September 2, 2009
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Vacation Time
My wife and I have been on a continuous vacation since we retired from teaching in 1985 – and enjoyed almost every minute of it.
Since 1970, much of our vacation time has been spent in our cottage on a lake in Downeast Maine. It became a cottage when we finally got electricity in 1982. For the first twelve years it was a cabin where we used Aladdin lamps and cooked with gas – which we hauled in. We had a 30 year-old gas refrigerator (Don’t ask how we got that down to the cabin) and we hand-pumped water up from the lake, which was also our bathing pool. One sabbatical year we stayed until late October – our bathing was pretty brief that month! Oh yes, we also had a wood stove for heat – one thing we had plenty of was wood.
We have lately upgraded the cottage by adding a wing with two more bedrooms, very little of the cabin remains as we bought it. Nowadays our yearly taxes cost more than half of our original purchase price – but of course then there was no road within a quarter mile and then it was just a logging trail. Times of changed, we actually have street signs and a street address – of course the road is still little better than a jeep trail but FedX and UPS do have to deliver – not that they are especially thrilled when they do. Our mailbox is at the head of the private road – about two miles away.
Our vacation spot is spectacularly beautiful -a very large lake ( two+ miles wide and six+ miles long) with high hills and a mountain at one end. It is a deep lake carved out by the mile-high glacier that covered the area twelve millennia ago.
We stay here from about July first until mid-October. By then all the foliage has Fall colors and New England is at its most beautiful. As we drive down to Florida, we sort of follow the Fall south.
Life is good.
Comments (4)
That sounds nice I am glad to hear your wife can still enjoy that I bet it is beautiful!
Sounds like an interesting life. I’m not sure I could do that, however. No. Wait a miniute. I’m sure. To much city in me I guess. But I do think about a simpler life from time to time.
Dear Dick,
I always enjoy seeing comments from you on my sporadic entries. You similarly don’t seem to post so much that it’s difficult to keep up. I read your last two entries last time I visited. (although I didn’t comment.) Re: Universal Health care. I guess I’m satisfied with my medical center and my HMO. The price keeps going up, but it’s pretty neat knowing that I’m only going to pay around 2 or 3 thousand dollars for a 50 or 60 thousand dollar operation! I’m a bit of a socialist, and would like to see healthcare in the U.S. like they have in Canada, however that will never happen, cause our taxes would be raised too high and I’m sure a lot of folks wouldn’t tolerate that. (Esp. those leaning a bit more to the right than I do)
Re: race relations entry, and the general bad mouthing of our President by the rightwing media. I’m apalled at how so many people are being duped by the right wing when it comes to opinions about Obama. Just this morning I’m reading all the hoopla about his proposed speech to schoolchildren as an attempt to “brainwash” them. My God. Seems in the right’s eyes, Obama can’t do anything that doesn’t have an “agenda”.
Glad you are having such a grand permanent vacation. I pray that “life is good” for most of mankind. However, that is never the case. Obviously, you had a plan and stuck to it, was able to retire, and are enjoying the good life. I’m enjoying as much of “the good life” as I can these days, what with continuing money and health problems, but I’m always searching for the silver lining, and looking on the sunny side of life.
Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool
My postings are generally focused around the Socrates-cafe blogsite but I do occasionally post personal stuff here.
I’m working on the idea for a major post – stay tuned.