Month: November 2023

On our trip back to Deeny’s from Lehigh Acres, we encountered rain, and then it rained all the next day. This was a Godsend to this area as there has been a considerable drought. It also gave us a day of resting and lounging about, also a good thing.

On Thursday, we visited the Clyde Butcher gallery. We have been to the gallery one or two times before, but it is always a joy to soak in the phenomenal photography of such an artist. Butcher’s specialty is black and white wilderness photography of the Florida landscape. He’s spent a great deal of time standing chest-deep in swamps in order to capture the perfect moment of water, vegetation and sky. Here’s a couple of photos taken from Wikipedia and the internet.

Butchers photos are printed in a gigantic format, covering an entire wall in some cases. You can stand looking at a photo and feel yourself pulled into the landscape. Butcher was a friend of Ansel Adams, who likewise specialized in large-camera, black and white work, mostly in the West. I wish I could afford one of his prints, but they sell for thousands. Even the smaller reprints cost hundreds, so I’ll just have to be satisfied with copying images from the internet. A real treat on today’s visit was that the darkroom was open for viewing. All around nearly the entire perimeter of a very large room were enlargers, and one very, very big enlarger/printer took up the entire middle of the floor. When I say large, I mean prints of 5 by 7 feet. It would be very interesting to actually watch the enlarging and printing process.

After visiting the gallery, we drove over to the Casey Key jetty. There’s a break in the barrier island allowing boats to get into Robert’s Bay where there are many marinas. Unfortunately, the south jetty got damaged by Hurricane Ian over a year ago and has been closed, but it’s still fun to look out over the water. There was a group of Snowy Egrets nearby and one came over to have its picture taken. Their yellow feet are so cool.

Later in the afternoon, George and Lorraine stopped by to say goodbye and wish us well on our trip home. It was nice of them to take the time to come see us.

Friday we spent considerable time getting organized and packing, preparing for our departure tomorrow. But the highlight of the day was going to the Venice Symphony’s concert. The group is celebrating its 50th anniversary. They perform in a beautiful, new auditorium, the Venice Performing Arts Center. Deeny took us to see the symphony a couple of years ago. They had just hired a new, dynamic music director, Troy Quinn. We went to the pre-concert talk to learn about the pieces, which was interesting, especially learning that Berlioz wrote the Symphony Fantastique under the influence of opium. That little tidbit certainly explained that wild work. We heard a wonderful horn concerto by modern composer Eric Ewazen played by Andrew Bain. I really enjoyed how lush the string orchestra was. It was a beautiful piece. And that Berlioz symphony was quite something!

Saturday, we sadly had to say goodby to Deeny. I hate goodbyes! We had such a wonderful visit. Deeny is facing some possible heart surgery and she is also contemplating a possible move back to Allentown, so she has some serious issues ahead. We hope to be a support network as she navigates through some challenging decisions. We love you, Deeny!

We set off on a 3+-hour drive to Sanford, FL to board the Amtrak autotrain. Unfortunately, the drive took about 5 hours as there was a huge slowdown on the highway that added nearly an hour. Apparently, there was an accident that brought traffic to a near standstill. I was getting nervous about arriving in time. There was a deadline for arrival for boarding cars. After the slowdown, we encountered further traffic slow downs all through Orlando. It was nerve wracking! But we made it to Sanford in time. I made a mistake, though, in not checking in upon arrival. It wasn’t until boarding that there was an announcement that boarding passes were required to enter the train. I went up to the counter to check in and learned that we would be getting our dinner served in our roomette, but not until 8:30. Amtrak has changed all the food service on the train. We heard that there were about 460 passengers onboard and about 280 cars. With all the car carriers, the conductor said the train was 3/4-mile long.

We settled into our roomette, a rather small room with two seats facing each other and a pull out table in-between. We departed Sanford at 5:00pm. We still had some daylight left so we could see things as we rolled by. I got a nice sunset picture when we were passing by a lake.

At bedtime, the porter comes to turn the two seats into a lower berth and pull down an upper berth. With the beds made up you have about 8 inches of space in which to try and change into your nighties. And then, there’s the challenge of getting into the top berth. Guess who got to do that??!! There isn’t enough headroom to actually sit up in the upper berth, so you have to step up on a storage area and essentially throw yourself up into the berth. But what I was dreading was the middle of the night bathroom trip, climbing down out of the berth in the dark and then throwing myself back into the berth again. At any rate, everything worked out just fine. We actually had a pretty good night’s sleep. The gentle rocking of the train was quite soothing.

