168 of 365 of What it is Like to Run a Resort

Wednesday, December 29, 2010. The photo is of a lighthouse in Door County that we took a walk around. On the left is a cliff that goes down to Green Bay. It was very beautiful but cold and damp.

Hello readers! I am sorry it took 15 days to write to you. A lot has happened over the holidays and we have been very busy. We drove to a suburb of Chicago, Wilmette, for Christmas this year. We also drove to Mercer, from Door County, to drop off the dogs and then down to Wilmette and now we're back in Mercer. There certainly was a lot of driving.

While in Door County, we hooked up a dial-up internet connection for our business. So while we are there we can check e-mails and use the internet. It seems that no business can operate without the internet these days. There is no DSL available in Door County and since we're only going to be there until April sometime, that's all we will do. So please don't send us any pictures via e-mail. Thanks for your understanding.

When we returned to Mercer to our resort, we answered e-mails, telephone messages and checked the cabins. Everything seemed fine. The next day I went to the post office. Our mail was not being delivered and since we had cancelled our "forwarding" services, we didn't know why. The postmaster explained it to us and we then got our mail that day. We will have to do a lot of work on line to get all our mail forwarded. So I'm glad we still have wi-fi here in Mercer.

I checked the Ironwood cabin after our caretaker had cleaned it. It still needed a lot of work so I spent over an hour making the cabin spotless. I then hung up some holiday decorations and such stuff. It was ready.

We had some friends stop by for a few days so we put them in a cabin. After shopping at Aunt Esther's Attic with one of the friends, Pam, I bought some cute items for the cabins. They are little silver dishes. I put a wash cloth in the dish and put a bar of soap on that. So when they use the soap, it is put back on the wash cloth and then the dish doesn't get gross. I got the idea from the rental in Wilmette. When the customers arrived to the cabin, she said she noticed the new soap holders and thought they were a really nice "formal" touch.

John hooked up the water to the cabins that we had turned off. I checked the cabins afterwards to make sure everything was okay and it was. Phew! Leaving the cabins and the resort is always a little worrisome. This time everything was fine. Later after our friends left, I cleaned their cabin. It went really well since they hadn't used the kitchen. I had cooked all our meals in the house. I love to cook and it was fun.

My brother, Gary, and his family had to go to his in-laws for their Christmas holiday. We offered to watch their dogs. So we now have our dog Senna, my mother-in-law's dog Theo, and Gary's two labs Marley and Zeus. I have been taking them on outings every morning. I snowshoe and the dogs race around in the snow of the woods. Even though they get two outings like this every day, they still pace and move about the house continually. I wish they would rest!

We had our other friends/customers, Bill & Jean, arrive last night. We had them down for Thursday, so thankfully their cabin was ready. They all came into the lodge yesterday and had a little fun watching some football bowl and talking, etc. They were really tired from all the holiday requirements so they went to bed early, around 11 p.m. I went to bed a half hour before them. So its 9 a.m. now and no one is stirring yet except me and John.

Its gloomy outside so its a little more dark than usual. That's probably why everyone is still sleeping. We're expecting rain today so I will take the dogs out very soon for their outing. I hope the rain turns to snow when it hits us.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Don't drink and drive this holiday and have fun.

153 of 365 of What it is Like to Run a Resort

Wednesday, December 15, 2010.

The picture is of Green Bay from a cliff walk. We live very near the big lake now and can drive to it in 10 minutes. This walk we took was on The Clearing's property. The Clearing is a place for the "clearing of men's minds". They give culture, nature and relaxing activities to the people who need to get away from their busy lives. John and I will be taking several classes there. One in particular is where both of us will be painting landscapes with oils. That should be fun.

As I promised, while we are away from the resort I will tell old stories. I know I haven't posted anything in 13 days, but here goes.


Our 1st 4th of July Parade

For years our customers would drive downtown to the 4th of July Parade. They would come back to the resort and tell us how it went. John and I never bothered to go. One year I went with some customers/friends and I was surprised. The parade only went 2 blocks, turned off a side street and was finished. It was only 2 blocks!

