and taking all the water toys out o the lake, getting them cleaned for storage.
We’ve closed down 3 cabins including one of the largest ones and have 9 more. The large one we closed had 12 beds in it and the largest one that still needs to be closed down has 16 beds.
That’s enough about closing down a cabin! We’ve got a pretty good picture of what our travels will be between now and Summer 2014. We will be traveling South and then East and then South from Minnesota to Iowa to Illinois to Indiana and then south through Kentucky to Tennessee to Mississippi and then either down though Mississippi to the coast or down through Louisiana to the coast. We’ll spend 2 weeks at Abita Springs RV Resort in Louisiana and then go over to Pass Christian, MS to TLC Wolf River Resort for 2 weeks and maybe back to Abita Springs for a bit. After we’ve rested a bit we’ll head over to Florida and travel down it as far as we want and then back up the other coast. Once Florida is covered we’ll head up all the East Coast states as far as we can spending Summer 2014 up in the New England states. Things may change but for now that’s the plan. We don’t know how much time we’ll spend in each state, just depends on what we find when we get there!
It’s time for me to go outside with my Kindle and enjoy some of the beautiful weather today. I just finished reading One Tuesday Morning (9/11 series) by Karen Kingsbury. I would highly, highly recommend it to anyone who loves God or is curious about how God works in and through people’s lives. It is a story about two families and what happened to them before, on 9/11/2001 and after. Very powerful, intriguing book. I could not put it down and it spoke very strongly to me about having faith in God. I hope you’ll check it out! Another book I read recently on the recommendation of a friend’s daughter Jaala was Saving CeeCee Honeycutt: A Novel by Beth Hoffman. A wonderfully funny, touching, moving story of a young girl in the true South which made me want to visit Savannah, Georgia some day. I would highly recommend that one and suggest that you pour yourself a tall glass of good ole’ Sweet Tea to drink while reading it! Thanks Jaala for introducing me to that one! I’m starting on another John Gilstrap novel, Scott Free, now.
Ya’ll come back now ya’ hear!
BECAUSE HE LIVES 