Sunday morning we went to the cafe car for breakfast. That was nice because you could see out both sides of the train so we saw more scenery. As we got closer to Lorton, we passed over the James River near Richmond and then we were near the Potomac River for the last hour of the trip.

We arrived in Lorton at 10:00am Sunday. It’s a nice station, which is good because you have to be there waiting for your car to be unloaded. There’s no rhyme of reason to the unloading, so they announce the car numbers as they roll out of the car carriers and are brought to the front of the station. We were fairly lucky in that our car came after only a 40-minute wait.

Then we set off for home. It was one of our longest legs of driving, a little over 5-hours. There was a lot of traffic around Washington, DC, but once we got into Maryland, and then into Pennsylvania, the traffic thinned out. Route 15 through Pennsylvania is quite beautiful, traveling up a wide valley with the Catoctin mountains to the west. And then finally onto I-81. It was a long trip, but we arrived just after dark. We were very happy to be home.

This has been a very lovely trip. We saw and did so many wonderful and interesting things. I don’t regret choosing to drive to Florida because it gave us an opportunity to explore areas that we haven’t seen before. We feel very lucky and blessed to have the ability to travel. However, home is the best!

Stay tuned for our next adventure.

On Sunday, we had tickets to see the political parody comedy group Capitol Fools. We attended with George and Lorraine, Deeny’s brother and sister-in-law, at the Venice Performing Arts Center. We saw the matinee show and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Capitol Fools is a group of singer/comedians, some from the original Capitol Steps group. The Capitol Steps was formed in 1981 by a group of senate staffers who set out to satirize the very people and places that employed them. Sadly, the group didn’t survive the pandemic because they were a live-performance group. However, some of the original players regrouped and formed the Capitol Fools, and I’m very glad they did because their political parody is superb. We laughed ourselves silly!

The group made fun of everything political and all the key players. I was curious as to how a Florida audience would respond to all the DeSantis and Trump jokes, but everyone seemed to find things very hilarious. In addition to simple commentary, the group excels at putting words to popular and well-known tunes. One of the performers excelled at backward talk. I don’t know how he’s able to do it, but he transposes the first letter or two of two words and exchanges them, e.g., Tronald Dump. It takes a few seconds to figure out what he’s saying, but when you do, it is a marvel how he’s able to quickly talk with words in sentences getting scrambled. It was like a grown-up version of pig Latin. It was very entertaining. After he said something scrambled, he’d stop and wait for the audience to figure out what he said and he’d nod his head as the audience who got it would start to laugh. You can see some of their promos on YouTube if you want to get a flavor of their shtick.

After the show, we went to Sharky’s for dinner with George, Lorraine and Deeny. George suffered a stroke several years ago and so has a bit of difficulty getting around, but he was a trooper getting in and out of Sharky’s. It was a nice evening and we loved catching up with George and Lorraine. George has a witty sense of humor.

There was another beautiful sunset and we stood along the beach appreciating the view.

Monday evening we did another traditional activity. We went to the rookery to watch the birds fly in. Venice Audubon Rookery Park is an oasis of natural beauty surrounded by urban development. The central feature of this small park is a rookery island where birds roost and nest. It always amazes me that so close to a heavily traveled highway and dense areas of development all around, this bird paradise exists. Just before sunset, birds begin to fly in and land on the shrubs and trees growing on this tiny island. Most of the birds tonight were Egrets, but there were some Anhingas, Ibis, Tri-colored Herons, and Blue Heron. It’s fun to watch a bird swoop in, often circling around the little island and picking a spot to land. Often, a bird lands near another and there is cackling and wings flapping as a bird moves to another spot. It is just a bit early for nesting season, December, so there weren’t as many birds as we’ve seen in the past, but it is a wonderful way to spend and hour, watching the beautiful birds come in to roost.

On Tuesday, Christine and I drove to Lehigh Acres, about an hour south, to visit our good friends Marlene and Elliott LaRose. We know them from our lake association. Elliott and I have been best buds in the summer for years. We’ve worked on the Water Committee together and he as treasurer and me as secretary of the association, we’ve worked closely on association business. He’s a great guy and I really love him. Marlene is a pip, too. She is very funny, and Christine really enjoys spending time with her. Although they’ve lived in Florida since 2006, we’ve never visited during any of our trips.

We got to see their house and we walked around their yard. Elliott has been growing milkweed in order to attract Monarch butterflies and he showed me some chrysalises. That was cool to see. Marlene was very happy showing us lots of nice, interesting things around the house, many of which their son Rick made. Both Elliott and Marlene are in their upper 80s and have been experiencing health problems, so much so that for the past two years, they’ve only gotten to the lake for a week each year. I really miss Elliott when he’s not at the lake because we do lots of things together and I like helping him out.