Now I thought that even we could make a float for such a short parade. Since I felt that the parade was so low key, there wasn't much of a high standard of quality of float. Some were just a car with crepe paper draped over it, and others were just an antique car with people waving. Now that we could handle. So I went back to the resort with a plan to enter the resort's vehicle/trailer/kayaks in the next year's parade.

My plan was to decorate our resort vehicle, which is a 1983 Toyota Land Cruiser. John and I would attach a trailer full of kayaks too. When I told John, he said, "Go right ahead! Don't let me stop you." So that meant this was going to be all my job. I was willing to accept that.

As the year progressed, spring finally arrived. I reminded John of my plan and again it was all my job. John had too much to do the way it was, he said. So I asked for some help from my friend, Cindy, and her son, Justin. They were visiting from Waukesha and it was the week before the parade.

We went to work with the supplies I had picked up earlier. For those of you who haven't seen a 1983 Land Cruiser, it looks just like an African safari vehicle. It is a box-like hunk of steel that can go through just about anything when you put it in 4 wheel drive. Ours had rust spots all over the bottom half of it so I started with them.

I took a can of rust inhibitor spray which was in a rust color. I sprayed every rust spot with the primer spray. I gave Justin the can after I sprayed about half the car and told him to spray every spot. There were so many spots that Justin kept asking if I was sure. After that I took a black enamel paint and brush and painted around each rust spot with a ( or ) type mark. Now the spots looked leopard-like. We now had a real safari vehicle. My friend, Cindy, thought this was hilarious and she was our comic relief. She kept making jokes about how I was having our vehicle repainted redneck style, etc. She was pretty funny.

We had some old stencils in the basement from the painting of signs around the resort. I used them and the spray to put "Pine Forest Lodge Safari" on the doors. John had been hearing all the laughing and seeing all the customers coming over to make comments, etc. So he came out to contribute. He painted the Safari on the doors. I knew he would get involved.

Our friend/customer, Don, came over and said that the car needed some teeth in the front. Cindy agreed and said it needed eyes then too. She took the black duct tape I had and ripped it into strips to make cat-like eyes on the headlights and then added eye lashes. It looked pretty cool and secretly I wanted them to stay on forever.

Don then got some white cardboard from the lodge, cut it to make teeth and duct taped them to the front. Then a customer said we needed to put something in the teeth. I had the perfect idea and told John. He went and got our stuffed and mounted musky from the garage and hung it very carefully on the front of the vehicle in between the teeth. It looked like our safari vehicle was eating the musky, which was so funny that Cindy was in a rolling laughter by now.

A customer then said that we needed a tail and so they went to work on that. After some piping insulation, some duct tape and a piece of dog toy for the top, it was a tail. Senna, our golden retriever, rips all the stuffing out of stuffed animal toys and so a "carcass" stuffed toy was used for the tuft at the end of the tail.

We attached our kayak trailer full of kayaks, put red, white and blue hankerchiefs around our dog's necks and off we went the morning of the parade.

As John and I rode in the front, I made the dogs bark down the parade route (2 blocks). People loved it. John had to be very careful of children running out in the road in front of him to pick up candy from the previous float. I was throwing out Pine Forest Lodge key chains out the windows. I know that's lame, but I didn't think to buy candy.

We made it through the 2 blocks and back to the resort with ease. The parade was fun but we said we wouldn't do it again. I left the picture of what the Toyota looked like all decorated, back in Mercer. So maybe in the future I will remember to post that picture. For now you'll have to visualize it in your mind. I hope you enjoyed this story.

140 of 365 of What it is Like to Run a Resort

Thursday, Dec. 2, 2010.
For the first time in over 20 years, I was able to get in the car from where I live and drive to a Target within a half hour. I love Target.

Since we are not at the resort now, as my faithful readers know, I will write about some resort stories. Here's one about the seasonal work we have to do.

Docks, Piers

Every Spring and Fall there is a lot of work around the resort. One of the jobs I hate is the piers. Now it has become a job for John and a worker or two. Here's why I no longer do them.

