So Long, Farewell ...

It was a busy morning of errands, then mom picked me up at about 11:45 and we headed north.

Three episodes of Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me! later, we were at Van Buren Point to close the cottage.

Now, I know you’ve all seen photos of the exterior of the place. Looks pretty impressive, huh? It’s not insulated or winterized. At all. And we only have baseboard heat.

So we walked in the door, flipped on the water heater and the baseboard heat (TV room, my bedroom, my parents bedroom) and got to work. Mom started mowing the grass. I made a sweep of the house to corral all things liquid, strip and cover the beds, start laundry, lock all of the windows and bring all of the furniture on the porch into the house.

I forgot to take a picture of the empty porch. It’s really weird-looking. I’ll try to snap a shot tomorrow if I remember.

My lone request for this trip was to be allowed a break for sunset, if such a thing was going to happen in any way, shape or form. It was damn cold on the beach (20 mph winds), but I was enjoying the views enough to snap off over 100 photos. The best few are at the end of this post. Full Flickr photoset here.

It has been over a month since I was last here, and that was the latest in the year I had ever been up here. So to me, the oddest thing was how far south in the sky the sunset was happening. If you feel like it, take a look at one of my favorite sunsets from August, like this one. Use that big rock in the foreground as a reference point. The difference is amazing. And we're still two months away from the winter solstice, when it hits its southermost point in the sky.

After I snapped away to my heart's content, we went to the Ellicottville Brewing Company in Fredonia for dinner, and I had some truly fantastic beer. Two Dunkelweisen (and a burger) later, I was one happy camper and we headed back to the house. [NOTE: Mom didn't like the beer she ordered and said those were the worst wings she'd had in years. I guess I'm the only one who enjoyed the place, but the beer was so good I didn't care.] I’m finishing up this post then sprinting up to bed, as it’s after 11 pm. It’s probably 40 degrees in the rest of the house, and as soon as you open the door of a “warm” room, you can feel the cold air taking over in waves.

Tomorrow we’ll wrap things up. We’ll wash sheets and cover the beds we used tonight. Mom will finish mowing the grass, I’ll finish the liquid sweep and get everything into the car to go back to Pittsburgh. And this is the last night I’ll sleep in this house in 2007. Here’s hoping that we’ll be able to spend plenty of time up here in 2008!