They had some open land near the road on the front of the property and some land behind the home. He had mentioned to us that they were considering planting grapes on those two pieces of land and hoping to have a winery and wine-tasting available. He said they planned on buying grapes from other wineries until their vines were mature enough to harvest (most grape vines aren't ready to produce wine until they've grown without harvest for 3 years). We mentioned that Mrs. Lime's father is currently growing and harvesting grapes back in Missouri. He had a lot of questions about the setup there, how many acres were planted, how he acquired equipment, etc. Below is a picture of the area where they will be planting their grapes.
I'm not sure why it is, but it's amazing how excited people get when they talk about growing their own grapes or when they meet someone who has similar interests in growing grapes. I suppose it's a labor of love that results in a lot of excitement when the final product is finally available. The discussion of the actual process to reach that final product just seems to send grape lovers into a frenzy of excitement.
After our conversation, he showed us around the B&B. They had everything you would ever want. Brandy set out to drink. 3 kinds of wine in the fridge. They had 4 brands of beer in the fridge. They also had lots of pop to drink. There were popsicles in the freezer and popcorn to eat. On the counter, they had 8 brands of coffee, several types of tea and hot cider mix. You could honestly just sit around and drink all day at the place. They had everything covered.
There was a large living room for socializing. They had a Civil War chess set out on the table. They had even put out a directions sheet for chess so that anyone could sit down to play it. They had lots of board games to play as well. There was also a large fireplace where the owners would start a fire at night for anyone who was interested. Below are pictures of the fireplace and the sitting areas.
In our room, we had a nice set up. There was a private fireplace in our bedroom. They also had a soaking tub in the bedroom where you could sit and watch the sunsets if you wanted. Nice bed with a ceiling fan to cool down if needed.
After a good night's sleep, we woke up in the morning to find out how good the breakfast end of our stay would be. It was a three course breakfast. We started out with some granola and fresh berries. Second course was French Toast, scrambled eggs and a thick cut piece of ham. Mrs. Lime said the ham was very lean and some of the best ham she had ever eaten. To top it all off, our final course was ice cream with lemon syrup. Really good stuff.
We got to sit and eat with two other couples at our table. One was a younger couple from Virginia who had only been married 6 months. They were very nice people and very social. At one point in the conversation, the discussion turned to the fact that they were Catholic. Not surprisingly, the husband came from a family of 9 children. Honestly, I think the Pope puts a ban on birth control just to keep the Catholic Church full of members. Amazing stuff. He said that they were constantly going different places to see his siblings. His wife agreed with a somewhat wry smile that seemed to indicate that it was a bit much at times. She went out of her way to repeat 'constantly going'. Both of them were avid bike riders and planned to tour the Antietam battlefield on bikes later in the day.
Our other new-found friends at the table were a British couple in their 50's. They were from a town called Hythe, England. The husband mentioned that they lived a few hundred yards from the English Channel. He worked as an immigration agent for England. Every day for work, he commutes 4 miles to the entrance of the Chunnel. For those who don't know what that is, it is the tunnel that goes underneath the English Channel and connects England to France. His job is to do the checks on the people entering the Chunnel on the French side that are headed over to England.
He said that England does a very poor job of monitoring illegal immigrants. He said that documenting who comes into the country is a major problem. Often, people sneak into England by hanging under vehicles that go through the Chunnel (buses, trucks, etc.). The problem is that when they get over to England, they can prove that they are not English residents, but without proof that they came from France, it's impossible to figure out where to send them back. Often, they end up in a court case that takes months and by the time the case reaches some form of conclusion, the illegal immigrant has often run off somewhere and is not even around to face the court's findings. France, for its part, does nothing to try to stop the immigrants from moving through to England. France knows that people sneak into France from other countries with the intention of sneaking across to England. France doesn't concern itself with the situation because they know that most of the people are headed to England anyway.
He also mentioned that Americans should be very proud of the security measures that are used at airports to monitor people coming in and out of the United States. He said our customs officers do a fingerprint and picture of every single non-resident leaving and entering the country. He said that if England implemented a similar system, they wouldn't have nearly the number of problems that they have now in regards to illegal aliens.
We finished up breakfast and headed out to take in some historic sites in the area.