When we were married a year or so and Tom Schroeder wasn't around to help with the piers anymore, it became my job to help. John had a system where each pier had to be taken out a certain way so he was the boss. He told me where to stand, how to lift or pull and he would too. Most of the time we were both in our chest waders. The rocks were slippery on the shore and the rubber boots didn't offer a lot of traction so I was a little worried about falling into the ice cold water. Thankfully that didn't happen.

We had done the easier piers first and now was time to do the Maple/Balsam pier. There are a lot of rocks on the shores of our lake and it is a rocky area for the most part. So when it comes time to take out a pier, there are rocks to go over or move out of the way. The Maple/Balsam pier was no exception. We took tools, come-a-longs, etc. down the rustic steps to the water. After a lot of exertion and frustration we only got the pier stuck on a rock.

John cranked on the come-a-long because I was not strong enough to do so. So my job was to lift up on the aluminum end of the pier, if I could. After several attempts, I felt a soreness in my back but didn't complain because the pier finally came out.

As I walked back up the rustic steps, I told John that I was never going to do that again. My back was sore already, which meant I was in trouble. John was concerned for me but said that was not the last pier. I told him I was done for the day. He agreed and off we went to the house.

For about 3 days I suffered in pain and finally went to the doctor. He gave me muscle relaxers, pain killers (which I never used) and told me to rest quietly for a few days.

John had to hire a local teenager to help him with the rest of the piers. To this day I will not help lift or heave on a pier. I learned my lesson well. Sometimes I just think I can do it. Then I remember this and then I become more honest with myself. I'm only 5 feet tall and I'm not a weight lifter. So even though I consider myself strong, lifting 40 pounds of dog food around is no problem, I have to take care of myself and remember this incident. I'm only human.

So every year since, I have found someone to help John get the piers out. It wasn't supposed to be my job to find someone, but I felt it was my responsibility. Thankfully John hasn't had to lift or wrench on his back too.

So now all the piers have been out onto the shores for weeks. The bays are frozen over back home on Spider Lake. Snowmobiling will begin soon and the worries of winterizing the resort are over. We can relax and enjoy winter. So bring on the snow!

Have a good day.

137-139 of 365 of What it is Like to Run a Resort

Wednesday, December 1, 2010.
We arrived in Door County on Monday without any problems. The weather was fantastic with a high of 48 degrees and partly sunny. When I arrived after John and the U-Haul, he had already taken a break. He had been sitting with his mother and talking as they waited for me. That worked out perfectly.

When we had put all the items in the UHaul, there were snow on them. Mercer was cold. Now it had all melted and our mattress was a little wet. It would have been worse if I hadn't put a waterproof mattress pad on it. We moved it upstairs onto our bed for the next 4.5 months. That was the hardest work of the day.

The rest of the items came off the truck very easily and slid down the ramp with little to no effort. They are now in the barn waiting for the snow to fly. We took the U-Haul back a day early and that went smoothly too.

It took the next two days to unload, unpack and get settled in the house. Denny had been buying a lot of groceries in anticipation of our move here. John and I had told her that we would be bringing a lot since we didn't want her to buy everything, but she didn't want that. So we had the refrigerator crammed full of food and the pantry is 3 layers thick on every shelf. Oh well. We're done unpacking at least.

John and his mom had to go to a funeral today. They won't be back until tomorrow morning. So I sewed for hours, then took the dogs for a walk, then sewed some more. I have Christmas presents to do.

Denny, my mother-in-law, took John and I out to breakfast at the White Gull Inn to celebrate our move to Door County. Their breakfast won the "Best Breakfast of America" award with their Door County cherry stuffed French toast. So we all had that and I can tell you it was perfect.

After breakfast we stopped at a few shops. One was a pet store and the lady and I started talking. After petting her pet potbelly pig for awhile, and talking some more, I am now going to start sewing dog coats for sale in her store. I have lots of ideas and will get started very soon. I'm excited about that.

The snow is falling and I am going to start a fire in the fireplace, sit down with the dogs at my feet and relax. I am going to love it here.