The Joy of Farming – Lucky Acres
On our route from Birmingham, AL to Charlotte, NC we decided to take it slow and sorta mosey our way east. As usual we didn’t book a campground so we pulled up the Harvest Hosts website and found two locations right on our route! We decided on the first one…an Alpaca farm that turned out to be so much more.
Lucky Acres Farm is owned by the husband and wife team of Gloria and Joe Williams. I’m not exaggerating when I say these are the nicest two people you will ever meet! When I asked them why they joined the Harvest Hosts program their answer was “we just like people and we love sharing the joy of farming.” After retirement they moved down from New York and started this farm, that’s right when most people decide to slow down they were just getting started. Joe is now approaching his 80th birthday and if you ask him when he’s going to stop working so hard he says “if you don’t use it, you lose it” followed by “I love this job and my work”. I just hope I’m as much of a go-getter when I turn 80!
We took a tour of the farm, met the alpacas, the chickens, the roosters, the dogs, the cats, the peacocks, the bees, the largest 2 donkeys we’ve ever seen, the beautiful ‘flea bitten’ horse and their newest addition: 2 pregnant fainting goats (did I forget anyone?!?). Gloria and Joe love animals and you can tell this place is a ton of work, but it’s easy to see the work brings them so much joy.
Before the sunset we took Singa and Cleo on a walk through the farm and let’s just say it was exciting for all of us.
As the sun comes up the birds start singing and the faint “cock a doodle doo” lets us know it about time to move on. We met Gloria at the gift shop to purchase a dozen of her farm fresh eggs ($2) and some homegrown honey ($4) before we hit the road and we couldn’t believe how affordable her goodies are compared to other farms we’ve visited (we were sad we didn’t need a scarf or hat because she knits them herself from her own alpacas). She was so kind in asking us to stay a second night, in fact she said “stay as long as you want”. We didn’t want to overstay our welcome, but we couldn’t turn down just one more night on this little farm (plus we wanted more photos of Singa with the Alpacas!).
What’s great about Lucky Acres Farm is its located just a few miles from the South Carolina Welcome center, so we were able to have 3 nights of accommodations at no cost, and the extra bonus is the farm is just off the highway so it didn’t cost us any extra fuel to come and visit. I sure hope our next Harvest Hosts destination is just as good as this one.
Sonia London
Nice pictures of the Alpaca farm. And Singa n Cleo are beautiful. Wonderful to see your cats enjoy the outdoors with you.
cindy
what kind of rv do you own currently?
Jason Wynn
Cindy,
We have an entire page of our website dedicated to our current RV: https://www.gonewiththewynns.com/roy-the-rv
John & Carolyn Fifield
If ever in our neck of the woods, please stop and stay a spell. We will be joining Harvest Hosts soon.
http://www.highcountryalpacaranch.com/
Nikki Wynn
Great!
Debbie
Happy Birthday, Jason! I saw both of you on one of the Travel Channel RV shows last night! Thanks for all the sharing you do. I’ve enjoyed learning about the Harvest Hosts.
Robert Dawson Sr
Happy birthday Jason.Love your blog.The wife an I are traveling around the country this summer visiting friends an relatives in our Prius currently in Whidbey is with our grandson who is in the Navy. HOPE YOU HAD SPECIAL DAY.BOB from Md
Jason Wynn
Have fun on Whidbey, we love that area of the country! Thanks for the B-day wishes.
Judy G.
Happy Birthday, Jason. Today is my birthday too. My husband and I have celebrated by coming down to Florida and the week with our daughter and her family. Soooo hot! They’re R V ears too.
Jason Wynn
Happy birthday right back atchya! FL is so brutal in the summer…head north…WAY NORTH!
Katie Arnett
Happy Birthday, Jason. It sounds and looks like you all had a good time at the farm. I love reading about the places you go and things you see. Keep having fun.
Jim & Bonnie Parr
Happy Birthday, Jason. We’re still not RV’n but we’re traveling every chance we get. We love your posts. We relived what we did after the 2011 road rally trip by buying another vehicle in Vegas and taking 2 weeks to drive home- stayed on some farms we found on Living Social.- even stayed on the Queen Mary. We’re headed back out to Vegas, June 30th for an Elvis Tribute Artist Contest.(another 3 week trip. Keep on havin’ fun.
Love you both, “The Fun Finders”
Jason Wynn
Hello Jim and Bonnie! We think of you both often, hope we can cross paths again one day. Keep on searching out the fun.
Jenny
Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Jason, happy birthday to you!
Dave & Jenn
Mike Jacobs
Happy birthday, Jason! Thanks so much for writing about Harvest Hosts. I’d never heard of it before. It sounds like a lot of fun for a full-timer and offers a great change of pace from the campground setting.
GR Dempsey
Happy Birthday Jason, we have enjoyed your travels and excellent posts. I have been most interested in your solar panel installations. Eating adventures come in a close second.
Jason Wynn
We enjoy writing about it all, exploring this great country is so much fun!
Chad Blake
Happy birthday Jason
Really liked your write up of the Harvest Host stay.
Reminded me a lot of our home we had in Virginia.
Jason Wynn
Thanks Chad,
Harvest Hosts is such a cool program we’re happy to share.
Jerry
Happy Birthday Jason! Hope you two have a great and exciting day! 🙂
Brian
When did you go to Charlotte? You didn’t tell us you were gonna be here. Lol
Guess Jsaon was too chicken afford a disc golf throw down.
Jason Wynn
We posted all about it on FB. We hit the cool part of downtown, camped on the southwest side, whitewater rafting at the Olympic Training Center, had RV service done on the northeast side of town, met up with a few other readers, visited the Tiny House convention and did a ton of exploring around the area! All in all I think we were in the area for nearly 2 weeks! Didn’t play any disc golf though…
Tiffany
Can’t wait to see where you visit when you come to my city, Charlotte,NC!
Jason Wynn
We’ve already been to NC and we did hit Charlotte, it will probably be another month or so before we are able to get out the post about our visit. So many great places to visit and share it’s impossible to keep up!
Debbie from Illinois
Happy Birthday Jason!!! Hope you have a great day.
The farm you visited looks wonderful. Both of my grandparents had farms, so I have a lot of great memories staying with them.
Thanks for blogging about your travels…RV style!
Jason Wynn
Thanks Debbie!
Stephanie
We had a similar experience with a Harvest Host stop called Walk About Acres. Sorry, I can’t remember exactly where it is but it is in Iowa. We were on our way to Denver CO from Indiana. Such a fun surprise! The couple that owned the farm were so friendly! They made ice cream from their goats and also sold their own honey from their own bees. We were awakened by the cockadoodle doo also. What a fun way to travel and meet interesting people. Love Harvest Host.
Jason Wynn
We’ll have to add this to our list, sounds like our kinda place!
Gretchen
This is awesome! We’re just starting our farm and it’s the best way to live! If you’re ever in Central TX we have an RV plug and water (just not drain facilities!).
Jason Wynn
Sounds like a plan Gretchen!