My husband and I are fortunate enough to live in

My husband and I are fortunate enough to live in a recreational area. We are both still working; however we purchased our retirement home early. We have talked about wanting to retire by a lake ever since we were married. A few years ago we happened upon our present home by accident. After discussing the pros and cons of moving further away from our jobs, we decided that having a lake home on the weekends would be worth the sacrifice of spending additional time on the road during the week. It was the best decision we ever made. The price of lake properties has steadily increased since that time. We could no longer afford to buy our home if we had waited. We will make a great profit on it some day.

Being in a recreation area means that there are festivals, fairs, small town celebrations and other events happening throughout the year. There are several very nice arts fairs that are held annually. One of my sisters loves country folk art. She has a large older home in the country, so she has if decorated with country folk art. Each year when this festival is held she comes over to my house and we go exploring the arts fair together. We have gone often enough that we are able to distinguish authentic pieces from those that are duplicates. This year my sister told me that she wanted to drive when we went to the country folk art festival because she was looking for a large piece of art to place in her yard. She borrowed her husbands truck so we could haul a larger piece if she found one. One of the things we did not take into account when she brought the larger vehicle was the parking situation. This festival is held in a lakeside park. The park is long and narrow and extends for several blocks. There are usually many people at the event and parking is difficult. My sister is not used to driving the large truck so we spent a great deal of time finding a place that was big enough for her to maneuver the truck into.

Once we finally parked we had to walk several blocks to get to the park. By time we arrived I told my sister that I hoped she did not find anything because it would be a long way to carry items back to the vehicle. As we were looking at the different pieces on display we came across some wooden sculptures that were treated to be outdoors. They were beautiful, and exactly what my sister was looking for. She picked out the one she wanted. The artist helped us get her new piece of country folk art into the vehicle.