Condo Trip 2024: Knoxville & Lake Lure 5

 

 This is the fifth part of the posts about this year's condo trip. You really should read them in order. Here's a link to Part One. And here's a link to all the pictures from this year's trip.

All of my pictures, I believe, are captioned, so you don't have to just guess at what you're looking at. In some applications, the captions show at the bottom of the photo; otherwise, when you view the pictures in Google Photos, you'll see a little "Information" icon at the top right -- an "i" in a circle. Click on that to read the captions.

Part Five: Condo Week (cont'd)

Thursday, May 23

  Our Thursday began with a bang as Sherry returned from her morning run and announced that she had encountered a bear and was not going to run here any more.

 She had been heading downhill toward the golf course when she saw a black bear loping uphill towards her in the grass beside the street. She stopped and slowly side-stepped her way to the far curb and kept a close eye on the critter until it was well past her and out of sight. She says she thought about heading back to the condo right then, but since the bear had gone in that direction, she decided to continue her run and hope that, by the time she came back, the bear would be gone. (And if it wasn't, she'd call for a ride.) Luckily, she didn't see the bear again and got home intact. 

 She was sure that what she saw actually was a bear, and not just a large beaver.

The Blue Ridge (photo by Sherry)

I decided I don't care if the dog's a slob.

 Once the excitement had died down -- it took a while; we had to have the whole thing explained to us several times before we could truly grasp it -- we got ourselves together to do some more exploring, this time along the Blue Ridge Parkway, a Depression-era government boondoggle that has left this nation with one of the great roads of the modern world; the kind of boondoggle that maybe we could use more of. We headed a short distance west on Interstate 40 -- a much more expensive and practical expenditure of government funds -- and picked up the Parkway, very close to the Southern Highland Craft Guild Folk Art Center that we'd visited the other day. I stopped in to buy the small blue oval bowl by Amanda Taylor that I'd noticed on that first visit, and ended up buying both it and a companion piece, a slightly taller, equally beautiful round bowl with the same pattern. 

the peak by the road

 From there, we drove a few miles -- maybe fifteen? -- north on the Parkway to a place called Craggy Gardens Visitor's Center. We weren't sure what this place was supposed to be; I'd assumed it was another craft display centered on botanical pursuits. It wasn't. It's just a visitor's center with the usual tourist paraphernalia: magnets, t-shirts, toys, games, souvenirs, and an attendant who cheerfully offered to answer any question we might have, but was immediately stumped by a question from Nancy about the geography of the region, and just as cheerfully admitted that she only supervised the Parkway shops in the area and was new to North Carolina. 

 The local attractions are two hiking paths, one that goes about a mile and a half to a picnic area we'd just passed, the other that goes about a mile and a quarter to the top of a peak next to the parkway. They have elevation gains of 400 and 500 feet, respectively, so we were not in a frame of mind or physical will to hike either. Well, Sherry might've been; she lives for that kind of exertion. But it would have meant being on her own in bear country. She was not of a mind to do that. We contented ourselves with a few photos of the area, and a bear-themed postcard for Sherry, who still maintains it was not a large beaver she had seen.

 Nancy suggested lunch at Mount Mitchell State Park, which she'd found referenced at the Craggy Gardens Visitor's Center; it was just a few miles farther on, and was supposed to have a nice view of the mountains. It sho-'nuff did. This was North Carolina's first state park, formed around 1915 to preserve the spruce forest that was, at the time, being clear-cut across the state. The restaurant there looks out across the ridges to the west, and the view was especially pretty as the fog rose and fell. The food at the restaurant wasn't at all bad either. I got a reuben and Sherry got an "adult grilled cheese" sandwich and we swapped halves. I couldn't really say which was the better meal. They were served with home-made potato chips, which were interesting but not really all that good. The service was excellent and the prices were pretty good, too, and how could you improve on the ambience of a large native-wood room with floor-to-ceiling windows showing you the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains? Can't be done. The only peculiar thing was the way you place your order with the hostess at the entrance, then find a table, and they bring you your food. Odd; but it seems to work for them.

