RETREAT TO THE LAKE HOUSE

I mistitled Monday's entry -- it should have been Bridge Vacation instead of river vacation. Or maybe I could add "eating" to the title also. Whatever I name it, the time at Anne's cabin was FABULOUS.

The other four of us arrived first (Anne had stopped at the grocery store on the way down) so I was able to unpack my car and tour the house first. It is a rambling wooden one story structure that has been added onto four times. What you see when you first enter now is a huge kitchen with double everything (2 fridges, 2 dishwashers, ovens, cook tops, etc. Every drawer and cabinet in the room (and there are many) were labeled so that people would know where to store each item.

The kitchen is actually part of a very large glass-walled room that is filled with tables and chairs for eating (or playing games) that are scattered throughout the room, and there is a seating area in the corner. All of that overlooks Wheeler Lake which is formed by a damn on the Tennessee River. I estimate that perhaps 30 - 40 people could sit at tables in that room and eat at the same time.

And the same could be said for the numbers that could be bedded down. There are two small bedrooms that came with the original house, then two other immense ones that are lined up with small single beds in each one. (One is called the boys' room and the other the girls'.) On the back a sleeping porch was added to hold numerous other beds all lined up in two rows with plenty of room to spare. I didn't count the beds but again, my estimate is that the whole place sleeps 30-40. In addition to the rooms named, there are also a big living room with a fireplace, a laundry room with two of everything and three baths. Another one bedroom cabin sits beside the big one which I never even looked in.

I'm sure that on holidays and other special days the whole place is packed to the hilt because Anne has five children and fourteen grandchildren, most of whom are teenagers or older.

When she pulled up in her car at the cabin (house!), I began to get an inkling about what this trip was to be about. Her SUV was packed with coolers, boxes, and sacks all filled with either the groceries she had just bought or dishes she had already prepared. On a cabinet door in the kitchen was a typed copy of the menu she had planned for each day of our stay. I wish I had copied it for you (she had a copier there, of course) but I neglected to do that. I didn't want to seem too uncool.

But let me just sum it up by saying I was DAZZLED by all the preparations she had made for four of her friends.

I'll continue this tomorrow.