Our first trip to the mountain since we started renting the house through Airbnb and everything looks great. I was really concerned that not only would something be broke or messed up, but that I would feel different after having strangers living in our home. But somewhat surprisingly, we felt the same as in the past, with only a few things out of place.
The reason we are doing short-term rental here is that we got some lower than desired
comparable values from a couple of Realtors last fall when we were considering selling. Now that we've established that we can do short-term rentals and cover some of the cost of ownership (taxes, insurance, etc), and the fact that we're pleased with both Sue, our host, and Jeannie, our housekeeper, and that we really don't feel different, we are no longer interested in selling.
This is a relatively short trip. Slade and family (minus Anna, who is in YMCA Leadership Camp near Asheville) came in Friday night and stayed until Sunday.
After they left, we got busy with some projects. First, for Clara, was to get everything in the Kitchen back where she wanted it. A lot of kitchen pieces got moved to different cabinets by our guests.
Tuesday evening we had dinner with Will and Bonnie at their home. They've decided that since the terrible winter last year they're going to move to Florida. It must have really been bad up here. I would never have expected that they would leave. If they go, we'll really miss them.
We celebrated my birthday (June 18) by going to dinner at the Chalet Restaurant in Little Switzerland. The prime rib dinner was absolutely one of the best I've ever had.
Otherwise, we've stayed busy with the projects. We've purchased 6 new chairs from Lowe's for the deck. We can't leave chairs on the deck, even in the summer. So now we have three relative light chairs that can easily be moved from the garage. It's going to be interesting to see how our guests treat these. We're asking that they not leave them on the deck when they leave. Same for the new Weber grill we purchased.
We'll be leaving early Saturday to go back to Beaufort to get ready for our trip to Denver next week.
Extra:
I am sitting on the deck of our mountain home contemplating the beauty of the mountain ridges in front of me. I never tire of this view.
As my dear granddaughter, Anna said many years ago, "Papa, the mountains never change, but they change every day". Nothing truer could ever be said about these majestic humps in the earth. They weave into a tapestry of fading blue and orange layers ending in the horizon where they are joined with an equally majestic sky at sunset.
We are so fortunate to have been able to spend a sizable part of our life in these mountains - to the point of taking them for granted during our drives to work, or our daily lives when we lived here.
We have often debated the economic sense of owning this home on the Eastern Continental Divide from which we view 30+ miles of the layered bumps. It's never made sense to have a home in an isolated ridgeline away from the niceties of all the resort amenities. Here, the only sounds are those of the birds chirping, or the turkeys making their familiar noises and the occasional bear or deer - and the hummingbirds.
But evenings like this, with quiet music in the background - courtesy of fiber optic cable which has been dug into this isolated spot on earth - makes it all seem that it has always been destiny. From childhood, I have been drawn to these rolling mountains. On my first trip here as a 10-year old with my Mother and Father, and I first saw these magic hills, until this day I always dreamed of having a home here. And now, I do have that home in this magical place.
We contemplated selling this place I always dreamed of having. It made no financial sense. For the three or four weeks a year of this beautiful solitude, we are spending thousands of dollars just to keep it habitable.
Now we have discovered a way to make sense of keeping our beautiful retreat. Through short-term rentals to strangers, we have made some economic sense out of it. We are now able to share the beauty and solitude with these strangers and read and hear their feedback about these magnificent views and the quiet solitude.
This has resulted in a new appreciation for what we have. And increased our determination to continue to maintain it so maybe even future generations of our family will be able enjoy the solitude and beauty. If this is our legacy, there could never be a better one.
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| The sun sets on June 21 on it northernmost point of travel |
