Our 15 minutes of fame

I may have mentioned a while back that there would be no more posts about Lakeview Cottages. Well, that wasn't exactly the case, but at the time I wrote that, our lips were sealed.

We had guests for that whole last weekend, a reporter from the L.A. Times, Tom Curwen, and Times photographer, Mark Boster. They basically shadowed us all weekend, starting Friday after until we pulled out for the last time late Sunday afternoon. They shared meals, sat around the fire, followed Mark and George all weekend, along with several others of the owner group who came for a while on Saturday, watching every minute detail of what it means to close down 13 rustic cabins for the winter season. Mark B. took thousands of pictures--or at least it seemed that way, along with recording the sounds of the weekend--flames crackling, bacon frying, screw guns, staple guns, conversations. At first it was a little disconcerting, knowing he was recording a lot of what we said, but then we kind of got used to it. And Tom was never without his little notebook. They asked about everything from what motivated us to become a part of the owner group to what music we had playing in our cabin or on our ipods during the weekend. Mark B. took pictures of the beautiful scenery and pictures of Mark W. plunging the toilets. Along the way, we got to know each other on a more personal basis....because that is what happens when you spend time around a campfire. Somehow things that you might not feel comfortable sharing, especially with someone you just met, become easy to talk about with the flames crackling.

Both mornings, all four of the guys got up early and went down to the lake to fish, building a fire to keep a little warmer.

Mark Boster--never without his camera, even when eating lunch

Then the waiting game began. When would the article be printed? What would Tom's angle be when he wrote it? If pictures accompanied the article, and we happened to be in them, would they be flattering or would we look dorky? Where would the article be "buried"? After all, it was in the L.A. Times, a big paper with a big circulation. Somewhere back in the Life section?

Well, the slide show went online late last night, and it is definitely worth taking a look at. We were able to read the online article this morning. Then George went to Barnes and Noble to be there when it opened at 9 a.m. and I headed off to Borders, where we each bought every single copy of the L.A. Times that was available. Yep, we are now proud owners of 15 copies.

And where was the article actually "buried"? Uh....

Section A, page 1. Let me repeat that.

Section A, page 1.

I called Mark at work. I called my mother to tell her my name was on the front page of the Times but that I had not committed a crime to get there. And I texted Aaron and Christa. Aaron texted me back: "You mean Column One. That is the big one for L.A. Times." Checked my paper. Jeepers!!! We ARE Column One! Who knew? (and side note: how did Aaron know that? When I called George to let him know that little tidbit, that was his question as well. "How does your son know all these random things?" Yeah, well he's always known so much random info that I wasn't sure how he had room for all the stuff he needed to know to become an optometrist, but that's a topic for another day.)

I was hoping I could put the actual slide show right here, but I don't think the L.A. Times wanted me to do that, so here is the link:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-huntington-resort-ss,0,7804935.htmlstory

So I'm just trying to expand our 15 minutes into a full 24 hours. Until the next issue of the L.A. Times comes out and we are just "yesterday's news."

On Top of The World!

How's this for living large?
That's eldest daughter up there!
I, sitting here,
far, far away,
am in total awe.

Little House on the Prairie

Click. You are now tuned to the History Channel. Because...I'm really behind on getting caught up. So even though I may be breaching some kind of blogging etiquette or something, where no one really cares what you did last month, there were such great highlights in our week in Minnesota that I'm certain you will agree it is worth sharing.

First of all, we didn't stay in a little house. We stayed in a two-story farm house with our good friends, Roger and Clarine. Nor was it in Walnut Grove, that town where Little House on the Prairie is based. But we were really close to Walnut Grove, so there you have it.

We went back there for Mark's high school class reunion, which always coincides with the Butterfield Threshing Bee, which takes a town of 600 people and turns it into several thousand for the weekend. Think tractors, lots of tractors. In a parade. Long parade. And not just your run-of-the-mill tractors either. Big, small, unusual (to me at least, but I guess that is my city girl showing through).

