Inn at the Peak

Peek'n Peak is best known for its ski slopes, but oddly, I've never been there in the winter.  In fact I've only ever been there in mid-August.  Thirty years ago Steve and I spent our wedding night at the Inn.  Twenty years ago, on our tenth anniversary, we stayed at there with newborn Emily (the boys spent the night with Grandma and Grandpa).  And this week, we returned to the Inn at the Peak to celebrate thirty years of marriage.  Much of it looked the way we remembered it: the lobby and dining room with their grand chandeliers, the great stone fireplaces, the  shadowy indoor pool, and the grassy hills and motionless chair lifts waiting patiently for snow.  We felt the same, too: excited, hopeful, happy to be someplace special and beautiful together with no worries and nothing to do but relax and enjoy ourselves.  Of course, the inn has changed some over the years, too.  There are computers in the lobby, wi-fi in the rooms, a sunny coffee shop that sells cappuccinos and lattes, and a very fun water slide in the outdoor pool.  Yet, at the same time, it's showing its age in places: the carpets are thin in spots, the staircase to the pool area sags and slopes more than it used to, and the tennis courts are shabby and worn.  Steve and I have changed some over the years, too: we're more sure of each other, more comfortable together; we have wonderful grown-up kids now, two of whom joined us the second night and made us laugh and treated us to dinner; and we have real jobs, a house, and health insurance.  But we also have creaky knees that ache after two sets of tennis; bodies that sag a little more in places; and neither of us can order off a menu without reading glasses.  In the end, though, the Inn at the Peak was all we'd hoped it would be and more; and when I look back over the past thirty years, I would say the same is true about our life together.  Here's to decade #4 and another visit to Peek'n Peak!