This morning was cloudy and cool but warmed up fast. Denis put the kayaks and paddle board on top of the car while the rest of us packed up. We were leaving Margi's Guest House for our next 3-day home-away-from-home. Beaver, WA--our day's destination--is near Forks, which was the setting for one of the Twilight books that were all the rage with young adults awhile back--made into a movie. Why Forks? Apparently, the author wanted to set her vampire book in a place with a lot of yearly rainfall, and Forks was what she came up with.
We had a sausage gravy over toast breakfast. Since the Guest House wasn't booked directly after us, we weren't overly-concerned about checking out right at noon. (Actual departure was 12:30 PM.) While Denis and Megan packed the car, I did up the dishes and put them away. I think we left Margi's place none the worse for wear!
Our first stop of the day was actually right near Margi's Guest House. It was a lavender farm called Jardin du Soleil (French for "Sun Garden".) Ryan and I stayed with the car while Meg, Den, and Robin visited the grounds--gift house, lavender everywhere--nice stuff. At one point, Denis came back to the car to get cleaning wipes, saying "I don't want to talk about it." Okay... It seems that, somehow, what he didn't want to talk had something to do with bird poop. I didn't ask! We were there for about an hour.
Next stop was Port Angeles for gas and Starbucks.
Next stop was at a recreation area at Crescent Lake for snacks. (We brought our own. This was to be lunch.)
At 4:45 PM, we arrived at our day's destination: the Lake Pleasant Beach House, our home for the next three days.
The Beach House sure doesn't look like much from the outside, but wow on the inside! When we arrived, we were met by a refrigerator repair dude who had been called to fix a problem with the refrigerator. I got scared that we wouldn't have refrigeration, but no. The only inconvenience we would have was that the water dispensed from the fridge wouldn't be cold. There would be plenty of ice, however, so I thought I could live with that! Almost as soon as we pulled up, the owner did, also. She told us that her last tenants had broken the screen on the sliding glass door to the deck. How big of a problem can that be? Turns out, quite big.
Let's do inventory on the Beach House:
1. Laminate floors except for carpeted bedrooms. Beach decor throughout.
2. FOUR bedrooms--one with a double bed (or larger, I'm not sure), and three with two twin beds each. Bedrooms have luggage benches to put stuff on, etc.
3. THREE full bathrooms!!!
4. Fully equipped kitchen, with dishwasher, microwave, STOVE, garbage disposer. (The only thing I couldn't find was a toaster.)
5. Living room with two recliners, leather couch, leather love seat, a futon-type bench, huge satellite TV, complete with remote. Dining area off the living room area with a big wooden table and eight chairs, plus ceiling fan over the table. On the wall between the dining area and the living area was a sliding glass door leading to a huge deck. (This is the door that lacked the screen due to the previous tenants.)
6. Big utility room equipped with washer and dryer, AND an indoor sauna. (One would think that a sauna is unnecessary, but Denis--with his Russian culture--used it at least twice. Apparently Russians believe in sweating things out!)
7. The house is on the Lake Pleasant beach. To the side of the house, there is a fire pit, with benches around it, a rock path along the shoreline, lit with little torches, a hammock slung in the shade of a couple of trees.
8. Also outside of the house, there was an outbuilding that was an enclosed shelter-house, with a fireplace and a propane gas grill, with places to sit and eat.
9. The ONLY thing this house didn't have was air conditioning. Many places in this part of Washington don't. Open the windows, turn on a fan or two. It rarely gets hot enough to need artificial cooling. This was where we missed the absent sliding door screen. Had we been able to leave that door open, the house would have been comfortable even without fans, but nobody likes bugs! I know the landlady will have that fixed ASAP, but she couldn't get it done while we were there...but guess what? We survived in grand style!
I became acutely aware that this place had to have cost Meg and Denis a ton of money. They were here once before. I am honored that they included me in yet another visit to this venue. What a treat!!
This place wasn't to be just our home base for other excursions. It WAS the other excursions! The instant we unpacked, Ryan--who normally doesn't like to go out and do stuff--came alive. Frisbee on the beach. Kayaking. Paddle-boarding. A water gun shootout. Robin also got in on the kayaking/paddle-boarding thing, but she got cold, so curled up on the hammock with her book.
Late in the day, Denis started a fire in the fire pit so we could roast bratwurst. We also had baked beans, chips...and later, s'mores. Isn't it great to have the feel of camping but have the ability to go back to civilization inside the house for creature comforts? Loved that!
When the daylight waned, we went inside. The rest of the family crashed. Ryan and I stayed up a bit to watch TV...something we didn't really have at Margi's Guest House. He popped popcorn. I yawned a lot. Wonderful day!
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