Chez Linnea

 This is the lovely home in Great Barrington, Massachusetts where we stayed for Peter and Shani's wedding. Ten bedrooms and four baths, including a master suite and a tiny nursery room, make it quite spacious for a group event.

 Four bedrooms have balconies or decks off of them.

 The rear of the home shows the access to the second floor. Each floor can be rented separately. The upstairs is a bit fancier and nicer; I think Linnea stays there when she comes to visit. The kitchen is truly well-stocked except for the frig; the pantry is stocked as for a regular home. It's very welcoming!
Lots of space and big, bright windows make the upstairs living area a good place to gather.

And the upstairs kitchen is roomy with a big island.

I've never seen so many hostas in my life as in her garden! They line the driveway and most of the beds. She puts a lot of work into the landscaping.

 Someone is dividing and propagating the hostas very expertly.
The property is flanked by woods on three sides.

 A large firepit and outdoor party area lie to one side of the house. She has herb gardens there also.

 I noticed the lilac bushes out front right away. We can't grow them in North Carolina.

 The view from the front porch:

 Here is one of the rooms downstairs -- very nice. Her decorating style is kind of French shabby-chic. She's gathered many items from her travels, an eclectic menagerie throughout the house.

 She has many beautiful, large bowls for decorating. We served donuts in these two.

 Many pictures and paintings hang on the walls. I liked this one - it seems old and European.

 I loved this one of all the different shops in Provence.

 All these were downstairs, where we stayed. Here is a neat hall tree with huge pine cones at its feet. This is indicative of her style, which I love.

 Some other pieces were more of a mystery to us; as I said, she has varied and unusual taste.

 
 And some items were definitely "camp art" style:

 

Rustic pottery:

The house itself is charming and quite comfortable. We did have an issue with a clogged toilet that was not repaired while we were there, putting a lot of pressure on the bathrooms for the remainder of the weekend. The house was nearly full to capacity with 19 people most nights, and one bath is attached to the master bedroom. But we made it all work, and it was a lovely setting for the wedding. Linnea has clearly made this house a labor of love for her visitors.

Emerald Isle, Part Two

I feel kinda silly doing a part one/part two. But honestly, at my age, trying to do a really long blog post can stretch the capabilities of one's brain.
Anyway ... Thursday afternoon we relaxed in our room. And this brings up another topic: the layout of a B&B establishment. Most B&B's are houses with front doors, hallways, and bedrooms with baths attached. But the Harborside Guesthouse is unusual. The porches wrap around the building with stairs connecting them. These are the "hallways." Every room/suite has an exterior door onto a deck with a table, but NO interior, connected space. It's lovely looking. But it means that if you're not in your room, you're sitting on a blistering hot deck in the full sun and heat in July. We did eat breakfast out there, and that was lovely, if a bit windy. But once the sun hit the deck ... boom! It's hot as blazes and off limits. And although there is a lounge, we'd have to walk all the way around the building on the hot deck, down some stairs, through the lobby, and into the lounge. Too much trouble, especially if you find you've left your glasses in your room.
The end result is this: Harborside is a B&B where you tend to stay in your room the whole time instead of enjoying the entire house. That's a significant limitation, IMO.
For dinner we returned to Flipperz, a beachy/casual restaurant. We anticipated a wait; they told us an hour, but it was only 35 minutes. It was hot waiting outside. We had a waitress and a waitress-in-training.

I was still full from lunch, so I told Adam I didn't want to order a full meal for myself. We'd had the fried green beans before, so he ordered those first. $7.99. And not a large basket - this is it:

Adam ordered fried shrimp. His salad arrived -- very pretty.

That chunk of bread is just that: a chunk of bread. Boring, dry. 

Should have been buttered and garlicked and toasted.

When it came time to order, I said I'd have a bowl of seafood bisque. I thought I remembered that we'd ordered it last time, and somebody liked it. Seemed safe. A bowl of soup is small.

Both waitresses stood over my head.

The waitress asked me, "Do you want a cup or a bowl?"

"Uh..." I said."A bowl?"

