Diary of an Innkeeper

This past week was our last full week open. (We still have two more weekends until we close for the season). Because of my husband's crazy construction job, he is so completely stressed out. I told him to stay home at our house with Aidan and just concentrate on getting the job done. So that left me living at the inn, by myself, with my two dogs. I made sure to go home (about 20 minutes away) every day around 3 pm to see Aidan when he came home from school, cook dinner, (clean up their bachelor mess) and then go back to the inn. We weren't crazy booked last week. With only 2 or 3 rooms each night it wasn't too stressful for me. Plus, we had some very nice guests. One couple in particular made last week a lot easier. Bonnie and Michael came from Missouri for Michael's birthday. They drove almost 1,000 miles. A very cool couple, I really enjoyed our morning and evening talks (and laughs!).

When Friday arrived, George and Aidan came over to the inn after work & school. We had a lot of guests on Friday and Saturday with most of them coming for completely different reasons. We had three more couples come for their husband's birthdays. (Obviously a very popular gift idea this year!) One came for their 5 year anniversary, one came to work on a house that he is restoring, one came to show a friend land he bought in the area, and four rooms were a group of 11 women who were traveling together. I came downstairs this morning to start setting up breakfast at 6:30. It was still completely dark outside. I heard 3 of these woman outside the front door already. When I went to go look they had walked away heading back to their rooms. Already all dressed up and ready for the day, it was just so early! They came back around 45 minutes later, with the rest of their group. I needed to hurry myself up a little. What a day to tell George to sleep in. They told me they were heading over to the Russian Orthodox Monastery about 15 minutes away. They said that on this trip they had gone on a Cayuga Lake wine tour, to a chestnut festival, the Oneida tour, Turning Stone Casino and now the Monastery and after that a large outlet mall. I asked, "So how many days have you all been traveling together?" They looked at me like I was crazy. "Since yesterday morning," they said. Yesterday Morning!! 11 women were organized enough to travel the 4 hours from Buffalo to our inn and take three different tours in 3 separate areas of NY and still have time to have dinner and play slots at the casino. Now if you have been reading my blog, you may remember that George and I drove to Skaneateles to see the wine country and weren't able to actually arrive at a wine tour until after the wineries stopped giving tours. I think we need these women to plan our next vacation!

After all the guests left this morning we closed up the inn for the week. Although we have a little break from innkeeping this week, it won't be much of a relaxing week. Aidan said to me tonight that he was glad to have me home. I told him not to get used to it. Tomorrow I have to go and visit my parents in NJ for 3 days. Yep, Aidan and George are back to being bachelors again tomorrow. Although the difference this week will be that there won't be this magical housecleaner/cook that arrives each day to sprinkle fairy dust on the mess. They are on their own. I hope they remember we have dogs/chinchilla/fish/frogs. (Did I leave anything out?) Just the thought of what the house will look like on Wednesday makes me shudder. But I will have Thursday to clean it all up, before it is back to the inn on Friday.