Mark's class reunion. Well, first let me say that I graduated from a school in Seattle in a class of over 700. And keep in mind that of course his whole class was not able to attend. So including spouses...there was a grand total of....31. I have never been to one of my own class reunions, and I have attended quite a few of Mark's, so it was very fun for me as well to see familiar faces.

I was able to spend a bit lot of money at three different quilt stores. Interesting quilt shops too. One in what used to be a bowling alley, one in which the wife shares space with her husband's feed store, and one in Mankato where I got Minnesota-themed fabric to make Mark a quilt I've planned for a long time called Minnesota Hot Dish (and if you are from Minnesota, you know exactly what hot dish is. Out here in California, we call it a casserole...)

We went to Bergen Bar and Grill twice. Bergen, Minnesota, with a population of 16, but wow, do they know how to grill. While we waited, I took a picture of the local crops: corn and windmills.

Bergen Bar and Grill doesn't seat too many people inside. Like the town, it's rather small. But they do have a nice deck where you can wait in nice weather (in bitter cold winter, you wait in your car and they call your cell phone). And if you want to order a soft drink (okay, "pop" for you Minnesotans) or a beer, you just walk right up to the window and place your order.

We went to the Fairmont County Fair. We actually changed the dates of our trip, leaving and returning a day later than we had originally planned, so we could attend the fair. As far as country fairs goes, I think it was pretty typical. However, this kind of blew me away. Someone was raising money by selling tickets for a raffle. See the ticket container? See the money box? See the empty chairs???? Very trusting people here in Fairmont County...

Now you may be asking yourself why we would want to change the dates of our trip. To go the Fairmont County Fair. Well, all because of these guys, Tonic Sol-Fa. Amazing acapella singers. They sing a huge variety of music, jazz, pop, country. Mark first found them while channel surfing a couple of years ago when they had their own PBS special (and they are filming another one--they're that good). And here they were, at the fair, free with our paid admission of $3/person, thanks to Roger and Clarine getting tickets on the radio! Really outstanding concert. Well worth $3. No, really, I would have paid ten times that to hear them in person, and we were in the sixth row!

But my personal highlight? It would have to be meeting my online pen pal, as Mark refers to her. My friends and family know that I am blog-obsessed. Some people spend free time playing free cell or solitaire. I read blogs. Even when I don't have free time. Anyway, first I became a fan of her daughter's blog, How About Orange, and I can't even tell you how I first discovered that one. But shortly after I started reading it, I was hooked. The best part was the dialog between Jessica and her mom, Grandma G, in the comment section. I was intrigued. I clicked on Grandma G's link and found out she lived in southern Minnesota. About 40 miles from Butterfield. We emailed back and forth for nearly a year, found out we had a lot in common, including each of us having a super cute granddaughter with brown curly hair, and we made plans to meet. She lives out in the country so we met at the very cool coffee shop in town, Left Bank Coffee, which Mark learned was named that because apparently there used to be two banks in town and this was....uh, the one on the left. I have to admit to being nervous while we waited. You know, kind of like a blind date. Like what if she met me...and hated me?? Anyway, thankfully, that didn't happen. We drove out to where she lives, which Mark, being a farm boy at heart, really enjoyed. This is the view from Candy's house.

Thanks, Candy. Meeting you was definitely one of my highlights. Who knew I would make such a good friend because I love the color orange?

Cabin Fever

If it's this time of the year, it means the opening of Lakeview Cottages is just around the corner. Which means that getting all the cottages ready for our rental guests is a lot of work for our owner group. I mean, these cabins were were built in 1914 to 1917 for the workers building the dam at Huntington Lake. And when you see the sign that says "modern cabins," it really means that somewhere in the 1940s, plumbing was added. Hey, I am NOT complaining about any kind of plumbing that brings me hot water for my shower and a toilet that works. Even if my shower is made of galvanized tin with a cement floor.

