The Blog of John Patrick Larson

At the tail end of our St. Louis tour we took a vacation from our vacation, and ventured to the outskirts of Augusta, Missouri to get away from it all¹.  The wine country is apparently a well-kept secret, and we learned as much while talking with the proprietors of the Lindenhof, the fab bed-and-breakfast we stayed at during our visit.

“So what do you do?” asked Bill as we sat down in the Lindenhof’s guest living room for a glass of wine.  “I’m a web programmer.”  This was greeted with more interest than I’m accustomed to getting, for our hosts were part of the city council of Augusta who would be meeting the next night to go through a proposal for a new town website, one meant to show off the town as a desirable tourist destination.

It was neat to hear snippets of how a community with its business owners & leaders collaborates and struggles to cause their shared prosperity.  In my estimation Augusta, with its vineyards, microbrewery, bed-and-breakfast scene, and access to the Katy Trail, had already done the hard work of actually being a great destination.

We talked about this all a little more over breakfast, and eventually I had my laptop out at the breakfast table, setting up a simple WordPress-based site for the Lindenhof in exchange for a few nights worth of credit.  It was a fine team effort: Tracy was taking pictures around the property which I would then upload and post, Debbie was poring over themes to serve as a design foundation, and I busied myself setting things up to make it easy for Bill and Debbie to post info about events and itineraries, info just right to paint the picture for would-be visitors about the what and why to stay.  A lovely exercise in barter at its best!

Our time at the Lindenhof and Augusta was fantastic.  The afternoon and evening featured a few winery tastings and hasty (but not regretted) wine purchases, a burger and beer at the brewery, and a delectable back and forth (and back again) sequence of enjoying both roaring fire in the outdoor fireplace and soaks in the hot tub, all appointed with fancy plush robes.  The following day featured, besides breakfast business, and a fantastic 12-mile bike ride on the Katy trail.  With my bike in still in the shop from the misdeeds of an errant Eagle Talon, it was super sweet of our hostess to offer up to me her bike as a loaner (we were also sent along with bananas to enjoy, which nicely complimented the mulberries off of mulberry trees for which I kept stopping our ride in order to munch on).

Our trip in Augusta was finished off with a trip to the terrace at Mount Pleasant Winery–aptly named for its gorgeous views, lovely libations, and tasty food. 24 hours well spent.

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