We went out to lunch, which was a story in and of itself. There was a long delay in getting our food and Elliott asked for the manager, which he said he never does. He told the manager that he was a stock holder in the company and that led to a long conversation with the manager about the difficulty in running the business and in keeping chefs employed. It was an interesting discussion. The manager eventually comped one of the orders, which Elliott was happy about.

After lunch, we took a ride over to Fort Myers Beach. If you recall, Hurricane Ian devastated the beach town. It’s been about 14 months since the storm, and while to debris is cleared away, nearly all the buildings are still closed and all the first, and sometimes second, floors of the buildings are totally gutted. It was rather shocking to see the devastation. Although, the community vows to return, it is difficult to see how that’s going to happen anytime soon.

So, we spent a nice few hours with Elliott and Marlene.

Christine and I had a very wet ride home in the rain. It’s scary how fast people drive in Florida, even in the pouring rain. But we made it home safely. We’re glad that there is rain in the forecast because this area of Florida has been in drought conditions. We’re slated for rain all day tomorrow, which is really a good thing.

One of the “traditional” ventures we’ve done while in Venice is to go to Marie Selby Garden in Sarasota. This visit, however, Deeny suggested, and encouraged, us to drive south to Naples to visit the Naples Botanical Garden. It’s about 90 minutes from Venice. I think it is funny to be driving from Venice to Naples while in Florida. Christine and I set off Saturday morning for a day in a garden.

Naples Botanical Garden is a 170-acre, world-class garden that features plants from around the world. A botanical garden is a garden with a documented collection of living plants for the purpose of scientific research, conservation, display, and education. Naples Botanical garden is a relatively young garden having been founded in 1993 with the construction of the garden starting in 2008. During founding and construction, people were fund-raising, purchasing land, planning the layout, and working on acquiring plants, trees and shrubs. Two lakes were dug and the 250,000 yards of fill from the lakes was used to sculpt the garden. There are several distinct gardens with the overall garden showcasing plants and trees from different ares, the Caribbean Garden, Brazilian Garden, Asian Garden, as well as numerous water features and other distinctive garden areas.

It’s a wonderful garden and we spent about 4 hours wandering around the paths and trails taking in plants and trees I’ve never seen before and seeing some old favorites. There was something interesting to see and learn every step of the way. At several points one can scan a QR code and pull up an audio recording to hear some detail about what you’re looking at.

I love textures and patterns in plants and, of course, I want to touch everything to see what the plants feel like.

There were numerous water features throughout the garden, which I think was my favorite part of the garden. There’s something about water, especially if it is moving, with the sound and thesky and clouds being reflected, that is magical and beautiful.

Another of my favorite sections was the Asian Garden. I like the statuary, the neatness and lines, and Asian gardens feel somewhat spiritual to me.

One tree that I’ve never heard of was a cannonball tree. It’s seed pods look exactly like cannonballs hanging in clumps. The tree is in the Brazil nut family. This tree also apparently has lovely large, aromatic flowers.

I could post a great many pictures of the various plants, we both took lots of pictures. But I will just end with a few more. The garden has a nice orchid section, and we did see some other very interesting shrubs and flowers.

We’re so glad Deeny suggested we visit this garden. It was a great day and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The only thing that would have made it a perfect day was if Deeny had accompanied us (she wasn’t feeling up to the drive and all the walking), but we came home and showed her the 292 photos that Christine took!

I’m a little behind in posting so I’ll try to catch up a bit. We left Brevard on Monday, November 6. One of the things I dislike is constant interstate driving. So, our GPS, whom we refer to as Gigi, actually plotted a route that took us through secondary highways. I love getting closer to the countryside and being able to look at houses, yards, and what’s going on in small towns. Gigi did not disappoint! Our route ambled through South Carolina into Georgia, where we stayed Monday night in Augusta. Tuesday, we ambled through Georgia into northern Florida, where we spent the night in Lake City. I think in those 2 days we were on a bit of interstate for about 20 minutes. And both days provided a lovely drive through the rural south.

We drove past thousands of acres of cotton, just ready for harvesting. The thick cotton tufts looked so nice across the fields. Once harvested, the cotton is rolled up into these gigantic bales and carried off to wherever cotton goes. Along the road are dribs and drabs of cotton spillage from the large bales. At one point, we stopped to try and scoop up some cotton, but the road was narrow and what little traffic there was made it a bit dangerous to park along the roadside.