Here we go with some of the best things of Lakeview Cottages.

The view. We are 50 yards from the water. So this is the view I had all weekend from my front deck.

Cabin G. Okay, I'm a bit prejudiced in this regard, shower and all. Although as an owner group we own shares in all of Lakeview Cottages, when we are here on working weekends and in the off season, Cabin G "belongs" to Mark and me. And we've become really attached to it. Since we want to keep the rustic feel of the beautiful knotty pine walls, most of us are adding little things to "our" cabin that will make it feel more homey when we are there, and will enhance our guests' stay throughout the summer, like more shelving and lots of hooks for hanging things.

I love my happy little bear on the end of a chain that turns on the light in the front bedroom (sorry for the blurry picture--he wouldn't stop swinging).

Our cozy kitchen. Okay, so we have a full-sized refrigerator, and we do bring up a microwave...we also cook on what basically amounts to a three-burner camp stove. With more galvanized tin for safety...

Oh, and this is the view out of our kitchen window, Cabin F. Nice.

The denim quilt that covers our bed. I made this for Aaron, thinking he would take it to college with him. It was too big, too heavy, whatever. So now it's on the bed in Cabin G whenever we are staying there.

See this big round log? My friends, Maggie and Sue, actually rolled it uphill from the waterfront where our boats are docked, all the way up the terraced steps, to the road, where Mark and Maggie's husband, Mike, took pity on them (after questioning what they were doing??), loaded it in the back of the pickup and drove it to Cabin G. For some reason, this old smooth and weathered log just makes me happy.When the Forest Service mandated that we cut down some trees, they were turned into benches, so now each cabin has one by the firepit, and this one is ours.

And a few things that are changing at Cabin G.

The skirting around the outside front of the cabin was looking pretty trashed. So it got ripped off, and in the process of putting new skirting up, our cabin was leveled. Turns out, one of the front corners was being held up by this boulder. Yikes!

Which is now part of the new landscaping...

Although perhaps there needs to be some more thought given as to location...

Cabin G seems pretty happy with her new skirting, which has now been painted brown.

And the shower. We keep this thing scrubbed and cleaned. But honestly, as far as the ick factor--these pictures really don't do it justice.
but when we left on Monday, this is what it looked like. Out with the old and....

....well, all I can say is stay tuned!

And the best part of Lakeview Cottages--sitting out in the sun with friends.

Bad news/good news

The Bad News:

We are going to Minnesota in August. No, that's not the bad news. It's actually really good news because we get to see our friends, go to Mark's class reunion, and I get to meet in person someone I've been getting to know via email and I'm really excited about that.

No, the BAD news is this: What is up with the air miles you earn on your credit card and seat availability? We have lots of air miles. We wanted to cash them in to make our flight to Minneapolis/St. Paul. We wanted to fly for FREE. That's why we HAVE a card that earns air miles. So when I tried to make the reservation the other night, there were no seats available. Correction: there were no air mile seats available for the days were wanted to travel, nor the day before or the day after. There were first class seats available on a flight coming back, but not at a time we wanted to fly, and we were not about to bankrupt our air mile account anyway by using it to fly home first class. There were a lot of seats available on the flights we needed, just no air mile seats. When I asked about this, the reservation person said, "Well, it IS summer, and it IS Minneapolis." Don't get me wrong. Minnesota is a beautiful state and I love going there. But August in Minnesota? Hot, humid, mosquito-swatting August in Minnesota? A popular destination in August? Really?? So we had to fork over hard cold cash, ahem, credit card, which will earn us more air miles...that we probably can't use when we need 'em.

Now the GOOD news:

While we are there, we get to go to the Fairmont County Fair and see these guys! Phenomenal musicians! Never thought we would get to see them in person. And the price for this stellar entertainment? Free with paid admission to the fair...a whopping $6/person! Woo hoo! Almost makes up for having to pay for our plane tickets. Almost. Not quite.