I haven't been able to blog because I was, gulp, unplugged. On Friday the 13th, we said good bye to our week's customers and prepared for the next week. We were going to leave on Saturday around 4 p.m. to go to Door County for John's dad's memorial. So I thought I would get a head start. I made all the bags of clean laundry for all the cabins, made the guest bed for my brother/his family, cleaned the bathroom, stocked up on supplies and packed. We had asked my brother, his wife, and our niece and nephew to watch the resort for us on Saturday evening and Sunday. They, thankfully, said they would. That way we wouldn't have to wait for all the customers to arrive.
Check in is usually 3:00 p.m. so we try to get all the cabins cleaned by then. I had 3 cleaning girls show up and one had to leave by noon. Another was a little hung over but she stuck it out with us until the end. It was 85 degrees and humid and because my eye glasses kept sliding off my nose, I got a bandana, tied it tight, and went to help clean. It was a very good thing I had made all the bags the night before because I wouldn't have had time. I had to clean all the cabins with the cleaning ladies. I don't usually do this because there is so much to do on Saturdays the way it is. That is why we have cleaning ladies to do the cabins. So when I have to clean, it is very stressful.
I asked the ladies what they wanted me to clean, and they said the kitchens. They are the hardest to clean because that's the room that gets the messiest. I found that if I start at one spot and go in a complete circle back to where I began, that I don't miss anything. Everything has to be wiped down with an anti-bacterial cleaner. When I am done, I wipe all surfaces with a bleach solution too. Sometimes the oven is a mess and that means turning it on to around 300 degrees, turning it off and spraying some oven cleaner in. Then you close the door, wait for a couple minutes, then open it up and start wiping the mess with rags. The chemical is so harsh that you have to wear gloves. I had 2 ovens like this.
When I start at one point and go around the kitchen, I usually start at the easiest, which is usually after the oven. This way I end at the oven. Going in a circle is easy if the kitchen appliances are all in one area. A couple of cabins have an appliance out of the normal kitchen area and this cleaning plan doesn't always work. For instance in our Birch cabin, the refrigerator is in a pantry area off the main entry. In the Hemlock cabin, the microwave is on a separate cabinet on a separate wall, etc. But we hit the ground running at 9:00 a.m. and finished at 4:30. We were exhausted, sore, sweaty and sooooo glad to be finished.
I quickly jumped in the shower, John finished ALL the other work that had to be done and he jumped in the shower about a half hour after I was finished. We were on the road by 5:30 p.m., about an hour and half after our desired time. When we got to Door County, it was too late for him to set up a tent, so he shared his brother's. His brother/kids, cousin and John were camping that night so we arrived, said hi to John's mother, and then went to the camp site. We sat for awhile at the fire reminiscing about John's dad and got to bed late.
My back was very sore from cleaning and working hard all day Saturday so I was very glad to get a twin bed in the house. John's brother's kids fell asleep watching a movie in the house so they ended up not camping too. We had 7 people in a 3 bedroom house but it was very comfortable.
Sunday at 2:00 p.m. was the memorial. John and I worked hard to assist his sister, brother/wife and mom set up everything and then clean up afterwards. So we had another day of hard work but we felt good to be able to help. It was so very important that we be there and when you run a resort, getting away in the summer is nearly impossible. We were so glad to be able to get Gary/family to come to our resort. Thanks, bro'.
Monday we drove home the 4.5 hours, and picked up our niece on the way. She had been scheduled to be at the resort this week and we didn't want to disappoint her. She sat in the back seat with two big dogs who kept dripping drool on her. She has two big dogs at home, so she wasn't hysterical or anything, but it wasn't the greatest ride home. We were anxious about being away from the resort for a day and a half too. I was worried about what our customers might think about us being gone.
When we got back, everyone and everything was fine. The customers were happy to see us, our dogs, Senna and Buddy, went and greeted everyone and we spent the next couple hours catching up. Some customers had gone kayaking today on their own since they were familiar with the river. We were very happy they did. One of the customers is from Oregon and he brought us a bunch of smoked salmon. AWESOME! We love smoked salmon.
The customers were sorry for John's loss and understood that we were gone for a very good reason. My brother/family watched the resort for us and we were very thankful that everything went okay. Their only "problem" was when someone needed a fan. Gary/Judi went downstairs and finally found one in our huge mess of a basement. They cleaned it up, brought it upstairs, and then noticed we had a fan sitting up there already. There was a nice floor fan sitting right by the main table. They had missed it, which is sort of funny.
Our niece, Jaeden, will be here the rest of the week and she already made friends. She swam with a little girl and caught crawfish today already.
We had our Monday night pot luck and I was very happy to have some pasta salad that was left over from the memorial. It was a large bowl full and I added some pepperoni. There was hardly any left over so it was the perfect amount too. There was a lot of healthy foods today and that was a nice change from the summer of pot lucks so far. There are usually salads, but this time there were a lot of different salads of all types and not a lot of meat dishes. Someone did make a boneless pork chop casserole, which could have fed an army, and I think that was the only non-healthy dish. It was fun to see everyone and meet new people. Our neighbor, Harry, who is 80 and lives by himself, joined us again. He hadn't been feeling well the last couple of weeks because of the heat, so it was nice to see him.
After the pot luck, Jaeden and I went down to the campfire area. There was a nice fire going and kids were roasting marshmallows. We hung out there for over an hour and then she went up to the lodge to play board games with the little girls. John was up in the lodge talking with customers and I was at the campfire until after 10:00 p.m. Then Jaeden went to bed and I could catch up with my blog.
I hope I don't have another Saturday like I did this last week. If you are reading this and want to help clean cabins, give me a call. We need more help. I almost killed my back this Saturday and it is still recovering. Well, my pillow is calling.
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