Those of you who know Gary and I may already know some of the following story I am about to share.
A few months ago a dear friend, Kyle (affectionately known as "poodle") shared with me that there was an amazing competition going on. A lovely lady called Janice was getting ready to retire after 20 years of running a country inn located in Lovell, Maine.
She came to run this property in a most unusual way - by entering a 200 word essay to a competition. Prize? The inn. Lock, stock and barrel. Twenty years later and Janice's decision to retire came. With this also came her beautiful choice to pay it forward, and run the essay competition again.
Gary and I have had a long held dream of owning and running a thriving bed and breakfast. We both love to host and make people happy and though it might sound egocentric, we know we'll be awesome at it. So when Poodle told us about this competition, there was nothing else to do. We entered two essays and had the most incredible incredible support and energy poured over us from our friends over a wonderful 2 month period. It meant and means, so much to us. We love each and every one of you that rode the wave of positive energy. And though we didnt win and the inn ended up not being for us, it really did plant a seed, a super aggressive growing one....for an adventure.
This dream, it's still alive, it's still growing.
Course, there are deep deep roots here in Washington State. Even before the competition we had been looking all over this state...and Oregon too, to find homes bug enough, and with enough character. There are a couple around, but what we found was that Northwesters tend more towards smaller than 5 bedrooms homes and those larger....millions.
Then Maine started calling. The more research we did, the more beauty we found. And surprisingly, we found out how inexpensive homes were there...huge, character filled homes, for a fraction of the cost here. Plus, it's a place people go on vacations to. Maine is actually called Vactionland (who knew).
We've looked at hundreds of properties online since then. The list is now whittled down to 25, and later this month we are set to take, (as we call it in New Zealand) "a tiki tour" of Maine looking at the 25 and seeing if any if them are for us.
Because this is such a major adventure, such a fork in the road (potentially), we thought you might enjoy the journey with us. So my little blog Flourish has been reborn so that our story can be told. Fancy a trip to Vactionland my lovelies?