The secondary routes passed mainly through farmland, but into southern Georgia we came to timbering country. We rolled by thousands of acres of Southern yellow pine groves and lots of logging trucks. I didn’t realize that Georgia and northern Florida were such big producers of timber. And clearly, the logging companies are into renewables. As we drove along, each mile had groves of trees of differing ages. You could see a clear cut area, followed by 3 foot tall saplings, followed by 10 foot tall young trees, and on down the road until we saw groves ready to be harvested. The other crop that was very prevalent was pecans. We saw lots of pecan groves with straight lines of trees rolling across the low hills. We really enjoyed these two days driving through the countryside. It was very pleasant and very interesting. And the price of gas in South Carolina was $2.69 a gallon! When we left Binghamton, I paid $3.89. Gas is routinely lower priced in the southern states than in New York. Even in Florida, the price is just a couple of cents over $3.00.

On Wednesday, November 8, it was back on the interstate for a 4-1/2-hour drive from Lake City to Venice. We arrived at our friend Deeny’s mid-afternoon. We were glad to get there and be off the road.

On Thursday, we spent the day doing laundry, catching up with Deeny and settling in. Thursday evening, we went to Sharky’s for dinner. This is definitely a tradition for us. Venice Beach has a long pier and Sharky’s (and it’s neighboring more upscale Fin’s restaurant) is a real draw. It’s always crowded, especially if dinner is around sunset, which it was for us. It was a fantastic evening to be out strolling the pier and enjoying a good meal at Sharky’s. Being with Deeny is always wonderful, but doing our “traditional” outings with her makes it that much more special because we have good memories from the past to share and are making more memories to share in the future.

Our next stop was in Brevard, NC. We are meeting a friend of Christine’s, Lisa, who she’s never met in person. She has only communicated via Zoom or by telephone, but they have a very meaningful friendship that is important to both of them. After our Christyland adventure, we retraced our steps back to Asheville, and then on to Brevard, a comparatively short drive, less than an hour. We got checked into our hotel and then Lisa came to pick us up.

Lisa is a lovely, sweet woman who has quite the southern drawl. Whenever she telephones and I answer, I get a huge chuckle hearing her voice. Christine and Lisa were so happy to finally meet in person. Lisa took us to dinner at a very nice place and we talked, and talked over a yummy dinner.

Saturday, Lisa and her daughter Abby picked us up and our first stop was just a couple of miles up the road from our hotel. All around the area is the Pisgah National Forest and the area has lots of waterfalls, such that the Transylvania County logo is Land of Waterfalls.

The first waterfall we visited was Looking Glass waterfall. It was right along one of the roads through the forest, so it was easy to visit. There were steps down to the creek so one can get an up close look at the 60 feet high waterfall.

After viewing the falls, we drove into the town of Brevard for lunch. Brevard is a city of about 8,000 and because it is surrounded by the Pisgah National Forest, it is a landing place for hikers and outdoor enthusiasts. It is a touristy place, but charming.

After lunch, we went to Lisa’s house to drop off Abby and pick up Lisa’s son James. James is starting a career in software development after having graduated college so Lisa wanted James to talk with Christine about her career.

Our afternoon adventure was a hike to 2 other waterfalls. Dupont Forest is another hiker’s dream location and is very popular. Being a sunny Saturday, there were lots of people hiking the waterfalls trail that we were on. After checking the park map, we set off for Triple Falls and High Falls. The hike was uphill most of the way and Christine was worried about the return trip heading downhill. She didn’t have on very good hiking shoes, but we said we’d help her down the trail.

The overlook to the falls was beautiful and before heading uphill, we went out onto some rocks in the creek. It was all very picturesque and the weather was just perfect.

We hiked up to High Falls and had a nice view of those falls.

After viewing High Falls we had a big discussion about whether to hike back down the hill or find another way back to the parking area. The signage on the trails was not very good, and we only had a photo of a map, which also was not very helpful. What we decided was to keep going uphill and find a different parking area. James volunteered to run (literally; he’s big into running) back to the car and drive to the parking area we were heading to. That all worked out, with the help of a couple who saw us pondering which trail to take and showed us on their map where we needed to go. And, James arrived with the car almost at the same time we arrived. Christine didn’t have to slide down any trails and we all were happy to have made a good decision.

We then toured around Brevard a little. One of the things that Lisa wanted to show us was a white squirrel. I guess there are a lot of white squirrels in the area. These white squirrels are a variant of grey squirrels, and they are really striking when you see one.

After our tour around we met up with Lisa’s husband Aaron and daughter Lisa at a Thai restaurant for dinner. Lisa’s family is really lovely and we enjoyed spending time with them.

