May 3, 2007 Asheville to Cedar Mountain, NC

What an incredible day this turned out to be! The Biltmore Estate is quite something! We opted for the home tour with audio. The latter made it so easy to know what to focus on, and it explained the history behind the rooms and their decor. The home, (America’s largest), built by the Vanderbilts with shipping and railroad money, was completed in 1875. There are 250 rooms (49 bathrooms) which takes up 4 acres of INDOOR space. It had amazing modern conveniences for that time such as indoor plumbing aand electric lights. Live floral displays were in every room. The Vanderbilts enjoyed entertaining and provided golf, horseback riding, croquet, music, and indoor games for their frequent guests. The art(ex. Renoir, Whistler) and furnishings are the originals. George Vanderbilt was a voracious reader averaging 2 books a week for his lifetime. His library contains 20,000 books. All of this is set on 8,000 acres, 250 of which are gardens. As part of the basic ticket, a winery tour and tasting room visit are included. That concluded our visit and we were about to leave when the clouds opened up. Rog found some handy chairs so we could wait out the downpour. It turned out to be the setting for a cooking demonstration that was about to start. The chef prepared pecan crusted chicken with key lime sauce and offered samples…delicious! (Yes, I have the recipe!). When the cooking demonstration was over, so was the rain and our time at America’s most elegant home. Next, we headed south to Cedar Mountain which is right on the border of NC/SC. This is the home of Black Forest Campground and Matt and Laurie. They, along with her family, own and run the campground, a lovely place with beautiful green forests and very clean, big shower facilities. Matt is the son of Mary and Bob, our good friends from teaching days in NY. It was a very special evening with a beautiful drive to see Looking Glass Waterfall and dinner at Casey Jones Restaurant. We made friends with their little, almost- two charmer, Julia, and said a quick hello to snoozing twin baby boys, David and Steven. This ended a terrific day. Tomorrow we’re off to Charleston, SC, to see Bob and Mary. We know they will let us in because we have the most recent photos of Julia, their granddaughter!