Day 2

We finally had a chance to make another trip up north to look at cottages. The first three properties were on the Rifle River which I am not interested in so I went with the mindset that I was not going to like them which Bill was not happy about.

The first one was really cute but too close to the river.It had two bedrooms, one on the main floor and one upstairs.The first floor was a little awkward. There was really no good place to put a kitchen table. The owners had it half in the family room and half in the hallway. Very strange. I suppose there would be away to fix it, but I couldn't think of it at that moment.
There's not much you can do on a river, however, the Rifle River is well known for it's canoeing and kayaking so that would be cool. oh, and as I type this, I'm scratching from all the mosquito bites I got!

I didn't even take pictures of the second place. The house had potential but not what we were looking for and the river was too far away. You couldn't see it from the house and it was a little of a hike to get there.

The third place on the river was just right as far as distance from house to river but of the three houses this was the least favorite. It was a "mishmash" of add ons. It didn't flow. The walk back to the house was uphill and very exhausting. If it tired me out now, what will happen in 10 years?at least here, the river had somewhat of a sandy shore where you could go in and wade and get wet if you wanted to.

Now, here is a winner! the fourth house is on Lake Ogemaw, near West Branch.
It has two bedrooms. one on the main floor and the other one is upstairs in the loft which would make a great den/guest room. big enough for a bed and a futon. The house is a little smaller than we would like, but doable. the owners dropped the price quite a bit and the realtor thinks they would come down more.

Lake Ogemaw is an all sports lake but this property is actually on a cove so it's really quiet. It would be a great place to just float ;)
Even though this place had everything we wanted, it wasn't perfect. We decided that we could afford to be picky and see if there was something a little more perfect. We decided to keep this place in mind, but still look a little more. If nothing better comes up, we would come back and make an offer if it's still available. I'm just nervous about this whole thing. I keep asking Bill if he's sure about this, all the extra expense and work it would take to keep a second home.

Another thing to take into consideration is the traffic. No matter where we go up north, it would require us to take I75. It is the only interstate highway that runs north and south through Michigan. It can be very congested going north on Friday afternoons, but its worse going south on Sundays. It took us an extra 40 minutes to get home. One criteria we have is that the property cannot be more than 2 1/2 hours away and since I don't usually start work on Mondays until 11:00, it would almost make sense to wait until Monday morning to drive home.