On Sunday, our activity was to go to a forest service museum. We had heard about the start of the forest service on our tour of Asheville. When George Vanderbilt was raising the money to build the Biltmore Estate, he sold a great deal of his 125,000 acres to logging companies. What the loggers did was clearcut, to the point of destroying the land and damage the streams and rivers during movement of the logs. Vanderbilt hired a German forester, Carl Schenck, to protect the forests and the Biltmore Forest was the first managed forest, and from there, Carl Schenck started the Biltmore Forest School which offered the first degree in forestry.

The museum is called Cradle of Forestry in America. There was a really interesting moving about Carl Schenck and an exhibition about his work.

There was also a nice exhibit about forestry and the activities foresters do to manage forests.

There was a trail through the forest around the museum property that leads you to various recreated buildings from the Biltmore Forest School.

It was a really interesting afternoon at the Cradle of Forestry museum. The US Forest Service is such an important agency keeping watch over the millions of acres of national forests in this country. You don’t really realize just how significant national forests are and the importance of the men and women serving to protect our valuable forests.

After the museum, Lisa took us to a wonderful Japanese restaurant where we had a delicious meal. It was kind of bittersweet, because our time together with Lisa was coming to an end for this trip. Lisa was such a gracious tour guide and we had a wonderful time getting to know her and her lovely family. We hope that Lisa will come north and visit us sometime next year.

So our time in Brevard came to a close. The plan now is to leave on Monday morning, November 6, and drive to Augusta, GA, then on Tuesday, drive to Lake City, FL, and then arrive at Deeny’s on Wednesday afternoon. By then, we will have been on the road 2 weeks and it will be nice to be in one place for 10 days.

After our wonderful day yesterday at the Biltmore Estate on Wednesday, we spent some time touring around Asheville. Nestled between the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains, Asheville is best known for outdoor recreation, hospitality, artsy residents and a robust music scene. it is a very eclectic city and has several nicknames, including Land of the Sky, for its incredible mountain vistas, Beer City, for its numerous breweries and beer festivals throughout the year, Paris of the South, both because of the Biltmore Estate and for world class, food, art and architecture, Dog City, USA, because it is dog-friendly and has a canine welcome center, and San Francisco of the East, because of its hip vibe, entrepreneurial spirit and art.

We started our day at the Asheville (shortened to AVL) Visitor Center, probably the best visitor center we’ve ever visited. It was airy and spacious, packed with information and very helpful staff. It was also the starting point for the Hop on Hop Off bus tour. We opted for the entire tour route, with no getting off, so that we could get the full lay of the land. It is about a 90-minute route and our driver/guide was fantastic and very funny.

While the city was founded in the late 1700s, its development as a destination city wasn’t until the early 1900s. Certainly, the creation of the Biltmore Estate was a draw, but the mountain air became a health draw and there was development of hospitals and sanitariums, and also a psychiatric institution. Dr. Robert Carroll developed Highland Hospital. He pioneered in various treatments for mentally ill patients, including electroshock and insulin shock treatments. A number of famous people spent time at Highland Hospital, including Patsy Cline and James Taylor, but probably the most famous was Zelda Fitzgerald. F. Scott and Zelda spent a lot of time in Asheville, he at the luxurious Grove Park Inn and she at the Highland Hospital. It was at the hospital that Zelda perished in a fire along with 8 other female patients. They were locked in rooms on the top floor of the hospital and couldn’t escape.

The man who really put AVL on the map was E. W. Grove. He was a pharmaceutical entrepreneur and got famous for a malaria treatment where he mixed quinine with a sugar so that the awful tasting quinine became more easy to swallow. Even though he made his fortune in pharmaceuticals, he did not want AVL to be known as a tuberculosis sanitarium center. He wanted AVL to be come a luxury vacation destination and so he built the Grove Park Inn, a very fancy Arts and Craft hotel. Grove also was responsible for development of the downtown area in the early 1920s.

Our tour guide talked non-stop for 90 minutes and gave us quite a lot of information about AVL and its history. It was a great way to get a sense of the place.

After the tour we drove a short way into downtown Asheville. AVL has more art deco architecture than any other city except Miami. We stumbled across a great place to have lunch, The Exchange at the Restoration Hotel. It being about 2:00pm, we had the restaurant practically to ourselves. It was a very pleasant lunch in a beautiful location.

One of the famous art deco buildings is the S&W Cafeteria.

AVL has a Flat Iron building, which is now a hotel. The street name on one side of the building is Wall St. and on the other side is Battery Park Avenue. Another art deco building is the Jackson Building.

