Biltmore Estate

If you have never visited the Biltmore Estate in Ashville, NC - you really need to go. Jimmy and I have been a number of times, including one evening tour that we did between Christmas and New Years.

Anyway, the first time we went to the Biltmore Estate, we parked directly in front of the home (kind of like guests driving up to see our friends the Vanderbilts!!!!). That was the good part of that trip. The bad part was that we locked the keys in the car. One of the security men wound up unlocking the car (with an unbent coat hangar no less).

I can only say that the estate has gotten better over time. Instead of buying your ticket at the front door, they have a really nice welcome center where the nice ladies will absolutely talk you into buying everything that they have to sell. Yes, I bought the audio tour package - and I would definitely advise doing so if you come to Ashville. You get an MP3 player which has the audio explanation of every room which is open to the public - on all five floors of the home (four floors of home and the basement). Plus, they have a short video to watch that gives first timers a little information about the estate.

Since 9/11 - you can no longer park directly in front of the house. But, they have really nice parking lots with shuttles to run you back and forth. However, since I needed the steps, Jimmy and I walked from the parking lot to the home. It was a really nice, shady walkway that led us directly to the overlooked at the end of the main lawn in front of the house. I took two pictures of the front of the house and then we went up to the main home.

I cannot describe the house. This was our first time to go on almost all of the floors. The last time we were here, there was a family member (or family) who stilled lived in some of the house - hence those rooms were closed to public tours. No one lives in the actual home now - so more of the house is now open. There are restoration projects going on currently, so there were rooms not open to the public which will be open within the next year. This was our first time to go above the second floor of the house since they were closed to the public our other visits. In fact, we didn't actually remember going into Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt's bedrooms before - so that might have been where the family lived at the time.

Of special interest on this trip was the carpet of flowers just off the side of the home. The area where the flowers were is just an open area which is used for various outside functions (like the BB King and Beach Boys concerts in August). Now, they have flats of flowers laid out on the space in very intricate patterns. I was kind of surprised that they were not actually planted - but they were not. You could see the flats under the plants if you got right up to it and looked. The walled gardens were not at their best, but they were still beautiful. There were lots of lots of butterflies. Of course, they were not in the butterfly garden where they were supposed to be - they were in the patterned area closer to the entrance. Jimmy was disappointed that the pots in the greenhouse were plastic - but I figured that was the least important thing that they had to worry about - plastic or clay!!!! They even had potato plants growing in the greenhouse. I doubt very many people had any idea that those were potato plants - you had to be from Mississippi to know that was what they were.

We did go to the winery. I was a bit disappointed. Napa has much better winery tours and tastings. It is, according to them, the most visited winery in the US. I guess that is because so many people come to the Biltmore Estate and you might just as well go to the winery for a tasting while you are there.

Anyway, I didn't take a lot of pictures. You can see more about Biltmore at their web site: www.biltmore.com I do suggest that you go on line and purchase your tickets on line - you save $5 a person. We don't have a printer on the RV - so I didn't buy them in advance. Of course, once I got there, I could have bought them and written down the confirmation number and they would have just looked it up for me. Pictures follow:

Day 1 and 2 - Heading to the Wake Forest football game

We left home the day after Labor Day headed east on Interstate 40. We had seen a really nice looking RV park the last time we came to Pigeon Forge, and we decided to just leave a bit earlier than we actually had to in order to stay here for a couple of days.

We are pulled into a nice, spacious space overlooking the French Broad River. We haven't seen the French Broad (I think she lives in the house down the stream from us), but we did see a bunch of wild turkeys last night. There were 8 of them just strolling up the river bank across the river from us. Then I see a big bird with a white head land in a tree directly across the river. I decided it was a big duck, but the man at the office this morning told me that it was most likely the male bald eagle that lives down by the power station. So, one night and we saw 8 wild turkeys and 1 bald eagle.

This morning I got up a little before 7am (Holly Springs time) and killed about 45 minutes waiting for the office to open so that I could go and get my walk in. When it was about 10 till 8am, I headed up that way only to have to turn around and head back. I had the IPod and I had the telephone. I didn't have my pedometer. Anyway, the man was opening the office building about the time I got back up there, so I turned on the lights, turned on the air conditioner, turned on the flat screen tv and walked for about 45 minutes. I figured I didn't need to do the full 10,000 steps since we were going shopping in Pigeon Forge and to Gatlinburg later. Good thing I held back, because - as of right now - I have walked 17,000 steps and the day isn't over yet.

By the time I got back to the RV and got cleaned up, both Jimmy and I were basically starving. So, off to the Flapjack Pancake House in Pigeon Forge. It is kind of a tradition to have pancakes or waffles for breakfast when we are here. But, it was about 10am (our time) and it filled us up for most of the rest of the day.

Then, off to the Tangier Discount Mall. Jimmy finally found his new tennis shoes. Since they had a buy one, get the second pair for half price sale - I got me a new pair of walking shoes also. Since I am up to over 200 miles since mid-July, I don't think I can have too many pairs of walking shoes - do you!!!!

We wandered around the rest of the shopping center and I found the pasta servers and slotted serving spoons for the Church. Then off to Gatlinburg. What a trip. No parking. Nothing but t-shirt and wood carving shops interspersed with the fast food restaurants. I am really depressed by how commercial Gatlinburg has become. But, you have to walk up and down main street at least once. We also drove out and through the artist community just outside Gatlinburg. Quite frankly, we were trying to kill time so that it would get to be late afternoon and we could go see animals in Cade's Cove.

We finally realized that, by the time we drove to Cade's Cove and with the time change, it would be mid-to late afternoon by the time we got there. So, off to Cade's Cove. We had barely gotten onto the one way lane when we saw the first of three black bears. Two were right at the road (pictures will be uploaded later) and one was just wandering around the hill. I just couldn't get out of the car and up to where I could get his picture quickly enough!!!

Here are the pictures of the bears we saw.



We also saw one white tailed deer, a bunch of butterflies and a few birds. But, the time was well spent since we got to see three black bear in one less than 11 mile drive. We spent three days in Yellowstone and just saw two bear!!!

I think it is Cherokee, NC tomorrow, but I'm not sure.

Stayed tuned.

Montgomery, AL trip - catching up

I've got a little catching up to do. On August 8, we traveled to Montgomery, AL, to help Travis move into his apartment. The cats enjoyed the new RV park that we found, and Jimmy and I worked ourselves to the bone helping Travis get unpacked, get things that were moved purged so that he wasn't having to keep up with stuff he didn't need, and getting the empty boxes to the trash. Montgomery has a really good process where they set up garbage trucks around the city on Saturdays to accept trash - including big things like refrigerators, sofas, and other such items. We only had empty boxes and boxes full of trash.

Anyway, we got that done and headed home only to suffer the roughest trip we have ever experienced once we got on highway 78 (the four lane part). When we got to Holly Springs, we both decided that the rear air bags were either not fully inflating or were not inflating at all. So, off Jimmy and the RV go to Memphis to the Spartan maintenance place. Sure enough, the rear air bags were not properly inflating - so we were riding on that fairly bumpy highway without the benefit of the air bags.

According to the Spartan guy, there was a problem with a valve. When they got the valve in and replaced it, the new valve also broke. Wound up that there was a maintenance kit that Spartan had put out for a misalignment problem that that chassis had. It was about 2 inches out of alignment. We got it back the Friday before Labor Day and it now drives like new.

The next post will bring you up to date on the trip we are currently on.