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(

Vegecation Wind Down :o(

It always amazes us how at the beginning of the week, it seems like we have such a great amount of time to have our Vegecation. I distinctly remember sitting out on the gallery (the front entrance to the timeshare units in our building) on Tuesday, after golf but before dinner with Cousin Ron and Aunt Marie, that we still had more than half the week remaining. But time sure flew from there.

I headed out to the links again Wednesday morning, and had another round of golf. Shot an 88, one better than Tuesday. The first few holes went quickly, then about hole seven, I started playing two balls since there were two groups ahead of me. After a stop for some needed water and Gatorade, I started the back nine, and after hole 12, connected up with the two locals behind me for the rest of the round. They gave me some great tidbits for future places to eat.

On Thursday, our friend Lee joined us at the timeshare as has become our tradition. This is the fourth year he has been with us. We get caught up on happenings, and then walk down the beach to get our burgers at Breakers (they have the best burgers, yum! :o). We then head down to the beach for some frolicking, but this year we were consumed with trying to do some trick kite flying in, the wind was intermittent, and we had some tangled lines issues, but toward the end, did get a good half hour of flying in. Then we headed in to get cleaned up, and I cooked up some vintage "Ken's" spaghetti (not quite as favorable as at home since I had no garlic and onions, and only had garlic salt and Italian seasoning to work with). While the sauce was simmering, we played a new spelling card game called Triversity, I rocked in the practice hands, but tanked in the real game :o( After dinner, we played a group solitaire game called Kings In The Corners, it was very enjoyable, and can even be played with two players. Again I came out on the bottom of the totem pole, but fun was had by all.

On Friday, after some gallery and chat time, we headed to JB's Fish Camp for our traditional lunch. It was awesome as always, raw oysters and beer to start, then I had steamed clams. Beth got her Key Lime Pie Fix, so all is good in the Universe again :o)

About half way through our meal, a couple of younger 'Blondie' ladies [quotes because they were very stereotypical] sat at the table next to us. After less than a minute, Beth and I looked at each other and said simultaneously "She's talking again". One of the ladies was the epitome of the comic piece by Henry Phillips called "She's talking again". At one point she actually leaned forward and said three times in succession, "Ohhhhh, mmmmyyyyyy, gggoooooooossssshhhh" leaning forward with her head jutted forward. It was hilarious. Lee and I were able to tune it out, but as Beth said, the whole time it just grated on her "last nerve" :o)

Below is the piece by Henry Phillips.

Today we packed up and hit the road. It was a pretty good trip, we made better time than we hoped for (only one construction delay, and averaged better than 7o mph). We drove up through Jacksonville, into Georgia up through Savannah, into South Carolina travelling through Columbia, and then up to Asheville North Carolina. We are glad that we made good time, because when we got to Asheville, we found out that one of the largest outside festivals in the country is here this weekend (they expect 300,000 to 400,000 people, and Bruce Hornsby is in concert).

No rooms available in the immediate vicinity of the Biltmore Mansion, but we went down the road a piece (that is five miles in Ken Speak) and got a nice room at the Holiday Inn. They have a nice Bistro, and after seven extreme seafood meals the past week, it was great to go Italian. Beth had Lasagna, and I had Veal Marsala. Of course there was a salad, a some bread and olive oil dip, some Red Wine, and a cappuccino and chocolate mousse for me. It was very good and a nice transition into the end of Vegecation.

We are looking forward to our Biltmore tour tomorrow (we advanced booked on line tonight) and then will put in a couple of hours on the road tomorrow.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend, we know we are.