AVL is the county seat of Buncombe County. The governmental buildings for the county and City Hall are next to each other and referred to as the architectural odd couple. Both were completed in the same year, 1928. The City Building was designed in a flashy art deco style by Douglas Ellington. However, the county thought the City Building was too extravagant so they fired Ellington and hired someone else to building a more classical structure. Our tour guide commented about these two buildings saying that the City Building was the wedding cake and the County Building was the box it came in. I thought that was hilarious!

We enjoyed our time in AVL. It is located in a beautiful area and I can easily understand how people are drawn to this area. AVL is a quirky community but seems to be a happening place.

On Friday, we were making our next move, going to Brevard, NC. Because it was s short drive, we had some time to go exploring. I found out that the location of the Christy story that Christine is so taken with is about an hour north of AVL, so we decided to see what we could find of what once was referred to as Christyland. Up until about 10 years ago, some of the area around a tiny place called Del Rio would have annual Christy Fests. The Catherine Marshall 1967 book Christy was so that popular that it was made into a TV series in the 1990s. That made the story even more popular and so the mountain area around Del Rio was a tourist destination. Many of the places in the book were preserved and marked with signage so people could see the mission house and school and some of the main characters’ cabins up the hollows and in the mountains. That’s all gone now and I don’t think there are any more Christy Fests.

The drive north from AVL to Del Rio was really beautiful, but it was a curvy road up, down, and around mountains. It followed the path of the French Broad River and some of the vistas were gorgeous.

The little town of Del Rio is supposedly the town of El Plano in the TV series. Other than a couple of buildings and train tracks, there isn’t anything there. I had read that the original Christy mission chapel had been relocated to Del Rio and is now called Ebenezer Baptist Church. We didn’t see it in the little town, but we did see a sign for the church pointing down a side road, so we ventured down that road. It was a narrow, windy road and we prayed that we wouldn’t meet a car coming the other way. It seemed like miles down that road, but we finally came to another sign for the church up a short drive, and there was Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Well, the mission church was no longer visible in this more modern building, but the interesting thing was the location and getting a sense for just how rugged the hills and hollows must have been. Life was certainly difficult here, but it was a beautiful spot.

We chose to drive out a different way and saw a sign for Christy Hollow Chapel and so we turned up a single lane dirt track. We drove about a mile and it was getting kind of scary, not knowing where we were headed and on this single track. We found a place to turn around and hightailed it out of there.

So our trip to Christyland was okay, but nothing to write home about. But it was a gorgeous day and had beautiful scenery. The French Broad River is one of only a few rivers that flow north. It is very picturesque. The route back to AVL retraced our route. We had seen signs for historic Marshall so we took a quick detour to Marshall, which is the county seat. There was a lovely little park where we enjoyed a picnic lunch. I read that the townsite of Marshall is blocked on one side by the French Broad River and on all other sides by steep mountainous terrain. Madison County residents say Marshall is “a block wide, a mile long, sky high and hell deep.” That is a pretty good description.

We drove back to AVL and then on to a city south of AVL called Brevard. We’re staying in Brevard three nights. The reason we’re going to Brevard is to meet up with a friend of Christine’s who she’s only seen via Zoom and talking on the telephone, so we’re looking forward to meeting her in person.

Even though Asheville is in the mountains, we didn’t expect frigid temperatures. We clearly should have thrown our puffy coats in the car before leaving. This morning was 27 degrees! We were not prepared for this cold, and it’s windy to boot. At least the sky is brilliant blue with full sunshine. That is some consolation.

The Biltmore is the largest, privately owned residence in America. I purchased tickets a couple of months ago. On the Biltmore website, it lists seasons, which means there are different decorations around the mansion. The fall season ended today, November 1, with the Christmas season starting November 2. Of course, ticket prices went up nearly $50 for the Christmas ticket, so stingy me saved some dough and booked for the last day of fall. We didn’t expect to see the Christmas decorations, but what we found on the tour is that most of the decorations had already been put up, so we had the best of both worlds.

The Biltmore Mansion is a Chateauesque-style mansion built for George Vanderbilt between 1889 and 1895 during the highlight of the Gilded Age. The mansion is huge, nearly 170,000 square feet, and the estate today covers about 8,000 acres, although George Vanderbilt originally purchased about 125,000 acres. He had visited the area in the early 1880s and had fallen in love with the area. He immediately started buying up the land. Construction started in 1889 and took 6 years to complete. Over 1,000 workers were used in the construction. Richard Morris Hunt was the architect, but more interestingly, Vanderbilt hired Frederick Law Olmstead, famous for creating Central Park in New York City, to design the grounds. It certainly is an impressive property. One of the things Olmstead did was to create a rustic, 4-mile winding road from the estate entrance up to the mansion. I can only image what it must have been like to ride in a horse-drawn carriage up to the mansion. The grounds are breathtaking and must be absolutely beautiful in spring. You don’t see the mansion until the very end of the drive. To get there now by car, you drive about 30 minutes through the estate, park, and then walk a little bit before you see the mansion.

