If you follow this blog, then you know I haven't posted in a while. I am suffering from "Blog Block." Good intentions to blog daily are overcome by a lack of words. I think the block is coming from starting a theme and feeling the need to carry through on telling the story of how we got to Cedaroma. I promise that I will tell that story, as the words come to me, but will have to intersperce the blog with other such interesting tidbits that I find throughout the day/week/month. Without further ado, let me begin todays post:
Ah, Instead, why don't I start all new tomorrow?
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Friday, December 7, 2012
Somewhat Accidental Property Search
We did get to the Milwaukee area the day of Katie's dance program at the Pabst Theater and enjoyed watching her 15 minutes of fame in the 2 and a half hour production. Amazing energy! The next day we left and headed right back up north. This was during that heat wave that lasted from June through August and Racine was not a comfortable place to hang out.
Marge and Jim have their summer home in Indian Shores on Lake Tomahawk and we went there for a spell. There is great debate as to where "up north" starts and while I am no expert, I will say that the weather seems to change just after Merrill, perhaps at Tomahow but definitely a bit before Rhinelander. The humidity drops out, the sun gets sunnier, the winds quiet down a tad and the terrain becomes north woodsy, leaving the dairyland behind.
After five days of swimming, fishing and casinoing, Victor made a road trip to St. Louis to visit his Mom and stayed a week. In that time we taught Goose to swim and enjoy fishing. He loves all of it and is very entertaining to us humans watching his personal growth.
When Victor returned he and I and Goose took some great day trips, Boulder Junction, Presque Isle, Phelps and as intended by realtors the world over, we noticed certain properties for sale. Lake front, cottages, restaurants, saloons and so on. Several vacant. And so the first call was made! A day later, we were officially "just looking" at the different opportunities. One of our favorites was a foreclosure property with exceptional lake frontage, a few cabins and a big bar/restaurant with stage. Very exciting but very closed with a lot of work needed. When we mentioned we loved the property, but needed to find one that made some money, the agent headed us over to Cedaroma Lodge. "This one makes some money." What he really meant is it's a break-even property right now, but you are smart kids, you will make money at it. It was open and operating, everything in fine working order, good bones they say. With Marge & Jim we took the boat and spent a day on Little St. Germain checking out the fishing and taking photos from the lake. Only thing missing was that bar/restaurant bit that Victor wants/doesn't want/wants/doesn't want...
We look very closely at a few more properties in Vilas County and in the next week head south to continue our extended road trip. Our first stop is Chicago where Victor's sister lives in a stunning condo apartment at Lakeshore drive and the river, just across the street from Navy Pier. A really neat place to hang out in the big city.
On the drive down we talked about all the properties we saw and our obligations to Groveland and the Hotel Charlotte and what we saw for our immediate future and down the road. In the course of the 6 hour drive we successfully wrapped all that property search business up into a nice package, tied a string on it and put a note that said, open in 5 years and filed it away at the back of the brain closet nearly filled with other things we are going to do some day.
That package didn't stay wrapped up in the closet very long, but that's the next post.
Marge and Jim have their summer home in Indian Shores on Lake Tomahawk and we went there for a spell. There is great debate as to where "up north" starts and while I am no expert, I will say that the weather seems to change just after Merrill, perhaps at Tomahow but definitely a bit before Rhinelander. The humidity drops out, the sun gets sunnier, the winds quiet down a tad and the terrain becomes north woodsy, leaving the dairyland behind.
After five days of swimming, fishing and casinoing, Victor made a road trip to St. Louis to visit his Mom and stayed a week. In that time we taught Goose to swim and enjoy fishing. He loves all of it and is very entertaining to us humans watching his personal growth.
When Victor returned he and I and Goose took some great day trips, Boulder Junction, Presque Isle, Phelps and as intended by realtors the world over, we noticed certain properties for sale. Lake front, cottages, restaurants, saloons and so on. Several vacant. And so the first call was made! A day later, we were officially "just looking" at the different opportunities. One of our favorites was a foreclosure property with exceptional lake frontage, a few cabins and a big bar/restaurant with stage. Very exciting but very closed with a lot of work needed. When we mentioned we loved the property, but needed to find one that made some money, the agent headed us over to Cedaroma Lodge. "This one makes some money." What he really meant is it's a break-even property right now, but you are smart kids, you will make money at it. It was open and operating, everything in fine working order, good bones they say. With Marge & Jim we took the boat and spent a day on Little St. Germain checking out the fishing and taking photos from the lake. Only thing missing was that bar/restaurant bit that Victor wants/doesn't want/wants/doesn't want...
