Sunday, December 11, 2011

And So It Begins

As I'm writing this, it is Sunday night at 10:20 pm.  Mindy and I just got to her house and we're just going to do a few more things before heading to bed.
On Friday we closed the sale of the Lodge and headed up the hill to see about settling in.  Unfortunately we arrived to a cold building with no heating oil left.  So we called Buckmans to get an emergency delivery because we didn't feel comfortable restarting the furnaces ourselves as when this same thing happened a few weeks ago the owners spent a lot of time bleeding the lines to it to start.  Anyway, Buckman's was great and came up and put in more fuel and showed us how to start the furnaces.  So it was a bit chilly sleeping there that night but the two of us muddled through.  And along with some wine, it was really pretty nice.

 Our friends Marilyn and Kent stopped by as our first guests on Friday night and shared some soup and wine with us.

Since the temperature went down to 20 degrees Friday, I got up at 4:30am to go check on the Birches and the Tea House to make sure they were ok.  And they were, though I ran the water slowly to keep it flowing.  They actually had not run out of fuel.  The Ski house was ok because there was no pressure in the pipes anyway because the pump is not working for some reason.

Saturday:  By 9am or so people started to show up to offer to help out in anyway they could.  Kent and Marilyn came up again with their two boys Ryan and Bret and Kent went right to work on cleaning and painting an area of the kitchen.  

 Kent painting part of the kitchen

We also had brought on to big guys from Minerva to help with the heavy lifting: Shannen and Andrew and they started moving stuff around right and left.  First in the office with Marilyn cleaning up around them, then in the kitchen and then various other tasks.  Meanwhile Debra was at her post at the front desk where she answers phones and handles reservations.
Then Mary Irene came by to help wash the log walls along with Mindy and others.  

Mary Irene cleaning the logs


And of course Mindy's Mom was there working on curtains for the porch and her husband Dave helped out with the music system and various there jobs.  All in all it was a great day with a lot of progress.  Mindy and I finished up around 9pm by washing the stone fireplace in the dining room.  We came back to Mindy's house to sleep.

                                       
Ryan and his little brother Bret with their pet bear

Sunday: Woke up at 7am and headed over to my house to get a bunch of things and a trailer full of fire wood and then up to GHL by 9am.  When I got there Debra, Heidi and Dale were waiting to get started.  Dale worked on cutting firewood all day while Heidi continued cleaning the kitchen where she'll be cooking breakfast and lunch for the guests and Debra went to the front desk.  Kent and Marilyn came back up after a while too along with Mindy and her folks after church.  Then Phil and Sandy came by to help out and Pat Conner and Andy Bulmer came in to start working as our floor manager and head chef for the restaurant.  So the place was humming along pretty well.  Oh, I forgot, the 35 gallons of fuel we put in ran out sometime overnight so Shannen and Andrew had to run down and get 40 gallons and Mindy brought 15 gallons more diesel from the Nice & Easy.  This time I was able to start the furnaces myself.  Can't wait to get that full delivery tomorrow, and propane for the gas stove too.
Throughout the day various people stopped by to see how things were going and wish us well.  The support that we've received from the local community and surrounding areas has been pretty overwhelming.  I'm sure it's pretty rare for one to go into business and have so much support and good will from the people in the area.  People are just so happy that the place isn't going to close I guess.
Anyway, it was another huge day in getting things ready to open the restaurant.  I should have taken more pictures today but I was so busy my head was spinning by lunch time, but I'll keep trying to take more and post them here.

 Our new vehicle magnet signs









3 comments:

  1. Congratulations!
    It's great to see the old place under new ownership! Good Luck and we may see you over the winter.

    ReplyDelete
  2. As New Yorkers (from the city, that is) who have visited GHL for the past sixteen years, we are overjoyed to hear that the Lodge is under new ownership!
    Welcome!

    ReplyDelete
  3. We're extremely excited about GHL's comeback. If you can think of a way we can help (www.NYSkiBlog.com) please let us know.

    ReplyDelete