Day One - New Buffalo, Michigan

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Originally uploaded by tcboos

Susan swears that blogging my vacation travels causes me to have unusual events and/or occurrences. I say thank goodness these things happen because without them readers might not flock to read my adventures. A little foreshadowing...

Susan and I have decided that we want our children to have memories and experiences in different parts of the country as we did growing up. For this reason, we rented a house near Lake Michigan.

The affordable housing was at least a mile from the water, but most of the advertisements we read talked about the quaint village and scenic walks to the water's edge. We rented a 3 bedroom house that included a subdivision community pool, a big plus in our choosing this rental. We envisioned days spent on the lake, evenings poolside and a day trip to Chicago via Amtrax.

The homeowner of our rental was a nervous Nellie. In all conversations with her, she interrogated Susan like a detective from NYPD Blue. How many people would be in the house? How many adults? Children? Ages? Why do you want the house? What are your plans? Where do you live now? She repeated that this was their home - a place of great importance to her - until even we felt like she was making a mistake in renting to us. Nevertheless, she gave us directions and told us where to find the key to her home.

We arrived later than the check-in time on Saturday due to laziness in packing and a leisurely lunch with Austin and Rusty (who were claiming "work" to avoid joining us). The subdivision was off of a major highway far from the quaint village and nowhere near a scenic mile walk to the water.

Our rental was nestled in the woods, and I do mean woods. Large trees, creeping foliage, millions of small green plants and plenty of various poisonous plants (we were sure). An enclosed porch wrapped the entire front and side of the house. There was a rattan couch, lounge chairs, rocking chairs, tables, a lamp, a rug and a beautiful wooden picnic table on the porch. The key was hidden inside two things within each other on the front porch, and as we retrieved it and stood peering into the woods it hit as for the first time that we were two women with three children in an unknown house in the middle of Bigfoot country. And that moment right there, unfortunately, defined the rest of our stay.

The house was beautiful. It was only two years old and quite modern: high ceilings, wood floors, granite kitchen countertops and stainless steel appliances. The downstairs housed an open living room, kitchen and dining area, bathroom and two bedrooms. Stairs led to an upstairs loft with a master bedroom complete with sitting area, bathroom and screened in balcony.

Also in the loft was a den/television room. Outside the house was a stand-alone garage and sitting areas around each side of the house. The owners had made a nice rock walk-way that wrapped around the house and the landscaping was very lush, scenic and well kept. Moths, butterflies, and dragonflies fluttered everywhere we looked. An idealistic scene for sure....in the daylight.

We unloaded the car and unpacked our groceries purchased at the local grocery store, Barney's. We had brought a lot of provisions, like condiments and salt, with us, but we needn't have bothered. The kitchen was seriously stocked. Ice cream in the freezer. Condiments, beer, champagne, sodas, pickles, jellies, etc. in the refrigerator. All of the wine racks were full of wine. The cabinets were full of crackers, cereal, makings for smores, etc. The small refrigerator in the den was stocked with wine, coolers, beer, and sodas.

All very odd indeed especially after we read the instructions for leaving the house at the end of our stay where it was underlined: Take ALL food with you when you leave. Susan said it was like the owners were the bears and we were Goldilocks coming into their space while they were out for a walk. We also discovered that cleanliness was not an issue. There was a fine layer of dust on all the furniture and floors. The stove had not been cleaned and there was dust on the range. We found long strands of hair in the downstairs bathroom and on our pillows in our beds. All very odd.

We walked around the neighborhood and discovered it fairly empty. Most homes were vacant and those few that housed people only did so on the weekends. Most of the owners are from Chicago and come down on the weekends to "get away from it all" as our rental owner explained.

The pool area too was nestled in the woods. The gate was unlocked, but the pool itself was covered with an automatic blanket. The blanket was covered in leaves and looked like it had been that way all winter. The controls for the blanket were on the wall, but we weren't sure we were allowed to operate it. We strolled around looking for answers or someone to give us answers, but we finally had to give it up because of the mosquitoes. They were everywhere in this wooded neighborhood and since we were the only bloody beings in the area they were after us in full force. We left the pool area and hurried back to the house.