'40 Buick Century

 From there, we headed back towards Asheville on the Parkway, then turned off just at the northern edge of the town to go to a place called Grovewood Village, a collection of artsy-craftsy things derived from Biltmore Industries, which was a textile company back in the day. Now the old buildings have been turned to other purposes. The one I was interested in is now a car museum, in which I spent the entire time of our visit, looking over their small collection, about 15 cars (mostly GM; the building was a Cadillac dealership in one incarnation) while the others explored, oh, the sculpture garden, the museum of textile crafts, and a mountain-crafts shop. I'd've gone to look at those things but it started raining as I came out of the car museum, so I have to rely on Sherry's pictures. I would have liked to have seen the sculptures, at least.

The Flowering Bridge

 Our last planned stop was the North Carolina Arboretum, on the far side of Asheville. By the time we got there through rush-hour traffic, it was raining pretty steadily, and we decided that we did not in fact wish to wander around in the forest in the rain. So we drove back to our condo, listening to a very interesting podcast called Empire, which so far has been about the history of India since the Moghul Empire's collapse against the East India Company. Once home, we decided to go out for dinner, and after reviewing all the restaurants in the area, we settled on the River Watch, a bar & grill that has live music on certain evenings. (On the way, we stopped at the Flowering Bridge and I took two mediocre pictures, just for this blog.) At the River Watch we got to hear a guy named Dave Irvine, who played a lot of stuff we like: Bob Seeger, Tom Petty, the theme song from Gilligan's Island... All the classics. Unfortunately, we got to the River Watch a little late (mostly because Jeff had gambled that we wouldn't be going back out, and had ... um ... gotten comfortable); the place closes at 8pm every night, because, according to the bartender, by 8:30pm everyone in the area is at home and only the bears are out, rummaging for trash cans. Sherry had a very small house salad, while I had a bacon cheeseburger, which I enjoyed very much. We all appreciated the staff very much, as we were there well past closing time.

 We closed out the evening with a game of hearts at the condo, as our Duraflame log burned in the fireplace. We had all forgotten that Jeff's oxygen machine can't be used around open flame, so he had to take it off and move it away until the game was over. He then went to bed while the rest of us sat watching the fire burn and listening to music on Sherry's phone. I gave up after about half an hour and went to bed myself.

Friday, May 24

 Our only plan for the day was to attend the opening night of the White Squirrel Weekend in Brevard in the evening. We had the whole day until then to just do whatever. We managed to fill the day exploring Rutherford County, and it ended up being a very diverting exploration.

 As you might expect, there is nothing of great interest in a remote backwater area like Rutherford County, North Carolina. There is some pretty scenery, which we have been enjoying all week, and there was some tangential involvement in both the Revolutionary War (revolutionaries hanging their Tory neighbours, and vice-versa) and the Civil War (right at the end, after Lee had surrendered), but nothing of any wider importance occurred. Still, we had nothing else to do, and we had a brochure showing where all these trivial historical markers were. And Sherry found something on line called the Cherry Bounce Tour, which led travellers to the place where locals bought booze during prohibition. The tour seemed to wander at random around the central part of the county, and ended in the middle of nowhere, and it didn't give any particulars about anything we might see along the way, but we weren't really choosy. We threw that into the mix.

 First we went looking for a place to recycle glass and plastic. It was supposedly located at the Bill's Creek Convenience Center, on Bill's Creek Road. That turned out to be an old, dilapidated gas station slowly crumbling away by the side of the road. There was no recycling there. I found a sign directing us to the Bill's Creek Community Center, so we went there thinking maybe we could find someone to direct us to the recycling center. What we found was two suspicious old locals at a dog park. One tried to direct us to some place miles and miles away to the north; the other said there was a place, but it was "only for Bill's Creek residents," and that she would have to call Cindy, whoever that is. We thanked them and left. (In the end, we made a random stop much later in the day at a port-a-potty at the trail head for a hike to the house Carl Sandberg lived in when he was in the area, and there was a recycling bin there. So, Yay!)

