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One of the great things about Halifax County is that it is dark at night. Really dark!

In such a rural area, there are no city lights to diminish your view of the skies. The planets and constellations that you can’t see in Washington or Raleigh are quite visible here.

You can do star gazing from our front yard to see the Big Dipper, Little Dipper, Orion or whatever else you want to view. But you can also go to a star-gazing program at Staunton River State Park, about a half hour from here. The park offers star gazing programs on Aug. 3 and Sept. 1 from 9 to 11 p.m. This is an opportunity to gaze at the night sky’s celestial bodies through high powered telescopes with the guidance of seasoned astronomers. The star gazing is held near the visitor center. Ask us for details.

You can take your dog with you to local restaurants if you are going to a dog-friendly B&B like ours. We checked with a number of restaurants with outdoor seating and found that they all let you bring your well-behaved pooch .

“It’s happening more and more,” says one restaurant owner. Among the local restaurants we confirmed it with are Busy Bee, Bistro 1888, Windmill Farms and Southern Plenty in South Boston and Molasses Grill in Halifax.

This week we had a nice dinner at Cotton restaurant along the Dan River in Danville with our two standard poodles lying patiently next to our table. The waitress brought them large bowls of water and even gave them treats. Mike left a large tip (large for him anyway).

One piece of advice: Don’t tie your dog to the table. Once I saw a dog spot a squirrel and everyone’s dinner end up out on the street.

We’ve been saying all along that our region is great for bike riding. We have good bikes in our basement that you can borrow. But if you’d like to ride in nearby Danville (30 miles) you can even rent a bike easily through Zagster, a bike sharing company.

All you have to do is download the Zagster app (http://bike.zagster.com/danville/) join and use your smart phone to unlock and use a bike for a ride along the beautiful 7.5-mile Riverwalk Trail in Danville. The first hour is free and after that, it is $3 an hour.

Using our bikes or your own, you may want to ride the beautiful roads from Oak Grove Plantation. Or you can drive the 6 miles into South Boston and ride the 2.5-mile Tobacco Heritage Trail (maybe making a few round trips.) By summer of 2020, the trail is scheduled to be extended to 4 miles.

Other great options; The High Bridge Rail Rail through Farmville (60 miles away), a longer segment of the Tobacco Heritage Trail near Boydton (36 miles). But for now, forget about the Ringgold Trail, about 20 miles west of Oak Grove. Parts of it were wiped out by a hurricane last November and are not passable

It’s a big week for Oak Grove Plantation Bed & Breakfast as we open our 31st season. We’ll we’ll have an open house on Saturday (April 27 10 a.m.-2p.m.) to celebrate our Earth Day and to host visitors along the Barn Quilt Trail. And this Thursday (April 25), Pickett is traveling to Harrisonburg, Va., to accept a Virginia Green Leader award at the Virginia Green Travel Conference.

In front of Oak Grove, we have a barn quilt—a large piece of painted wood that looks like a single quilt block, the kind that are used to decorate the side of a barn. For the second straight year, there will be a celebration of the barn quilts that are displayed in front of churches, farms, houses and even a jail, as part of the Halifax County Barn Quilt Trail.

At Oak Grove, the beautiful star quilt was sewn together by the great-grandmother of Pickett Craddock, who runs the 199-year-old plantation house as a bed & breakfast. Appropriately, the marvelous quilt hangs in one of the three guest rooms, the Thomas Day Room.

Besides the tour of the elegant house, visitors will get to examine the solar panels and the electric car-charging station, one of the few in Halifax County, and hear about furniture maker Thomas Day and his relationship with the house. Guests will see a square from the star quilt in front of the B&B at 1245 Cluster Springs Rd. in Cluster Springs (six miles south of South Boston.) Bathroom facilities are available for touring quilt fans.

Also on April 27, we are taking part in the Earth Day Extravaganza at the Halifax Farmer’s Market. Virginia Clean Cities and the Carolina Solar Energy are among participants, along with Oak Grove, which will have brochures and information about the solar panels and other energy-conservation measures.

A mix of 19th and 21st centuries will be found at the Oak Grove Plantation on the Halifax County Barn Quilt Trail April 27 The bed & breakfast in Cluster Springs has 48 modern solar panels in addition to rooms with custom-made mantelpieces, doors and windows and a table put together before the Civil War by Thomas Day, a prominent local African-American craftsman.

