Summer has arrived in all its NW splendor.  Clear dawns, lots of eagle activity, incredible sunsets.  It’s hot during the day (96 yesterday in town!) and dark at 9 pm.  The cottage is booked solid until August 29, and much of September, too.

Fortunately, it’s cooler here by the water, and the cottage has air-conditioning and new insulating window shades.  Many guests just STAY here, enjoying the chance to “get away from it all.”

You can send out for elegant dinners from a local caterer who delivers, or order from To Go Services, which offers a tremendous variety of take-out from different restaurants.  And there are lots of grocery stores nearby – and there’s always Pike Place Market for the best fresh fish and produce to bring home and cook in the little kitchen for dinner!

I wanted to share a few interesting innkeeper stories.  A couple of weeks ago, a young couple arrived on foot with backpacks, and last week another couple arrived on bicycles.  Most of my guests come from the airport in a rented car.  But recently I’m getting more local folks who just want a relaxing break in a more peaceful setting.

The backpackers are college students from Arizona who never rent cars when they travel – “So much better for us and for the environment,” they say.  They had flown to Seattle and taken 2 different Metro buses to get as close as possible, completing the last mile on foot.  When they got hungry, they walked to nearby restaurants or grocery stores.  The bikers, who live in a different part of Seattle and don’t own a car, brought their own supplies in panniers.

I had two really interesting  guests on Saturday night who had driven over from Eastern Washington for a Mariners game.  He’s a geneticist from a 7,000-cow dairy farm in Prosser – decides which cows to inseminate with which bulls.  And she does ultrasounds on pregnant girls and women.  She’s done it for 15 years, and she told me a little about some really dramatic scenes that can happen in her work.
And my current guest, from California, is recovering from the Ironman he competed in yesterday in Everett (in the heat!).

And about once a year I get a visit from a US diplomat to Moldova, usually with his wife, here for a couple of weeks to see family, doctors, dentist, etc.  These folks, originally from Seattle but just now winding up his long career abroad in the diplomatic service, are modest, sophisticated, REALLY well-educated, fun to talk with, and very sweet.

I love being an innkeeper and getting to know such a variety of people, on a short-term basis and sometimes repeating.  Matthew, who shot the sunset photo above, has been here many times on business.  He usually comes by himself to install communication systems in private luxury yachts, but once he came out just to relax, bringing his lovely wife.

Recently, guests have given me a bottle of delightful dessert wine, and (different people) 2 lbs of yummy, very special Portuguese sausage (FedEx’d from the east coast in dry ice).  (as if they hadn’t already paid me!)

I love my job!

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