Sassafras Springs Winery and Fayetteville, AR

Tomorrow we leave Arkansas and head for Oklahoma.  Our plan for today was to drive into the Ozarks to see the beautiful fall colors.  The morning was bleak - fog and rain.  Our tour of the Ozarks was in jeopardy.  Mike discovered that the owner of our airbnb also worked at his families winery.  We decided that would be a fun place to visit - and out of the rain. There is some serious money here.  They opened up only 4 years ago as a wedding venue/winery.  It was the parent's dream to have a wedding event location.  They had 117 weddings last year.  They then added making wine.  They planted some grape vineyards of Arkansas specialty grapes.  For now, they have a small wine making facilities using grapes mostly from California.  They are hoping that next year they can make wine from home grown grapes.

Our host of the airbnb and the winery.

The front of the Winery.

A short walk away is there wedding facility.  If you look closely you can see the wall at the back of the chapel.  Yes - there is no roof.

When they bought the facilities, they found this old farm truck on the other side of the trees.  The whole area used to be a milking farm.

One of the small wine storage units.

They have started two vineyards with Arkansas developed grapes.

 They have an event hall (no picture of the outside) which used to be some famous persons horse barn.  They kept the horse stall below to show what it used to be like.

 Just to the right of this vineyard they have broken ground for another venue that could cover for the chapel when the weather is bad.  They have big plans and seem to be doing very well.

We went to another Rotary meeting for lunch.  They are a 200+ club.  But they were very friendly.  Mike did go up to pitch our Albuquerque Club and exchange Rotary Club flags.  I sat at a table with their current sponsored Rotary student from Austria sat.  Her English was very good.  She had been to a Rotary leadership program the past weekend and was here to speak about her experience.  I will have to ask daughter Alexis about her experiences as a Rotary exchange student in France when she was in high school.

After the club meeting we took a short drive along scenic highway 71.  We soon concluded that the weather was not cooperating and we were too tired to enjoy what ever was in front of us and went back to our rental house.

Tomorrow we head for Oklahoma to visit a cousin in Guthrie.  Our trip is close to its end.