Driftwood Sleeps 2
The honeymoon shack, one room and a porch swing hung where the sunset lands. Closest walk to the marina coffee pot.
Standard season$119 / night
Harlow Landing, Illinois · Shawnee bluff country · est. 1987
Six cabins on the bluff. The river out front.
Gene and I have kept cabins on this bend of the Ohio since 1987. Wood heat, screened porches, a marina row with kayaks and jon boats, and guided trips when you want somebody who knows the water. Write us a note like you’d talk across a fence — the porch book reads it, and I answer every one myself.
- Wood heat
- Screened porches
- River out front
- Coffee on at 6
“The porch light’s on when your cabin’s ready. Always has been. The computer just means I spend my evenings on the porch instead of the paperwork.”— Rosie, owner since 1987
0Cabins on the bluff line
0River miles we guide
0Seasons since we hung the sign
0Towns our guests drove in from last year
The cabins
Wood heat, screened porches, and no two alike.
Every cabin was built or rebuilt by Gene and whoever he could rope in that summer. Rates below are standard season — the calendar further down shows how quiet season, fall color, and camp season move them.
Kingfisher Sleeps 4
Two rooms over the creek mouth where the kingfishers argue all morning. Best fishing off the back steps.
Standard season$139 / night
Walnut Sleeps 4
Under the big walnut Gene refuses to trim. Cast-iron stove, deep bathtub, the quiet cabin.
Standard season$145 / night
Sycamore Sleeps 6
The family cabin, with the long porch table where every card game in this valley has been lost at least once.
Standard season$169 / night
Bluffside Sleeps 6
Hangs right on the bluff lip. You will watch barges glide past at eye level and lose an afternoon doing it.
Standard season$179 / night
Cedar Bend Sleeps 8
The big one — two stories, bunk room, kitchen that can feed a deer camp. Books out a year ahead for fall color.
Standard season$205 / night
Quiet season (Dec–Feb) runs $30 under standard and we winterize Driftwood and Walnut. Shoulder season (Mar–Apr) runs $20 under. Peak fall color (Oct) runs $40 over. Camp season (Nov) runs $10 over. Every quote carries the river-condition clause — the river decides, you don’t pay for it.
Trips & the marina row
If it floats or walks these hills, we outfit it.
Gene guides, our nephew Curtis runs the marina row, and the coffee’s on at 6. Gear rents by the day; guided trips are by the person, lunch included.
Guided floats & fishing
Half-day and full-day floats on the stretch Gene has fished for forty years. Smallmouth in the creeks, catfish on the big water, golden-hour floats under the bluffs.
$120 / person · lunch & vests includedDeer & duck camp
November and December, the cabins turn to camp. Early coffee, drying racks on every porch, walk-in access to public timber, and a duck blind lottery we run fair and square.
Camp weekends book by the cabinMarina row
Kayaks $35 a day, canoes $30, jon boats $60 with the motor gassed, overnight slips $18. Curtis will have you loaded and pointed the right direction in ten minutes.
Open May–October · life vests free
Seasons & the river
The calendar sets the rate. The river sets the rules.
This is the same season calendar and gauge reading the Front Porch Book checks when it reads your note. Nothing fancy — just the truth about how a river year goes.
The Bluff Line year
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
- Quiet · −$30
- Shoulder · −$20 · high-water watch
- Summer · standard
- Fall color · +$40
- Camp · +$10
Right now: summer season — standard rates, marina row fully open.
River gauge, this morning
18.6 ft
Ohio at Harlow Landing · steady
Float trips run below 30 ft. Over that, the ramp closes and the porch book starts drafting reschedules for Rosie instead of quotes.
Float stage: good
The workflow
The Front Porch Book
Since 1987 every stay started in a spiral notebook on the porch rail. The notebook got smart: now it reads your note, checks the calendar and the gauge, and drafts the paperwork. What it never got is the last word — that’s still Rosie’s.
“The computer reads faster than I do — fine. But no quote, no message, and no reschedule leaves this porch until I’ve read it and pressed the button myself. That’s not a feature, that’s the house rule.” — Rosie
Demo data — nothing here is real
1Ask the book
Write it like you’d say it — the book does the readingThe book’s reading of your note — dates, party, cabins, gear, and what’s open — will show here.
2The quote — drafted for Rosie
AI drafts it · Rosie signs it · then it sendsOnce the book has read a note above, it drafts the quote and seasonal agreement here — stamped for Rosie’s review, not sent.
3Trip waivers & the river’s say
The book keeps the list · Rosie sends the wordsGolden Hour Float — waiver tracker
When the river decides
Shoulder-season scenario — high water
Walnut cabin float weekend, Sat, Apr 11. Overnight the gauge jumped to 34.1 ft and rising — four feet over float stage. The trip can’t run, and the Hendersons don’t know yet.
The book may
Read your note, pull out dates and head-counts, check the season calendar and the gauge, figure a quote from posted rates, keep the waiver list, and draft every message.
Only Rosie may
Send a quote, confirm a stay, message a guest, or move a booking. Every draft stops at her stamp. Nothing goes out without a person — that is the whole point.
The book may not
Promise a cabin, take a deposit, wave off a high-water closure, or answer a guest on its own. It drafts; it never decides.
How this demo works
What’s real here, and what isn’t.
The reading is real: type your own note in the Front Porch Book and the page genuinely parses it in your browser — party size, cabin count, “first weekend of October” turned into actual dates, kayaks counted — then checks it against the season calendar and drafts the quote from the posted rates.
The judgment stays with a person. Every quote, reminder, and reschedule stops at a “drafted for Rosie’s review” stamp until her approve button is pressed, exactly the way a real Detailed In Design build routes drafts to the owner before anything reaches a guest.
Every cabin, guest, gauge reading, and dollar figure on this page is invented. The business is fictional; the workflow is the product.