The Get-Up Bell Tower

 So we drove first to the county seat, Rutherfordton (pronounced, believe it or not, "RULF-tin") where we stopped for lunch at Maples on Main, a nice little cafe and bakery. From there I walked down to a drug store to use the ATM (after first walking several blocks in the wrong direction), while Sherry found a printed map of the Cherry Bounce Tour at the local newspaper office across the street. It was pretty hard to use. We spent a pleasant afternoon trying to locate roads and historical markers without GPS. Some instructions gave road names, others gave highway numbers, but precious little corresponded to information available on the ground. It became a sort of trial-and-error tour, but we managed to find most of the historical markers: places like the Biggerstaff Hanging Tree (no longer there); Brittain Presbyterian Church; Fort Hampton (no longer there), from the Revolution, where it appears nothing happened at all; Fort McFadden (no longer there), which gave refuge to settlers during attacks by the Cherokee whose land all this area was; and various markers relating to  General Stoneman's Civil War raid. Although we never found the spot where they sold the booze, nor did we ever find out why it's called Cherry Bounce. (I don't know if this is relevant, but there is a locally-produced cherry-flavoured soft drink called Cheerwine....)

 But really the only marker of innate interest was the one for the Get Up Bell, in Cliffside; because it was the only one (other than the perfectly unremarkable Brittain Presbyterian Church) that had some physical evidence of the thing being commemorated. We enjoyed driving more or less aimlessly around the county, but the Get-Up Bell was a genuinely interesting idiosyncracy. It was a large bell, resting alone in a grassy field next to an apparently unrelated memorial tower, that would ring every morning at 5:30 to let the good people of Cliffside, a mill town, know that it was time to get up. An hour later, it'd ring again to tell people to get to the mill; twenty minutes after that was a ten-minute warning, because you didn't want to be late to work. It'd ring again at noon to announce lunch, and again at 12:50 to warn that lunch was nearly over; and then at 6pm when the working day was done. Whatever thoughts you might have about such a régime, we have already thought on your behalf.

the White Squirrel Weekend stage

 By the time we'd made our way to the Get-Up Bell, it was getting kind of late, so we got back on the highway and headed west for the White Squirrel Weekend in Brevard, south of Asheville. The origin of this festival has to do with some albino squirrels that got loose from a circus some time ago. They are, the town claims, all over the place now, though we didn't see any. Doesn't matter; it's really just an excuse for a street fair. They close off a few blocks of Main Street, the vendors come out and musicians perform and everybody comes out to visit with friends and neighbours and eat and drink. It's a very pleasant time. It had poured rain a little before the festival started, but by the time we got there the weather was perfect for being outside. We had a little something unremarkable to eat, and walked up and down the street, and sat and visited with a local woman with a really friendly dog named Astra -- such soft fur! -- and listened to a couple of bands play, and then we drove back to our condo. It was great. 

Coda: The Drive Home

 The drive home was about as uneventful as expected, with three exceptions.

 First, we finished listening to The Ink Black Heart. It ended up lasting us almost to the Texas state line. We both decided who done it before we were out of Alabama, and every new bit of information after that only added to our conviction. As we passed Pumpkin Center, where the old family farms were, one of the minor characters named our suspect as the murderer. That's never a good sign in a murder mystery, but still, it was obvious to both of us that the character was right. The book's detectives had dismissed our suspect -- hell, they never even considered him enough to actually dismiss him -- and no reason for this omission was given, that either of us recalls. In the end, when it turned out not to be our guy, no loose ends were tidied up. He was never explained; none of the many things that made us suspect him was explained. There were no moments of "Oh, I'd forgotten about that" to make us feel sheepish for having suspected him. The upshot is, we still think he done it, and the author got it wrong. 

