As an inn owner you always want your rooms full of guests and usually by this time of year we have been able to hang the “No Vacancy” sign out on the weekends and are gearing up to have it up more often than not, but this has not been a “normal” year. As fears of COVID-19 caused cancellation after cancellation of reservations from mid-March through September we were wondering if we would ever be hanging our “No Vacancy” up again.
As our clean rooms sat empty we spent our time getting organized, applying for financial relief and trying to work out a budget that could see us through. We started our outside clean-up and hoped that we would once again have guests sitting around our fire pit or enjoying the sound of the creek as they rocked in one of our rocking chairs in the pergola.
As we moved into the “Safer at Home” phase we started to see a small number of inquires for later this summer, but with Memorial Day weekend coming we only had our long term stays booked and it was looking like we were going to sit with empty rooms. The nice weather and boredom of being stuck home so long seemed to inspire some people to venture out. We suddenly started to get calls and found ourselves fully booked for the weekend.
With a huge sense of pride and relief we dusted off the “No Vacancy” sign and hung it up. We are not fully getting back to “normal”, but we have hope that once again our rooms will be full with people enjoying everything Evergreen has to offer.