Blue,Nothing much to regret, at least for me since the apartment in town is just twelve miles away from the place in the woods at Eagle Nest lake. Snow time in town and at the lake again when the snow melts. I have the best of both worlds and this makes my winters much easier without having to put up all that firewood and haul water in the frozen months. Having a shower at hand is pretty nice and actually I'll be able to do more bike building at the apartment than i could at the lake, at least in the cold months. I've outfitted my apartment to accomodate the way I live. In the living room there is no couch, no TV and no table for eating, but I do have a couple of comfy chairs for reading and chatting with a friend and have the Indian Hiawatha tri-car sitting on display as well as the 1934 Elgin Velocipede sitting under the front windows and on a butcher block table I have the "kindalikeawhizzer" on display, too. I consider them art objects, so they take the place of the usual furniture. In my bedroom I have a single bed for me and the wonder dog, a butcher block laptop table and against one wall a work bench large enough to sit a bike on. Between the work bench and my bed is the 1963 American Deluxe hybrid trike where I can work on it at any time. Also I have direct access to the outdoors and can wheel a bike inside if I want. Up until very recently I had my rack mount 3 speed mountain bike next to the front door so the dog and I did lots of riding around in town with Aaniimoosh in her kiddie trailer.. She is much liked by the apartment neighbors who are mostly old ladies. A couple of them are good looking and friendly to the bear, too, so life is good.
And yes, being in town in the winter gives me easy access to the library within walking distance, something important to me bcause I read a lot and can check out dvds to watch on the laptop. A couple of days ago I was staying at the lake to do work in buttoning up the place for the winter and visiting with neighbor friends, then back to town for a couple of days of rain and now I'm back out at the lake for a few more days, draining water lines and shutting down the well pump before freezup. It dropped to 22 degrees last night so I'm lucky that pipes didn't burst from the cold. If I do want to stay over in the woods for a few days I can do that whenever I want. Especially in late winter when spring thaw is beginning and the sun has some power I may well find myself wanting to be back in the forest.
I'm a pretty lucky old guy actually. Might take a last swim in the lake tomorrow as it is to be sunny. Leaf change has peaked, leaves are falling and snow time is coming. Its all good.
SB