We look very closely at a few more properties in Vilas County and in the next week head south to continue our extended road trip. Our first stop is Chicago where Victor's sister lives in a stunning condo apartment at Lakeshore drive and the river, just across the street from Navy Pier. A really neat place to hang out in the big city.
On the drive down we talked about all the properties we saw and our obligations to Groveland and the Hotel Charlotte and what we saw for our immediate future and down the road. In the course of the 6 hour drive we successfully wrapped all that property search business up into a nice package, tied a string on it and put a note that said, open in 5 years and filed it away at the back of the brain closet nearly filled with other things we are going to do some day.
That package didn't stay wrapped up in the closet very long, but that's the next post.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
From Groveland To Cedaroma
Did I tell you how we ended up here at Cedaroma Lodge? I don't think so.
You know we were at the Hotel Charlotte in Groveland through March, 2012, just under 9 years, when we sold it all, (Hotel, Restaurant and the six vacation rentals) to Doug and Jenn, a young couple with big dreams. Our plan was to just take a long extended summer trip around the USA visiting friends and family and just being out of Groveland for high season. Lot of adjusting to do after 9 years. A complete life style change.
We ended up hanging out in Groveland longer than anticipated and had to buy another condo so we had somewhere to live as the condo we were in was on the vacation rental market and our first guests of the season were coming! Sillily, just two weeks after buying our new home, we hit the pavement for that extended road trip. We could have just packed up earlier and not worried about having a place to call home, but no. Not for me. I like to know where my bed is, even if I am not in it.
We took the long way at a fast pace stopping in Boseman to drop off an antique wall clock with Jim and Ruth. There was a pleasant symmetry to visiting the prior owners of the hotel as we had just now become prior owners ourselves.
Leaving Montana we raced through North Dakota and Minnesota taking the northern route to Wisconsin. We were on a pace to catch my niece, Amy's, dance recital. We spent our first night in Wisconsin at the Aqua Aire in Minocqua, a little motel we had found online and visited last winter as a potential investment. We loved the location!
This post is turning out to be the long way to how we ended up at Cedaroma Lodge, so instead of writing a novel in a single post, I will start again another day where this leaves off. Stay tuned!
Not an award winning photo, but it shows that we have some snow history!
This is the classic Groveland photo, Special Photography by Terri Metz
While we sold dozens of clocks from our collection, we kept our favorites!
When we are all set up, they will grace walls around Cedaroma Lodge
You know we were at the Hotel Charlotte in Groveland through March, 2012, just under 9 years, when we sold it all, (Hotel, Restaurant and the six vacation rentals) to Doug and Jenn, a young couple with big dreams. Our plan was to just take a long extended summer trip around the USA visiting friends and family and just being out of Groveland for high season. Lot of adjusting to do after 9 years. A complete life style change.
We ended up hanging out in Groveland longer than anticipated and had to buy another condo so we had somewhere to live as the condo we were in was on the vacation rental market and our first guests of the season were coming! Sillily, just two weeks after buying our new home, we hit the pavement for that extended road trip. We could have just packed up earlier and not worried about having a place to call home, but no. Not for me. I like to know where my bed is, even if I am not in it.
We took the long way at a fast pace stopping in Boseman to drop off an antique wall clock with Jim and Ruth. There was a pleasant symmetry to visiting the prior owners of the hotel as we had just now become prior owners ourselves.
Leaving Montana we raced through North Dakota and Minnesota taking the northern route to Wisconsin. We were on a pace to catch my niece, Amy's, dance recital. We spent our first night in Wisconsin at the Aqua Aire in Minocqua, a little motel we had found online and visited last winter as a potential investment. We loved the location!
This post is turning out to be the long way to how we ended up at Cedaroma Lodge, so instead of writing a novel in a single post, I will start again another day where this leaves off. Stay tuned!
Not an award winning photo, but it shows that we have some snow history!
This is the classic Groveland photo, Special Photography by Terri Metz
While we sold dozens of clocks from our collection, we kept our favorites!
When we are all set up, they will grace walls around Cedaroma Lodge
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