The tour is self-guided using a handheld audio device. Each room is marked with a number so you can hear about what you are seeing. There are loads of people touring the mansion, but the route is well marked and the staff keeps you moving along. The staff is very helpful when you have questions about something, which of course we had. I understand that the staff moves every hour to a new location, so the studying that each had to do to learn so much is quite impressive. George Vanderbilt was quite the collector of art, furniture, and furnishings so there is so much to see and learn about. The decor is rich, but not gaudy or over the top. Vanderbilt was a perfectionist so everything was just so. We were really impressed by the whole experience.

Even though a lot of Christmas decorating had been done, the biggest project was going on in the banquet hall. The banquet room is massive with a 7-story high ceiling. A very large Christmas tree was being set, pruned and prepped for decorating. All the chairs from the banquet hall were in the Winter Garden, a fabulous circular room with a glass roof. I would have liked to see the banquet table all set, but the table had been removed and all the Christmas tree lights were spread out on the floor ready to be hung. Plastic was covering the 17th century tapestries that were hanging on the wall.

We went through the breakfast room, the salon, and the music room.

An interesting story about the Music Room is that during World War II, priceless paintings from the National Gallery of Art were brought to Biltmore and stored in the Music Room.

The Tapestry Gallery, 90-feet long, holds several Flemish tapestries from 1530 as well as other art, especially several portraits of Vanderbilt family members.

I think everyone’s favorite room is the Library. It was George Vanderbilt’s favorite.

Then on to the private area for George and Edith Vanderbilt. Separate bedrooms separated by a long sitting room, one side for George and one side for Edith.

There’s a wonderful circular grand staircase that winds around up to four floors.

We saw guest bedrooms both for normal visitors and important visitors. The Vanderbilt’s had a very active social calendar and hosted lots of very important people of the day. The important people got high end bedrooms with the best views and the normal people got less glitzy bedrooms. Down just one hallway there were 13 guest bedrooms. Of course, all the hallways became gallery space. George Vanderbilt had a huge collection of prints of famous works of art as well as other very valuable works, like Renoir and Monet.

We trekked down to the basement where we walked through stone hallways that showed just how massive the infrastructure was to hold up such a huge building. There was a really interesting exhibit about the building of the mansion showcasing some of the laborers and foremen who worked on the mansion.

In the basement, part of which is considered the recreation area, is a bowling alley, a swimming pool and a gym.

We then saw the “below stairs” area where staff lived and worked.

We peaked in to all the storerooms, the pastry kitchen, the rotisserie kitchen, the servants dining room, the flower arranging room and areas where the servants did their daily chores. I can’t imagine how much money it took to run such a household. Of course, the Vanderbilts were incredibly wealthy so they could afford it. The Biltmore is not the only Vanderbilt mansion so running all this opulence for them was affordable.

We ended the mansion tour by seeing the changing rooms, separate for females and males, and the men’s smoking room and gun room.

It was a really fascinating tour and we learned so much about the mansion, the era, the Vanderbilt family, and the importance of the Biltmore to the area.

And that isn’t the end of our time at the Biltmore. Next, we wandered around the expansive gardens. Even though most things are no longer blooming, we found lots of color in some of the gardens. And the Conservatory was really great.

We did spend quite a bit of time in the Conservatory, but I won’t post those photos because there really wasn’t much different than what I’ve posted in our visits to Marie Selby Garden in Venice, FL. But let me assure you, the displays, vegetation and flowers in the Conservatory were lovely.

One of the things we did at the end of our time was to ask for re-entry into the mansion. We were welcomed back in. We wanted to see the tree in the banquet hall to see it more decorated than we saw it earlier in the day. Amazingly, they were mostly done decorating and staff were cleaning up while the last couple of ornaments were being placed.

We snapped a few pictures of some of the exterior of the mansion on our way out.

The Biltmore Estate is really awesome and we were very glad that we paid the high price for the tour. We thought it was totally worth it. What a place!

We drove around some of the estate on our way out. We saw the Inn and hotel, the winery and a couple of the specialty restaurants on the estate. There is also a stables where you can book carriage rides, which I think would be a blast, but likely unaffordable for folks like us. On the estate are working farms and we saw cattle and sheep. There is a river running along one of the estate’s borders which was very picturesque.