We ate dinner and relaxed in our spots...Susan and me in the downstairs living area and the girls in the upstairs den. Finally, about midnight I ventured upstairs to take a shower in the massive master bathroom. Leading into the bathroom were two wide french doors. Enter through those and you had an enormous spa tub directly in front of you under windows. To the right of that was the men's side with a sink and toilet. To the left was the lady's side with a sink and a walk-in shower. Stored in cabinets and under the sinks were all types of lotions, shampoos, rinses, hair dryers, etc.

I climbed into the shower (complete with more shampoos, sponges and lotions) and settled in for a nice cleaning. I was in about ten minutes when I heard shouting, and pounding, and Susan appeared.

Susan: "Cara, your shower is leaking into my bedroom!"

Me: "What? You've got to be kidding me?"

Susan: "I've had it! The pool is closed. This house hasn't been cleaned. There are shoes are everywhere as if they just disappeared and now the shower is leaking!"

Me: "This is nuts."

Susan: "Well the leaking isn't too bad so finish your shower. I just don't care anymore."

She left and I hurriedly tried to finish up. I had one more leg to shave when my daughter appeared.

Darcy: "Aunt Susan says to turn it off! Turn it off! It's really pouring into the bedroom downstairs!"

I got out, wrapped a towel around me, and went downstairs to find water rapidly dripped from two places in the downstairs bedroom. The first spot was a place where you could see it had happened before. There was water damage and someone had painted over it, not caring if the paint matched or not. The water was dripping down on to an antique chest of drawers. The second spot was a few feet away at the foot of the bed. This was a new spot and not dripping as much. Susan was irritated and worried.

Me: "What are you worried about?"

Susan: "Well, I can't sleep here now. What if the whole ceiling falls down?"

Me: "Oh, Susan, don't be ridiculous. The whole ceiling isn't going to fall down."

No sooner were the words out of my mouth then a small piece of plaster fell from the first water spot and crashed in pieces on to the floor directly in front of me.

Susan: "See!"

I laughed until I cried. We put towels and pans under the leaks and retired to our position back in front of the television. I was talking to my husband about the whole situation via cell phone when Susan happened to walk past the fireplace.

Now we had been told that the fireplace was off limits by our owner. It was gas and she wasn't sure it was all that safe so she told us not to turn it on. Susan suddenly let out a yell and told me that the fireplace had turned on. I jumped up to look and sure enough, I saw two blue flames roaring away.

Tom remained calm (although he kept chuckling) and told us it was only the pilot light. Susan told him that it was a gas fireplace and that gas was probably drifting through the house. She then told us about this happening in her neighborhood and how the fire department had told the neighbor to leave the house because just the ringing of the phone could blow her sky high. I told Tom I loved him and hung up.

We spent several minutes flicking off and on lights in the hope that that was the problem...that we had mistakenly turned on the fireplace, but alas, no go. We found the key switch to turn on and off the gas in the floor, but we didn't find the key. We stuck our heads in the fireplace and found the pilot on and a knob. Only the knob had instructions that said "on/off" to the left and "on/off" to the right. What the hell? I am not a fire person yet I decided to just sit back down and try not to worry. Then my cell phone rang. It was Tom.

Tom: "Oh, good, you're answering the phone so there obviously isn't any gas leaking." Snicker. Snicker.

Susan: (taking the phone from me) "Listen Tom, it isn't a cell phone that can cause the spark, it's the land phone. I'm not sure you are getting the whole picture here. We are in the middle of the woods in a dirty house with water leaking through the ceiling and blue flames and gas leaking from the fireplace. It is 1:30 AM and I'm not in the mood for your humor!"

He somewhat calmed her down. Enough that we were able to shrug, turn off the lights and go to bed.  Me upstairs. Susan on the couch.

End of day one.