Harvest Hosts Archives - Metaphysical Family

Russian Chapel Hills Winery in Columbus, NC

Brittany — Sat, 08 Oct 2022 00:58:00 +0000

Sometimes we use Harvest Host locations to break up long travel days. This allows us to keep drive days under 4 hours and have a wonderful experience that we may have not been exposed to otherwise. Our stay at Russian Chapel Hills Winery was one of those stays and it was a great experience.

We left our stay at Forest Lake RV Campground refreshed and headed to our Harvest Host stay at Russian Chapel Hills Winery in Columbus, NC.

Harvest Host Parking

There was enough space for 3 larger rigs, but get there early for the spot with the best views.

We always try to prepare for our trips during our T-24 by reviewing the GPS directions and viewing Google Maps to see what the approach is like. During this review we were able to determine the Harvest Host parking location was just south of the main driveway, however; we were not able to determine from the satellite images that you can not enter the Harvest Host parking location from the main drive due to tree growth.

Recent In Destinations

The Harvest Host parking entry is on the left (south) and the main driveway is on the right (north).

When we arrived we had mistakenly entered the main drive and had to back up into the road to get into the correct parking location. This was not a big deal, but it could have been better communicated on the Harvest Host page. Once in the correct parking location we choose a level spot which allowed us to also see the chapel on the hill.

After set-up we walked to the tasting room to sample the wines.

Tasting Room

As soon as we entered the tasting room we were welcomed and offered a seat by Andrey, our host, and the owner of Russian Hills Chapel Winery. The room was nicely decorated and had displays of wine and some local honey and beeswax products.

We sat at the bar where Andrey gave us pens and paper for our “Tasting Notes”. He then guided us through the wine tasting. Each wine we tried was very good, but a few really stood out to us as our favorites.

Wines

Image courtesy of Russian Chapel Hills Winery

Whites

Rose’
Chardonnay 2015
Sauvignon Blanc 2015
Muscadine 2016

We were given four white wines and four red wines to try. While we are not huge fans of white wines we were happy to find that they were better than many other white wines we have had before. Our favorite white wine was the Muscadine. We had never heard of Muscadine wine before, but were told that they are made from a local North Carolina grape and had a very polarizing flavor. Indeed, it was a unique flavor, but we both thought that it was really delicious and brought a bottle home with us.

Reds

Merlot 2015
Cabernet Sauvignon 2015
Mosaic 2016
Kagor 2019

We thought that all of the red wines were very good. The Merlot was wonderful. It would pair with many different dishes and was noted by Andrey as his favorite. The Kagor was the last of the reds we tried, but was our favorite of them all. Andrey told us that it used to be used as a communion wine. We decided to grab a couple of bottles of the Kagor in addition to the Muscadine.

Chapel

After the tasting we brought the wines back to the rig, grabbed our dalmatian puppy Maya, and took a short walk out to the chapel. It was a beautiful evening stroll which we all greatly enjoyed.

Saint Anna Chapel has an interesting history. During the first year of ownership the winery had problems with the grapes and their wine also fermented. Under the guidance of Andrey they built Saint Anna Chapel in the middle of the vineyard and with much prayer they have seen growing success in the years since the chapel’s construction. The chapel is part of the eastern diocese of the Russian Church.

The chapel is a small wooden building filled with beautiful iconography and items of worship. There were incense and oils in the chapel including Blachernae Rose and tree resins which I believe included frankincense.

We added a prayer into the guest book and took a quiet moment before heading back to the rig for a peaceful night of rest.

The next morning Sam woke up early and took a quite walk out to the chapel to watch the sunrise. The mist on the fields made for a picturesque view of the chapel.

Be kind!

When we spoke with Andrey about this review of the location he said that he hoped it would be positive. When we asked why anyone would review his establishment negatively, Andrey intimated that the winery had received unsavory comments because of his Russian background, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

Those who would review this beautiful winery based on the owner’s nation of origin, or because of a military conflict initiated by the leader of that nation are in desperate need of self reflection. How many naturally born Americans support the policies of our current or past Presidents? How much control does the average American have over the nation’s foreign policy?

