Dreams of the Adirondacks

I have a new dream in life.  I want to own a cabin on a lake.  And ever so slowly, the place that has crept up to the pinnacle in my brain is The Adirondack Mountains.  Every time I see pictures of the area my knees go all weak and my heart skips a beat.  Then, yesterday, I read this article in Travel and Leisure magazine while waiting for a doctor's appointment.  I wish the online article had the pictures.  My teeny pictures I found above don't really do the place justice.  It just looks like one of the most beautiful places on earth to me.  

My ex-husband's family had a lake house on tiny Lake Weatherford, and I think my time spent there must have planted this seed in my head a long time ago.  The whole family (and their best friends who lived next door) would spend holiday weekends there.  The neighbors had a full-sized sand volleyball court by the water, and my ex-inlaws had a shuffleboard court, plenty of yard games like horseshoes, and a big old ski boat.  Occasionally we'd water ski or just putter around the lake in the boat, but this never held as much appeal for me.  I've decided boat owners are people who like to tinker with things.  I have some fond memories of my ex father-in-law with his head hanging over the engine, various tools scattered on the ground below him, scotch and water resting somewhere within reach, and weaving a string of curses as long as the Mississippi.  This would always signal the beginning of summer to me.  

But it's really just now hitting me how much of a lake person I really am.  I love to watch the cranes taking off and landing.  I love the sound of tons of insects and the frogs croaking during the summer nights.  I love looking up and actually seeing stars in the sky, more stars than you ever thought could be up there.  I love taking the dog for a walk around the lake.  I love seeing the seasons change on the water.  And if you've never experienced dusk while sitting on the dock sipping a beer, when the water is ultra-still and the birds are feeding everywhere, well then you haven't really lived, my friend.  

I also would really enjoy owning a second cabin to rent out, and thereby have some nice extra income coming in.  I think I would totally love doing this for a living.  I'm good at setting moods and creating comfortable spaces.  I don't really mind cleaning up after other people, unless they've just trashed the place.  I know it would be hard work, but when you enjoy something it doesn't seem that bad.  

Of course, we already own a rental property in Padre, but we are not very hands-on owners since it's so far away from us.  This kind of bothers me.  I know we would do a better job on the upkeep and could make the condo much more appealing to renters if we were able to maintain it more than once a year.  The people who are running things down there just do the bare minimum they have to do by law, if that.  Plus you have to worry about hurricanes, which just happened to us.  Our condo (which is on the fifth floor of the building) didn't sustain any real damage, but because the lower levels and outside property had some major damage they had to shut the whole building down for repairs for the entire month of August.  Since August is usually our biggest rent month this really, really sucks.  

Jav and I talk about retirement (a scary subject since I decided to drop out of the workforce to raise our child, and I'm old), and I think we determined that our combined dream would be to live at the Padre condo from December through May, then head north to our lake cabin from June through Thanksgiving.  That way you get the beautiful summers, fall and maybe even one or two early snows up north, then head south before it gets to be cabin fevered (picture Jack Nicholson limping around with an ax), winter time.  Then just about the time it starts to get really hot in Texas, (and before hurricane season really starts), we head back, leaving the summer months to tourist rentals, when we can make the most money.  Isn't that just the most lovely plan?  We could even have rental income coming in all year long.  The only hitch is that I'm not really crazy about spending Christmas at the beach.  Just something about cold weather that makes you feel all cozier about the holidays.  But besides that, it seems like the perfect plan.  And no matter how unobtainable they may seem sometimes, it's nice to have dreams.