Duck Inn

The whole process of picking a place for my personal vacation was drawn-out and uncertain.  It took me forever, long hours of looking at places online, comparing prices, schedules, reserved dates, locations...  On the beach?  In the mountains?  My inability to firm up a date and decide exactly where it was I wanted to go made me think that maybe I really didn't want to go at all.

And then I came across this place:  Duck Inn Log House

It's not on the beach.  It's not in the mountains.  It's not actually in the woods.  It wasn't even available for the dates I wanted. 

But something told me it would be perfect, and I should make the reservation right away, no fooling around until the dates were gone. 

In the weeks since I made the reservation, in my OCD way, I've fretted about whether I would like the place, whether I would be too freaked out staying in a strange house all by myself, whether it could possibly be as "perfect" as it appeared to be online.  I've been through the vacation rental  process many, many times, and I can say confidently that the nicer they appear in the "literature," the worse they are in actuality.  Which makes sense, really...you don't have to put lipstick on it if it isn't a pig.

By the time I left home yesterday, I had about worked myself into an ulcer attack worrying about the trip.  Sometimes I wonder why I do this to myself...maybe I should just stay home and not present myself with challenges to my increasing phobias.  But that wouldn't do at all, would it?  I will slay those dragons, dammit!  And I will do it alone, because I am alone, in many of the ways that matter.

I drove to Lincoln City in pouring rain--of course, the Universe chose this week to break the drought that has parched us since last winter.  But I can't complain, we need the rain so badly.  I told myself I would be able to find things to keep myself occupied if I was stuck inside the whole week by the Pineapple Express (the name given to large, wet, warm storms that blow up from the south in fall and winter).  Still, it added to my unease about the trip.

I followed the directions, found the house, in a rather unprepossessing location not far from a seedier strip of Highway 101.  Ready to be disappointed, I opened the front door.  And this was the first thing I saw:

And I knew I was home.