Jul 28, 2009

Biltmore Mansion Visit - End of Vegecation

Sunday morning, we set the alarm (nooooo, not the alarm) and were up and about and at the Biltmore Mansion Welcome Center by 0845 AM. We picked up our tickets, examined the map, formulated our strategy, and headed up the entrance to the parking lot.

Our plan was to go to the main house, visit the gardens and such, head to the winery for a taste and a bite, and then back to the house for our scheduled tour. I am happy to report that all was a success.

We had a great walk through the shrub garden, with several critter spottings as you will see in the below video. Then we headed down to the walled flower garden, and was it beautiful. I did not include all the flower pictures, because there were many, but hopefully you get an idea. As you can see, there are several pictures of bees, and that is because there were oodles of them :o) The buzz was all around us, and as an allergic person, we made sure they had a wide berth.

We enjoyed the shrub garden, the walled flower garden, the winery (picked up six bottles to add to our collection :o) and especially the Mansion Tour. Many of the rooms are bigger than our house, and the details of the construction and the restoration are amazing.

We ended our visit at the gift shop, and picked up a book that details how the Mansion became self sus-taining - which is what the original vision of the property was, and also a set of cute squirrel bookends to add to our Nutwood collection.





We hit the road again about 4:30 PM, and put in another three hours. We had a cooler, and that was good, because turned out that we stopped in a "dry" county in KENtucky, and could not have any cool amber beverages with dinner. We managed to endure :o)

That left us only about 400 miles for our Monday end of Vegecation drive. We had a pleasant drive, and got home in the late afternoon. Needless to say, Sheeba was glad to see us, as we were him. He did not "shut-up" for more than an hour LOL.

Today was getting caught up on bills, mail, some relaxation, and mowing the lawn just before the downpour :o)

Now it will be back to our scheduled program :o(

8 comments:

  1. The slideshow looks great! The pictures really can't do the gardens justice, though. Literally acres of flowers and plantings. Just beautiful, and I'm still planning on investigating Rose Mallow. Thanks for another great vegecation, Honey!

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  2. Bucko,
    Good to hear to you got to take a vacation.And the videos are nice,Sorry I havent stopped in by in aw hile.Ive had Family visiting an thats always nice.Even if it is my two little red headed great neices age,2 and 5.They stayed two nights and three days.

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  3. I enjoyed the slideshow, the mansion is gorgeous. I can't even fathom actually living in a place like that. Happy to hear the bees stayed away from you.

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  4. Hi Ken,
    Great photos and thanks for sharing. I've been looking for an easy way to put slide shows on blogger ... youtube seems to fit the bill!
    Best,
    Marty

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  5. Wow - what beautiful pics!

    I just can't get over the fact that actual people lived there. Can you imagine??

    XOXOXO

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  6. Thanks for stopping by my blog.

    And why don't more folks know about the dry counties? Like the fact that most folks that good ole Jack is distilled in a dry county. You can look at the bottles but you cannot sample any. Just seems wrong.

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  7. Gorgeous!!! OMG...the bees! I am allergic too... ack! There is no such thing as a dry anything in the NY/NJ/CT area... lol

    be well...

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  8. Great Post.....loved the photos. I,too am allergic!

    Glad you and Beth had a great vegecation!!!!!

    Hugs, Rose

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