Today we sold (closed on) our lake house. It’s the end of an era – I was born and raised in Illinois (John was born in Texas) and have never lived outside of the Land of Lincoln until recently. It’s bittersweet as we remove our last foothold in my home state and say so long (for now) to some good friends and family in the area.
At one point in time, John and I seriously discussed keeping the lake cottage and spending the summers at the lake. But 1,000 miles is a long way to drive to get to a weekend house, even when there isn’t a pandemic. And you can’t exactly walk away from your property in Texas for 3 months. Still, we put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into that little cottage as we remodeled it top to bottom and we have a lot of fond memories from our time there.
We had one of the best views on the lake and our lake cottage was full almost every weekend of the summer with various guests. Independence Day was a big holiday at the lake with a boat parade in the afternoon and fireworks in the evening. I missed that this year as COVID-19 cancelled many events around us.
One thing we learned through having a second house is that we are definitely “one house” people. It sounds fun having a lake house – and it is – but it is also a lot of work. This isn’t a condo – we have to mow and rake the yard, sweep and maintain the decks and dock, maintain the boats, fix windows when they get broken (as one did this past winter). Plus all the inside stuff that anyone would have to manage (like food, sheets, towels, etc.) – even in a condo. This would be fine – except that we never lived there full time. It was always “the lake cottage”. No big deal when we lived at The Lodge, a 20 minute drive away; but now we live a 16 hour drive away. Not quite as convenient.
So to those of you who visited us there at the lake over the past decade, thanks for visiting and sharing some of your time with us. We no longer have the lake cottage, but we have many, many happy memories of birthdays, holidays, retirement parties, reunions, and more at that location. And we hope you will visit us in Texas soon as it is safe to do so to create some new memories down here in our soon-to-be-finished forever home.
As always, thanks for stopping by and take care!
Hugs, Libby