The beautiful star quilt was sewn together by the great-grandmother of Pickett Craddock, who runs the 199-year-old plantation house as a bed & breakfast. Appropriately, the marvelous quilt hangs in one of the three guest rooms, the Thomas Day Room.

Besides the tour of the elegant house, visitors will get to examine the solar panels and the electric car-charging station, one of the few in Halifax County, and hear about Thomas Day’s relationship with the house. Guests will see a square from the star quilt in front of the B&B at 1245 Cluster Springs Rd. in Cluster Springs (six miles south of South Boston.) Bathroom facilities are available for touring quilt fans.

Kecia Kalu of “Manna”

A vegan restaurant in South Boston? The menu at “Manna: The Natural Experience” says “ribs,” “chicken salad,” “hamburger’ and other dishes. So how could that be?

The answer is in the seasonings: “Chicken without seasonings has no taste whatsoever. If you take tofu or wheat glutens and season them correctly, it tastes the same as chicken,” says owner Kecia Kalu. She also offers herbs and teas and health food items, and in the back is an aroma therapy room for meditation. In the evening she offers health and cooking classes

Manna, which opened last year at 217B Main Street, is one of three major lunch places in downtown South Boston, all of them recipients of grants from Destination Downtown South Boston.

Joe and a Bow, which also opened for breakfast and lunch last year at 530 Wilborn Ave., is a hybrid mix of boutique children’s clothing along with a restaurant with sandwiches, main dishes and a salad bar. It also offers gourmet coffees, lattes, frappes, teas, milkshakes and smoothies, in addition to bakery items such as muffins and croissants. Its high ceiling and brick walls are reminiscent of the Star Laundry, which once occupied the building, part of historic South Boston.

Quiche with rice pudding at Southern Plenty

Southern Plenty, at 206 Main St., recently opened the entire upstairs to help handle its volume of lunch and breakfast business and for an art gallery. It offers a variety of salads, quiches, cheeses, chilis, specialty groceries, deli boar’s head meats and sandwiches, one of them called “the kitchen sink.” It also sells coffees, smoothies, bakery items and other sweets, cakes to order and premade salads by the pound. Southern Plenty also teaches cooking and painting and wine sipping classes.

Charge your car while you stay at our bed & breakfast in beautiful Southside Virginia. We have Class-2 chargers that work for Teslas and four-hour universal chargers. During July, you can get 20% off the regular $115 to $155 room fee if you have an electrical vehicle and book through our website, www.oakgroveplantation.com or email oakgrove1943@gmail.com. We have a fine electric vehicle ourselves, a Nissan Leaf.

Like Broadway shows? South Boston is the place to be this summer. Two all-time favorites, “Oklahoma” and “Gypsy “ will be performed between June 22 and July 22, just a 10-minute drive from Oak Grove Plantation.

If you see “Oklahoma,” you’ll get to see Mike appear as a farmer in his sixth role in six years. Mike says Summer Theater provides the best of two worlds. “You get the feel of New York and Broadway when you are in the theater. Then you walk outside and you are in the easy parking, light traffic and small-town atmosphere of of South Boston, Va.” And there are top-notch restaurants nearby.

This isn’t just community theater. It is summer stock—a combination of locals and college students and grads from throughout the Southeast who auditioned for prized roles.

We have had many family and friends of actors and tech people stay iwth us in past seasons. We have provided living accommodations for several Summer Theater staffers in the past.

Besides the great songs, there are some terrific dance numbers in “Oklahoma.” Oh, and Mike is briefly in one!

Details: www.prizery.com

Have we really been in business for 30 years? It seems just like yesterday when Pickett Craddock opened her ancestral home to guests from all over the world from May to September. Not many innkeepers stay in business that long, but Pickett just loves to show off the house that she and her family have occupied for 198 years.

Since opening in 1988, Oak Grove has added a bathroom, a handicapped accessible guest room, solar panels and an electric car charging station. Its 400 acres, once planted in tobacco, are now filled with pine trees.

Come and celebrate the season with us, and get ready for the 200^th anniversary of the building and grounds in 2020!

Welcome to Oak Grove Plantation Bed & Breakfast