We had a great day!

The mural above is on the wall in the eating area of our Tru hotel in Knoxville. It shows the 2 predominant structures in Knoxville, the Sunsphere and Neyland Stadium, home of the U of T Volunteers football team. The mural is a nice depiction of the riverfront.

Today we’re moving to Asheville, but we’re taking a detour in order to go to Cades Cove. I receive various travel emails showing places to go, like the 5 best hidden gems on the East Coast, stuff like that. In one of these emails I saw a blurb about Cades Cove being a wonderful historic place in the mountains of Tennessee. In keeping with Christine’s enthrallment with the Christy story, I thought this would be an interesting place to visit. So off we went rather early Tuesday morning. The promised storm and cold front came through last night. It was still very overcast and drizzling when we left, but at least the heavy rain was gone.

I had forgotten that Cades Cove was in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but I was thrilled to be able to tick off another national park on my list of parks visited. Lucky me, two in one trip, since we did Shenandoah National Park during our Skyline Drive drive. I missed a chance to get a photo of that park’s sign, but I got the Great Smoky sign.

The road to Cades Cove is just as beautiful, if not more so, as Skyline Drive. It winds 9 miles through the mountains along the Little River. There are no scenic overlooks, but the colors of the forest along the road were stunning.

The mountains along the road are also covered in rhododendrons and mountain laurel, all 9 miles along the road. I chatted with a park volunteer at the entrance to Cades Cove and asked if the shrubs were rhododendrons. He confirmed that they were and he said it brings tears to his eyes just talking about how beautiful the drive is in the spring when everything is in bloom. It must be absolutely spectacular.

When I think of the word cove, it brings to mind waterside small inlets. But I learned that a cove is also a sheltered valley mainly or entirely enclosed by ridges and having a relatively level floor, arable land, and a single drainage outlet. And that, in large part, is what one drives around on an 11-mile, one-way loop around the valley floor. Cades Cove was first Cherokee land. There was a small Cherokee village in the cove. Apparently, the cove was named for Chief Kade. The 1819 Treaty of Calhoun (which began what eventually was the Trail of Tears as the Cherokee were forced to relocate to Oklahoma) ended all Cherokee claims to the Smokies. European settlers arrived at the time of this treaty and began settling in Cades Cove.

Around the 11-mile loop road are several of the buildings the settlers built. These are all the oldest structures in the park and give a glimpse of what life was like. In addition, there were 3 churches from the 1820s, 2 Baptist and one Methodist. The reason there are 2 Baptist churches for such a very small population in the cove is because there was a falling out in the community about the importance of missionary work. The Baptists split into two camps and the mission sect went off and built their own church.

The Great Smokies get their name from the appearance of a blue misty haze caused by a natural photochemical process. All the vegetation emits natural hydrocarbons that react with ozone particles wafted down from the stratosphere. Moisture condenses on these aerosols, which then scatter the shorter wavelengths of light in the blue-violet spectrum to produce the signature haziness. Yeah, too much information (sorry about that). But we didn’t get to see that blue haze because the mountain tops were hidden by low clouds, a very different kind of bluish haze. The photo below is looking across some of the cove

One of the more interesting stops around the loop was a very small community. I loved the old mill. Even though the waterwheel was not functioning, the water to run the mill was diverted from the nearby river via a very long sluice.

There was also this very cool old barn.

We then headed to Asheville, NC, although we were so far off the grid that we didn’t have any cell coverage so the GPS wasn’t working. We had some maps, but it was very difficult to figure out which direction we needed to go. I went on another scenic route through the park, and although we were a bit nervous about going far afield, the route was so incredibly beautiful that we soon just relaxed and enjoyed the very scenic route. At one point, we were on the Foothills Parkway, and there was one great overlook.

We finally got cell service again and we synced up with GPS and discovered we were doing well route-wise. We went through Gatlinburg, TN, a mountain resort city. It’s quite a tourist destination. In the winter, it is a major ski area. There are lots of outdoor adventure activities, including zip lines. The place even has a space needle. And there’s a huge Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Personally, I thought the place seemed pretty tacky, but there were loads of people there walking the main street.

The remainder of the drive was uneventful. I-40 winds its way through a gap in the mountains along the Little River. Where the gap was too narrow for the highway, the highway went through the mountain via tunnels. And surprisingly, with our confusion about route from Cades Cove, we actually rolled into our hotel parking lot just a couple of minutes passed 4:00pm, practically right on my self-imposed schedule of getting off the road by 4:00pm. We’ll be in Asheville for 3 nights.

Tomorrow, we visit the Biltmore Estate. Can’t wait.