I wonder how many of these internet trolls would make their mean-spirited comments to the man in person. Probably as many as those who have control over the actions of the person sitting in the White House!

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

We very much enjoyed out stay at Russian Chapel Hills Winery and would recommend it as a stop for any Harvest Host member. If you are not yet a Harvest Host member, but are interested in becoming one you can use our friend referral code to get 15% off of your membership. Click here for the discount!

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Legendary Mustang Sanctuary, Alhambra, IL

Brittany — Mon, 02 May 2022 20:59:23 +0000

The first leg of our journey brought us up I-44 through St. Louis and over to Alhambra, Illinois to the Legendary Mustang Sanctuary. It was a long travel day, especially because of all of the rain and a few wrong turns, but we had finally made it to our first destination as nomads.

We were running late and had called our hosts at Legendary Mustang Sanctuary to inform them that we would arrive later than expected, but Kathy told us that it would not be an issue.

We were the last of the Harvest Host guests to arrive and pulled into our spot for the night. We were all exhausted and ready for a quick dinner and bedtime, but as we attempted to extend our slides we noticed that we had a problem. There was no response from One Control.

Adam was excited to see the tractor in the barn.

Sam began to troubleshoot the issue and found that there was a problem with our newly installed lithium batteries. Thankfully he was able to do his magic and had up back up and running in about 20 minutes. We began to extend our slides to set-up for the night and as the kitchen slide was half way out we heard a crunch and the slide stopped. We pulled it back in to find that one of our hanging pictures had fallen on top of the slide and become stuck in the seal. Once we removed the picture we were able to finish setting up and we were able to get the family fed, ready for bed, and we all settled down for a restful evening.

Recent in Destinations

Even though we had been living in the fifth wheel for 7 months already it had been stationary living which was much different than the experience we were now having. We had read about how things would move and shift around on move day, but I hadn’t expected how much so. We had to pick-up most of our books in the bookshelf, many items in the pantry, clothes in the closet, and more. So we added things to our move day check lists to avoid these potential issues for our following move days.

The next morning we woke up excited about exploring the Legendary Mustang Sanctuary. After getting ready for the day we ventured out to meet up with Kathy once again. She gave us a tour of all of the different mustangs and burros that they currently had and a little back story on each one. Hannah and I really enjoyed all of the animals, but Adam was most excited about all of the big machinery that they had. Next Kathy introduced us to their farm dogs and cats which the kids really liked petting. Then Kathy gathered a bucket of carrots and led us out the the paddocks so that we could feed the horses and burros.

Hannah and Pebbles

They had two burros there, Wilma and Pebbles, who were very friendly and insisted on getting carrots and scratches from Hannah. She of course loved spending time with them, but she really wanted to feed some of the mustangs. First we went to the paddock that had the more gentled mustangs who had been there for awhile. They were very friendly and would come right up to the gate. It is no wonder that most of them had already been adopted and were just waiting to be picked up or moved to their new homes. Next we went to visit one of the newer pens which housed two lovely mares one of which was very pregnant and was expected to foal in the next few weeks.

Stella, the pregnant mare, is on the left. Rose is the mare on the right.

After the tour Hannah helped Kathy with some small farm chores in the barn and spent some time with a couple of barn cats up on the hay stack. Before we left Kathy printed off a few coloring pages for each child and wished us safe travels on our journey.

This was a dream location for both Hannah and I because of our love of animals, and horses specifically. I hope that one day we find ourselves in a position where we can rescue a couple of these wild mustangs ourselves, but in the meantime we can share our love for these fantastic beasts through the program they have at Legendary Mustang Sanctuary.

The Legendary Mustang Sanctuary was a great first stop which we would highly recommend to any Harvest Host member. If you are not yet a Harvest Host member, but are interested in becoming one you can use our friend referral code to get 15% off of your membership. Click here for the discount!

If you are interested in more information about the Legendary Mustang Sanctuary you can check out their website and Facebook page linked below.

https://www.legendarymustangsanctuary.org/

https://www.facebook.com/legendarymustangsanctuary

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