The Blue Heron

http://www.blueheronbandb.com/

 

After a long drive from the Shenandoah Mountains we finally arrived this beautiful huge home tucked away on Solomon’s Island.  There are almost no words to appropriately describe the Blue Heron Bed and Breakfast.  It is lush and elegant, luxurious and a place that you might find the very wealthy would escape for a weekend of peace and rejuvenation, yet it is a place where the simple and ordinary can feel at home and serene… can feel spoiled yet comfortable.  I’ve never been anyplace quite like it.

 

I’ve pasted in the link above.  My brother treated Hopeful1 and I to a night in Balcony Suite#1, but the picture in the website doesn’t even come close to doing it justice.  This suite is not just a room, it truly is a luxury suite.  There was huge polished furniture… I’m not too good on woods, but I think maybe it was mahogany, a plush soft chair with ottoman.  The bed was big and plump, like the princess in the pea bed LOL… with a fluffy comforter over the top and huge soft pillows with top notch linen sheets and pillow cases… you know the kind that feel thick and solid against your cheek and smell fresh and wonderful… ahhhhhh  I know in the photo it just looks like a big bed… but, believe me, it was much more than that.

 

To top it off… when you lay on your right side, you gazed out the window over the water and sailboats, masts high.  Even when we arrived, with the dark skies and gray water, it was beautiful.  The wind was buffeting the boats and the water was choppy and slapping everything around.  A howling noise sang through the balcony doors and it was delightful, rattling and roaring at us in our safe and elegant cushy room.  No, it doesn’t get better than this… it just doesn’t.

 

And we sat on the bed and bounced a few times, giggling like kids, then we went into the bathroom… a huge sprawling place, as big as the bedroom itself, with a floor to ceiling mirror, two lovely sinks with Kohler princess fixtures and a huge shower stall with two heads and a steamer (and you can also set the exact temperature of the water you want!)  There was also a towel warmer!

 

We cleaned up a bit because my brother was going to be back to take us out to dinner in about 45 minutes, then we went downstairs to the “great room” where Richard and Annie, or hosts set out a few munchies and offered us some wine (which we accepted).  We sipped our huge glass of merlot and chatted with our hosts and the two other guests while looking out the wall of windows over Solomon’s harbor. 

We found out that Annie is a retired school teacher (who practiced not far from where we live now) and that Richard is a retired cartographer who worked for National Geographic.  His hobby is building model boats and some of the ones he’s built are astounding!  You can see pictures of a few of them at the Blue Heron website.  They were fun, warm, and interesting people to chat with.

 

In a short while my brother showed up and we went out to a place called Stoney’s which served wonderful fish.  Apparently they’re pretty well-known for their delicious crab cakes (which my brother ordered and we sampled.  They were quite good) but we had their seafood special that included salmon, grouper, and mahi-mahi along with rice and vegetables.  The fish was delicious, but there was so much of it I not only couldn’t finish the fish, but didn’t even touch the rice or veggies.  Hopeful1 and I also each had another glass of red wine so we were pretty tipsy by the time we left Stoney’s.

 

My brother took us for a drive around the island and he also took us to his new apartment to show us what it looked like.  It was terrific (but we’ll get to that later).  Then, after our long day, he deposited us back at the Blue Heron where we crept back up to our wonderful room, glad to have plenty of evening left to enjoy it.

 

Tipsy and silly, we wrapped ourselves in fluffy towels and sat in the steamy shower in our luxury bathroom… Emerging from the steam we froze, but wrapped ourselves in the huge terry Blue Heron bathrobes hanging nearby then we giggled happily, squeaky voiced at how ecstatically thrilled we were with the fun we were having. 

We didn’t have enough positive adjectives to describe how wonderful we felt about this bed and breakfast and this terrific room.  Neither of us had ever stayed at a bed and breakfast.  I’d always felt too shy to ever do that and I don’t think the idea had ever occurred to her.  We stepped out on our rainy balcony for a few moments, just to enjoy the sea air and the fact that we COULD. 

 

Settling down, we got on our pajamas and curled up on t

he bed with the little book that came with the room.  We read about Richard’s boat building hobby and about the Blue Heron, then we put on TV but spent most of our time just talking over it.  When we began to get sleepy, I turned on my right side so that my last view at night and first in the morning would be Solomon’s bay and the moored sailboats and sparkling night water.  The wind still howled and the ran still spattered but it was a wonderful sight.  I felt pampered and completely buried under blankets and love.

During the night I would wake up now and then, look out over the water and sigh with happiness.  What a view.  Unfortunately Hopeful1 was not as happy.  There were lots of noises in the house, who knows what… in my sleepiness I thought it was dripping of some sort or something.  Anyway, she says to me, “I can’t sleep because of that noise.”

 

“What noise, that dripping?”

 

“Is that what it is, dripping?”

 

“Yes, at least I THINK so…”

 

“Well, it’s keeping me awake.”

 

I don’t remember the rest of the conversation… maybe there wasn’t a rest of it… LOL maybe I just went back to sleep on her, I don’t know.

 

I woke up much later when the sky was dark dark dark, but maybe just the littlest bit of pink in the distance.  Maybe it’s sunrise, I thought.  I watched, but then my eyes closed.  I had no idea what time it was, but I knew it was early.  I woke up again, not much later… still dark, but maybe a little more pink.  I’m staying awake this time, I thought, to watch the sun come up… and I did for awhile… watching the sky, the water, the boats… thinking about God, the realizing… “God, thank you! This is the first morning in months I haven’t awakened obsessing about my obsessions!!! YES!!!”  What a wonderful feeling.  And I thanked God again!  “He will give me all good gifts.”  I thought about a recent sermon I had heard.  I praised Him and thanked Him again. I continued to watch the sunrise but somehow slipped into sleep again.

 

Sometime later, be it minutes or maybe an hour, I awakened again.  It was a little more red in the sky and it was lighter outside.  Again I thanked God that I was not obsessing about my father/my therapist/my fake father/my real father… on and on and on… The day was wonderful.  I watched the water lap at the boats and cuddled under the blanket.

 

This went on and on… drifting in and out of sleep and watching the sun slowly rise from pink to red to gold to finally, after what seemed like hours (and may very well have been) the sun burst out over the clouds and made the temperature rise almost immediately to where I had to get up and turn on the ceiling fan and slightly close the blinds. 

 

Poor Hopeful1 said, “What are you doing?”  She was NOW trying to sleep.

 

“I’m just closing the blinds a little bit.”

 

“I thought you weren’t going to do that.”

 

“The sun is too warm.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Hmmm… I’m going to open the balcony door,” and I did that, with my bag propping it closed somewhat so that it wouldn’t fly open and slam into the glass of the other windows.  The fresh sea air blew in and filled my lungs, my nose, my life…. Ahhhhhhhh yes!

 

We lay in the bed and talked for a little bit then finally went down to breakfast at 9am, where Annie made upside down pineapple French toast, baked pears and ham.  Each Hopeful1 and myself took a real shower and long steam all on our little naked own, then got dressed to go for a long walk around Solomon’s Island with my brother.  We enjoyed the room as long as we could, but check out time finally came around, plus we wanted to have time with my brother.

 

If you are ever in the D.C. area and you want a wonderful (but maybe a little pricey) escape… I highly, and most enthusiastically, recommend the Blue Heron Bed and Breakfast.