By Alkali Springs Correspondent
March is here and there will be as these early months roll on, more and more Beaver Creek Park cabin activity.
We have not written a column about cabins for quite a while now and something a fellow said to us this week got us to thinking of the interesting relationship cabin owners have with their cabins.
This fellow has a cabin in the park and he and his family went out to it last weekend to enjoy a Saturday afternoon. There were four wheelers running all over the hillsides in his area and it go him so mad they all headed back for town.
We have heard of that happening time and time again.
First of all cabin ownership is not for everyone. That is so obvious by the number of cabins for sale at any given time in Beaver Creek Park. But for those who love their cabins they roughly fall into two categories. Those who go out and socialize in a place different than town. And those who love to have a private life in their cabins trying as much as possible to become one with nature.
Now in Beaver Creek Park, mind you, those two classes of folks might end up just a few yards from each other. That does not make for good neighbors. One camp never sleeps at night and the other camp never sleeps during the day. Awful for both!
Things like that happening lead to cabin sales for one or the other and sometimes both. Not only that but for those seeking solitude in particular, dragging into the mix of snowmobiles all winter long and four wheelers some of the time too. Well, gentle readers, that was why we left Alkali Springs all those years ago. Just too much noise.
Think of it this way. Cabin ownership comes with a high price tag in the first place. Many cabin owners we know spend their weeks in town cooking, cleaning and tending to the lawn and then head to the cabin for the weekend where they cook, clean and tend to the lawn and when they do finally get all their chores done at the cabin, low and behold it is Sunday night and time to go off to town. Not a particularly relaxing weekend especially when it will all have to be repeated the next time someone goes to the cabin.
One tip for relaxing we learned from old time cabin owners on Clear Creek was the change your life so that somehow you spend Sunday evenings at the cabin. Time and time again those Sunday evenings when they used to head back to town turned into the very best of all cabin times. Even the weather seems better on Sunday nights. If you have noticed it can storm all weekend long and just when you are ready to head to town, the sun comes out and it is just beautiful. So stay in the mountains on Sunday night.
We come from a long line of cabin owners and in watching them deal with cabins and thinking about the cabins in our own life, the best rule of all is keep it simple. Why mow when you have to mow in town? After all you like the mountains because they are God's garden at its best. Why not keep it natural around your cabin. Much easier way to deal with cabin life. Leaves time for just drifting and dreaming.
Take cleaning. We used to love huge cabins and we never did get finished cleaning them. Just when we got one floor done, the other floor would be dirty.
These days since we have decided that a tiny cabin is fine, we are spick and span in under an hour. Not too bad for one who used to clean all the time.
Use the words of Thoreau and Simplify, simplify. That is the best way to enjoy cabin life. And what to do about the noise? Don't be afraid to sell, move, sell and remove around until you find just the right combination of neighbors, noise and the like. And one last tip. When selling, seldom does someone not make money on a Beaver Creek cabin.
Happy trails to your own latch string. May it always be out!
