It is almost midnight on the shores of Lake Huron as I type this. I was down in Kitchener today, a lovely 2.5 hour drive South to get new tires on our well aged 4Runner. 143,200 miles and counting. Still the original engine and drivetrain. Got in to Costco at 9 am, gone from Kitchener at 11 am. One party in tonight with more tomorrow. Should be an interesting weekend. Temps at night now going down into the low 40's F and daytime is not much warmer. We need to get our construction done on the basement window before it freezes, or we will not be able to get the concrete saw specialist in to do his job. In the mean time, I've uncovered the requirements from the building code and will be making yet another trip down South tomorrow, for a proper window. Home Depot in Owen Sound does not stock it, 3 weeks minimum to get one in to that store. Kitchener carries 3 of them in stock. I was just there. Sort of a repeating pattern in my life. Sigh.

As I was examining our newly acquired Wii game console, I was also noting the impressive white noise level that The Lake generates. When we first arrived, I thought all of the racket was from wind blowing through the trees, but in reality it is much like the sound I heard from the Gunnison River as I was growing up. My bedroom was right over a big hot water boiler of enormous cast iron proportions, that throughly heated my room during the winter requiring that I open my window to bring down the temp on nights when the wind wasn't blowing too hard. The sound of a river at night, and the big lake washing in white caps at night, are in many ways similar and equally peaceful. It is a good sound. And B&B life on Lake Huron goes on.

Fall is almost gone---but not today.

It is a wild 77 degrees F outside right now and I'd speculate about 80% RH. Very sticky indeed! My budding tennis prodigy son and I were out this morning for about 45 minutes and we were molten blobs by the end of our stay at the courts. We have these beautiful tennis courts exactly 2 blocks from our house and it took me all summer to get out there! Sad! Argghghgh! And my forehand AND backhand still work! Will wonders never cease to appear here in B&B land.

Let me share a snap of MacGregor Point Park. I dropped by for a first visit about a week ago and it is very impressive, and only about 6 kms from here via Port Elgin. On the road going there was a very bright contrast of orange and green---see the second photo below.

We have been busy this weekend, a full house last night. Tonight a very nice family of four with two young children. They are headed to Walker House for dinner then out to the main beach.

The weather continues to be impressively warm. I think if people down to the South of us in Toronto and the GTA knew how nice it was here, they would be on their way here. We spent some time this last week on a high wind day at the beach. Really impressive waves coming in--some well over my head and I'm over 6 feet. Take a look. Those waves are about 100 meters out from shore and really crashing down. I am sure if we could harness a tiny percentage of the power exhibited, we would not need our Hydro service.

Trees are starting to turn. Those small moments.

I drove back and forth today between Southampton and Owen Sound, and I noticed on the return trip West that some of the smaller trees were starting to change color. Autumn is fast approaching despite the lows at night near the lake not having gone much below 50 degrees F. It was strikingly beautiful. I may need to start carrying my camera to capture these little treats I see while buzzing down Highway 21. This is something I might not notice if I was zooming around a larger city, but today my mind was wandering a bit and happened upon these nice little clumps of trees.

It reminded me of another trip near North Bruce earlier in the summer when my young son had to demand an emergency roadside stop to relieve a certain pressure. While he stood on the side of the road doing his business, an entire small herd of cattle rather quickly started tracking straight for him. Apparently the rancher/farmer that tended these critters gave them such a good treat that they were hoping we might have something similar. Another one of those remarkably beautiful events that could easily be missed just by being preoccupied and not living in the present moment. We still laugh about the cattle that spontaneously jostled their way toward my small son, who was paying them no attention at all. Seems like I am experiecing some Zen moments.

Watching the season ending episode of CSI tonight was such a sharp contrast to my experience earlier in the day. Both real and surreal. I think this B&B thing may be a good thing, even though I grew up in a small town in the mountains of Colorado during a time when a B&B was a fairly foreign concept--at least to me. My wife is a very intuitive woman, and trusts that sense consistently. It seems to be paying off with some nice dividends, as it was her drive to try the B&B lifestyle that has us moving forward in this current modality. Bravo my love!

3:56 am and I am at work. Sort of.

Being the owner of a B&B makes for odd hours. We don't have guests tonight so things are much more quiet than usual, perhaps too quiet. I keep thinking about guest comments from this summer, what people liked and what they would prefer to see more or less of. I just need to figure out how to shut off that thinking while trying to sleep. Part of the motivation for this blog is to have a place to file late night/early morning thoughts for review and comment.

Hmmmm. I have discovered that the blog editor will pretend to let you keep zipping along savings things, when in fact it is not saving anything! Ouch. I guess if the little draft autosaved message does not come up, it is not saving anymore. Lesson learned.

The web page for the B&B is in a third version stage, but not published yet. The current site is a bit scary, having been dumped straight out of one of Dreamweaver's templates without any editing at all---not a good idea. Fortunately the new signs for the Inn are in slightly better shape, but are still in the basement awaiting the application of paint before being mounted on the yet-to-be-installed post(s) in the front yard. The lights for the sign are down there somewhere too, hiding in a blob of Home Depot bags on the floor.

Here is a view of the front of the house. I have grand plans for a new white picket fence in the front with a nifty entry gate, along with a new garden and a place for guests to sit down and relax. Perhaps in the Spring of '08.