 I didn't want a little cup of soup. Besides, I wasn't getting anything else.

When the soup arrived, the bowl was about 12" across. It was massive.

And boring, and too sweet, and I didn't like it.

So Adam ate most of it.

(What was I thinking anyway? I don't usually like seafood!)

Adam's dinner came. It was supposed to be a shrimp platter ...

It was a plate with some popcorn shrimp and some french fries. $17.99.

I nibbled half of his fries.

And that bowl of soup? $9.99.

In the end, with a tip, that meal cost us over $43. And we drank WATER.

Such is eating out at the beach, and I'm mightily weary of it.

I'm even considering dumping the whole B&B idea and 

renting a little condo next time so Adam can cook for us.

 It was a grouchy drive to the B&B, I'm sorry to say. I'm a miser and hate to spend money, and this B&B trip was fast becoming a pricey enterprise. But as the sun set I asked Adam if he wanted to walk around outside, in spite of the latent warmth. We sat on the dock, on the bench.

 This is a shot of the ground floor deck and lounge for use by the guests.
I wish I could say we took advantage of it much. It's lovely, but just too warm to walk around there.
The deck seating from above:

Here's an outside view of Harborside Guesthouse. You can see how it's laid out a bit. Our room was right in the center of that middle floor. You can see one of our red breakfast chairs.

You can see that each room has many windows -- ours had 5 in the bedroom and 2 in the bath! All had white mini-blinds. See all those deck lights, especially the glaring one on the left? Those are security lights, and they shone all night long. It was tough sleeping with them.
 It's a very lovely building with fabulous views of  Bogue Sound on three sides. Quiet and peaceful. Sweet, kind very-young innkeepers who work hard. I think it would be much more enjoyable in the fall or spring, or even winter!

 I realize I've not posted a photo of myself, and this is all I've got - haha! It was quite dark on the dock, giving these a watercolor effect.

I also watched part of a Tom Hanks movie and read more in the "Cat Who" book. I'm ashamed to admit it has replaced Jane Austen temporarily. Adam moved on to more serious reading: The Collapse of the Third Republic by William Shirer about France in 1940. Adam has wide reading tastes.
Speaking of taste, here was our breakfast appetizer this morning, a peach something-or-other. Crumble?

Very yummy. Then nutella pancakes with sausage links and watermelon. One of my pancakes was still gooey in the middle, and the sweet innkeeper apologetically took it back and brought me another one. 

 Breakfast is served at 9:00 and not before, which is unusual for a B&B. But it gave me time each morning to read, sip tea, and paint. I did this:

Some flowers on their deck.
We planned to take our time returning home, spending several hours at the North Carolina Aquarium in Pine Knolls, but such was not the Lord's plan! Julia called and said that Ned was injured and crying loudly. His face was very swollen and he was in extreme pain. She had to go to work. So we headed straight home. Julia had a lot to care for in our absence, what with dogs and chickens and her own job. Adam took Ned to the vet, and the poor pup had been bitten by a snake. He's much better now. He was so pitiful! No idea where the snake went, but we do seem to be having a snakey summer. Did I mention that Adam killed a 4-foot king snake for me that was in the chicken coop? Yep.
So that's our little vacation. Adam and I do perhaps over-analyze these B&B trips, but they are important to us, and (for us) they are expensive. Because we can only do them about every other year, we want them to be perfect. This time we really conversed about the most important criteria (for us) in a perfect B&B weekend. I may be posting about that another time. I think sometimes we've gotten distracted from what actually makes us content and happy. Vacationing in 95 degree weather with a heat index of 105 and full-blown humidity is probably not the first good step. Crowds dampen our spirits too. Next time we should go in February!

Emerald Isle, Part One

Wednesday lunch -- Thursday afternoon
Adam and I celebrated our 27th anniversary with a little vacation to Emerald Isle. For those of you unfamiliar with the North Carolina coast, this is a gem on the outer banks, south of Atlantic Beach and north of Topsail. We started with lunch in Jacksonville at a restaurant Adam was eager to visit: Marakesh. This is a Mediterranean restaurant, #1 on TripAdvisor for quite a while. Adam ate their food when a church catered the presbytery meeting from them this past year.

