Nice strangers - some of them in a creapy kind of way

I got to the hotel and gave you a brief run down of my travel. So I will pick it up from there. Really, events just got more and more interesting.

I put my things away and headed out to one of the 6 porches with a book to enjoy the rain.

I made it out the door and was making a determination as to the seat that was calling my name when a couple of guys struck up a conversation. Nice enough guys. They were both John’s. Well one Jon and one John. I spent the rest of the afternoon in casual conversation and made some new buddies. About the guys… I thought they had been friends for years based on the conversation, but apparently they had just met on the bus on the way to this hotel. The one John was an interesting character. He said he lived 2 miles away and was just coming up here to have a few drinks. Then decided he wanted to get a room at the hotel so he didn’t have to go home but left his credit card and phone at home. Then he tells us his dog is across the street at the humane society and he has to go get him before it closes at 8. He tells us this at 8:05. He can't drive the dog home because his car was towed and he hadn't gotten it out yet. Apparently the dog was in the car at the time. Then says he wants to get a room and put the dog in there (hotel doesn’t allow pets). By this point he has talked the other Jon into splitting a room to save on cost, Jon and I are looking at each other like this whole dog thing is not a good idea. There was a lot of conversation around this and I, fortunately, was not involved. Everything was straightened out and we decided to head over to one of the many bars on the premises for a cocktail.

The hotel had both a brewery and winery on site. The beer was incredible. The wine was good, but not exceptional. They did however grow their own organic grapes on site. It was really cool to see. As far as I can figure, this place used to be a farm. There are several out buildings, and I think they have a bar in each of them selling their wares.

We headed to the little red cottage. This little building has a really warm fire and holds a total of about 12 people. It was so cute and cozy! While there we met a couple of girls that were having a girls weekend and hung out with them for a while. I was really surprised at how friendly all of these strangers were. I decided to turn in early because the conference started at 8:30 in the am. I wanted to be fresh and ready to go.

As the weekend progressed, I ran into Jon several times and we decided that the other John was a con artist, but wasn't very good at it.