Our Besties Brian and Maria
Remembering the good times we had during our first winter on Beaver Island during Covid, and the fact that we have made deep friendships with some other “islanders”, combined again with the fact that it had been an exhausting vacation season at the Beaver Island Lodge, AND the fresh memory of our disastrous Pacific cruise, we early on in the year made the decision to spend the winter on island.
You have to understand that during the summer season, which roughly runs from Memorial Day in May to a couple of weeks past Labor Day, we work 7 days a week and socialize with friends maybe twice, if our respective stars align. It’s the time you make your money for the year, so all focus is on planning for a perfect execution.
2023 was a rough season for hospitality on Beaver Island. After the flare up of Covid 19, the island had witnessed an increase in visitors, that now had been replaced by guests that demanded their entitlements to be met. On a 55 Square mile island with a population of some 600 people that is at the best of times hard to accomplish. The hospitality infrastructure is simply not available. So it was a hard season and we wanted peace and tranquility and we lazied through the winter of 2023/24 with just a short April 2024 trip to see the kids and grandkids in Holland, Michigan.
Brian and Han making music
Dinner nights with friends, game nights (in particular Mexican Train and some card games) and music nights were on a loosely drawn up schedule. With our “besties” Brian and Maria, who own and operate the Beaver Island Retreat Glamping, we worked up a calendar and enjoyed a soft winter. Early in the new year we ventured out on some island boodles, to check on beaches, forests and new developments. For those of you unaware, an Island Boodle is a Beaver Island creation that involves a car or truck with a load bed , some loose chairs, a table, booze in a cooler, covers or blankets to stay warm and a cranked up radio and off you go for hours through the forests and past the beaches of an island that offers 9 miles of paved road and 97 miles of gravel and sand roads.
It’s fun.
Before we left the island again later that year, we told the owners of the Lodge that 2025 would be our 7th and last year to manage the operation, as we would be retiring.
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