Homeward bound, soon

Well, our time at Deep Creek is just about at an end. I could easily spend a week here. I've always been a beach person. Didn't quite understand the appeal of a mountain vacation. Now I do. Of course, I might have a different opinion had we stayed in a musty old home or cabin. We're in the Rolls Royce's of mountain homes. It's been wonderful. Karen and her husband have owned these acres for 27 years. The building of this home started in 2004. They used their old home on weekends and vacations and were able to watch the whole process. We watched a DVD of the build last night. It was amazing. From the look of the changing seasons, I'd guess it took about 2 years to build. When it was done, they had to knock down the old home as the property is only zoned for one house. Karen was an executive with a private bank that was bought out last year, and she was laid off. Her husband teaches at the Univ. of MD in Baltimore and they have two sons who attend school there. Karen decided to move up here and work at a local bank. Her husband either comes up for the weekends or she drives to Baltimore. This was a weekend she was going home, and when she heard Rob and I were coming up, she offered us her home. And here we are, so grateful. One (of the many) very cool things about the house is the central sound system. There's a tiny Bose docking station in the utility room for an iPod/iPhone, etc. There's Bose speakers throughout the house with controls for each zone. That's been great. There's even speakers for the outdoor hot tub. Speaking of that...amazing too. I'm wary of hot tubs because of germs. How nice to use one that you know is clean. It's been in the 20's at night when we've used it and the water is at 102 degrees. Need I say more? We've watched movies at night. It's chilly downstairs in front of the big-screen Sony HDTV, but we've had plenty of blankets and a nice sectional to stretch out on. We watched Road to Rodanthe and Inglorious Bastards. A tear-jerker and an intense war movie. I loved them both.

The house is all cleaned up and ready for us to go. It's pouring outside. I don't want to leave. We're not in a rush, so I'm going to wait it out and hope the rain stops. In the meantime, I'm going to relax. A little more.

I'll end with pictures from yesterday. We went hiking at Swallow Falls State Park. It was a perfect day. I think you need to click on the blue link for Swallow Falls S and then click on slideshow to see the pictures full size with captions. If you want to, that is :)