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We ended up at a vineyard…. How cool is that? Although…. Sorry to burst your bubble….. it's really hard work. Mike and Marie, both retired own Riverview vineyard right outside a small town called Genoa. They don't make their own wine but grown the grapes and sell them to several wineries nearby. So we did got to taste their wines and let me tell you…. They tasted excellent:-) When we arrived it was not quite time to harvest but everything had to be prepared so the grapes ripe to their best.
This meant that the vines needed to be cut, all the cuttings needed to be raked together, collected and put on a pile on a hill. That's a job cut out for you so to speak. You don't need a gym subscription you get plenty of workout doing this sort of work…..
No complaints from me though…. Good food, good wine, good company……. You start out early but the Mississippi was just down the road so in the afternoon we could hitch a ride with the neighbors, Mike & Dave, to the river for a boat trip, beer and a dip in the water. Not a bad way to spend your afternoon. The way everybody spends their time here keeps me amazed. It's so relaxed. Work hard, play hard seems to be the slogan. I can get used to this.
Only thing I can't get used to are the snakes…. When we needed to collect the cuttings to take them up the hill every pile you took from the ground had a couple of snakes in them….. pffffff, not my cup of tea but hey……… it's normal here and although I can hardly tell the difference between them Dave & Mike could tell you exactly which snake was poison or not. Don't know if that really set my mind at ease but it will just have to do.
The pile on the hill became huge and we were wondering what Mike was going to do with it and on our last night at the vineyard we got our answer….. a bonfire! Front row seats, music and beer….. To get the fire leave blowers were used…. Sooooo funny, just take your leave blower, turn it on and blow away…. In no time everything lights up. The bonfire still burned in the morning….
Next thing on the agenda was to crash my sisters birthday party back home…. Yep, you're not reading this wrong…. It took a road trip, 2 planes, several busses and trains but we made it and you should have seen her face! We ended up crashing her party at 10 in the evening in the middle of the festivities. It was worth the trip!
So where do we go from here? Yesterday Dad went back to a new host in Texas and I'm going to relax and stay for a couple of months back home and figure out my next destination. A new blog will follow for sure when I head out again but I'm taking a little break. See you!
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