We had the lunch special: shawarma meat from a roasting spit (beef/lamb combo), rice, hummus, tabouli, tahini, cucumber salad, and couscous. Adam is more fond of Moroccan food than I am.

He had Turkish coffee. I sipped it too because honestly the food is quite mild in flavor, and I needed something to give it a kick.

Very nice pita bread:

Lovely interior decor:

We wasted a little time in Jacksonville in blistering heat, 

and arrived at our B&B in Emerald Isle at 3:00 on the dot.

Harborlight Guesthouse

It looks out over Bogue Sound, a very quiet, calm, HOT place.

taken from the Emerald Isle bridge

I chose this place weeks ago after looking at B&Bs all over eastern NC. It had extremely good reviews; the morning we left I read online that a young couple had bought the guesthouse in May, but reviews were still quite good, and we were packed to go. The view from our balcony was lovely afternoon, sunset, or morning:

We arrived only to discover that we had come a week early. Do not inquire, dear readers, of the miscommunication that produced this mishap. Suffice it to say that it occurred and that it was our fault. The kind innkeeper informed us that our room was taken (of course), but that another room was available for only $20/night more. I sat, dejected and exhausted in the lobby, feeling the anxiety welling inside me. But in the end, one must do something, and I certainly wasn't going back home, unpacking, waiting another week, packing again, and then coming on vacation. Not when I was already here. So we took the room, which is a very nice room. It's only drawback was that it does not have a deep, clawfoot bathtub, which the other room had. It's the reason I picked the room, and why I picked this B&B. Sigh. Isn't there a saying about the best-laid plans...?
I like to watercolor on vacations. I find it relaxing. I'm no good, but I don't do it because I'm good. I do it to relax. That takes the performance pressure off -- haha!

Our breakfast spot.

Adam was finishing up one of those Lillian Braun "The Cat Who..." books. He picked it up at a thrift store in Swansboro the day before. We stopped there because I (of course) had dropped Moroccan food on my shirt and needed a replacement. And being a loyal thrift store shopper, I cannot stomach paying department store prices.

Thankfully we could just type "thrift stores in Jacksonville, NC"

 into Google Maps, and several popped up.

Did I say something about breakfast?

These sausage/cream cheese--in--croissant rolls were quite good.

This was to waken the palate.
A few minutes later: fruit, scrambled eggs, bacon, grit cake

Before that we were brought a pot of coffee, but before that we'd served ourselves coffee and creamy sweet chai in the lounge downstairs.
I told Adam I wanted at leastto  see the beach and wiggle my toes in sand, so we took advantage of free parking at the Bogue Inlet Pier.

The B&B provided us with chairs, towels, and umbrella, and Adam lugged those to the beach.

He finished the Cat book, and then he passed it on to me. I hadn't read one of these before, but it sounded like light, silly reading, just right for the beach.

Adam slathers himself in sun block, covers with a towel and collared shirt, and sits under the umbrella. We do not come for sun burn anymore, thankyouverymuch. We are too old.

We'd barely sat down when a group of children with a flag ambled onto the beach. I thought they were a Boy Scout troop, but there were a few girls mixed in. Adam thought they were a Jr. ROTC group, doing a beach run. He went to ask.

These mere children are new US army soldiers. We watched their swearing-in ceremony. They are so utterly green -- they didn't know how to stand. One particularly naughty-looking boy with his ball cap perched backwards on his head the whole time will soon have his life altered at boot camp. After teaching high school English for a decade I can spot a naughty 17 year old a mile away. Oh dear. Bless them.
We only stayed until the beach became too heavily populated for my comfort, until nearly lunch.
We showered and headed to lunch at the Village Market. We'd been there two years ago when we took a B&B trip to Salter Path.
Adam had the Village Club sandwich.

I had the Cobb Salad with ginger/sesame dressing.

We also spent a lot of time in the car driving, and Adam reminded me of how tiresome it is to look at old vacation photos and not see any humans in them. So here he is again. I don't get tired of that handsome face :)

More to come ...