 Second, I fell asleep at the wheel. This happened once before, crossing the Mojave Desert on Interstate 10 in California. That time the little ruts in the edge of the freeway woke me up after maybe a second or less, and I vowed at that point that I would never drive when I felt that kind of fatigue. Unfortunately, on that occasion, I had been looking for a place to pull off the freeway for many miles, and even after the event it was many miles before there was any safe place to get off. On this occasion I was only a little bit fatigued; it was nowhere near the level that heretofore had concerned me. I was driving in the inside lane, about to pass a semi-trailer. I blinked my eyes or something and in the next moment I had one tire in the truck's lane of travel and the corner of the trailer was less than a yard from the front of my car. Sherry jumped and gasped, and maybe that woke me up, but I really think I was already awake again before she did that. My first thought was not to oversteer in response, because I've seen too many times (on Top Gear and in movies, not in real life) what happens when you do that: you spin out, and end up at the bottom of a cliff on the Pacific Coast Highway (if it's a movie) or turning circles on the tarmac (if it's Top Gear), and in my case I knew immediately that if I moved the wheel too suddenly I'd lose control of the car. So I quickly but smoothly moved back into my lane; the car responded beautifully. And you can bet that at the very first opportunity I got off the freeway and took a nap. 

 This occurrence, quite unreasonably, confirms me in a decision I've made (in consultation with Sherry, whether she knows it or not) that I'm going to give my pretty little Jaguar to a car museum. I had a particular one in mind, but have now changed to another, more appropriate one, and I'm making plans to take it to that museum later this year, after my upcoming trip to Los Angeles. If my calculations are correct, I'll be able to deliver it to its new, hopefully permanent home, before I go to Colorado at the end of July. (That trip will be in the Subaru anyway, for logistical reasons.)

 I say "unreasonably" because, obviously, what I'm driving -- whether it's the Jaguar convertible or the Subaru Forester or any old thing on wheels -- has nothing to do with the event. It only confirms my decision because I think this car, this little XK-8, is just too beautiful to waste. 

 The third thing is, I saw my first real-live Tesla Cybertruck. On the TV commercials it looked silly. In real life it is hideous. It is grotesque. It is minimalist technocrap. It is the opposite of my little convertible. There are no words to describe just how ugly this piece of machinery is. Ugh.

Condo Trip 2024: Knoxville & Lake Lure 4

 This is the fourth part of the posts about this year's condo trip. You really should read them in order. Here's a link to Part One. And here's a link to all the pictures from this year's trip.

All of my pictures, I believe, are captioned, so you don't have to just guess at what you're looking at. In some applications, the captions show at the bottom of the photo; otherwise, when you view the pictures in Google Photos, you'll see a little "Information" icon at the top right -- an "i" in a circle. Click on that to read the captions.

Part Four: Condo Week (cont'd)

Monday, May 20

 Well, this was a good, full day. First, the weather was much nicer than had been forecast; in fact, the entire week's forecasts have improved. We spent the morning here in the condo planning out our week, then headed up the highway to Asheville. After a quick lunch at a fast-food restaurant, we stopped by the Southern Highland Craft Guild Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway, just outside of the city. So many beautiful works of craftsmanship on display, and most of them for sale. I very nearly bought a very small oval glass bowl, but I remembered the truth of what I'd written in this blog not long ago, about what a slob my dog is....*

 The main reason, though, that I didn't buy anything was that the car was pretty fully loaded on the way up here, and I suspect we will be transporting some stuff that will later find its way to Colorado. But one of these days. One of these days....

Pinball Museum

Anyway, we stopped in at the Asheville visitors' center to get more information about certain items we thought might form a part of our day in town. Reorganizing our sightseeing sort of on the fly, we went first to the Pinball Museum of Asheville. Not a large place, but fun to see all the old pinball tables in the front room, and the early arcade video games in the back. You can play all day for a set amount; I think it's $15; or you can do like we did, and play certain games set aside for the purpose. I played a Godzilla-themed pinball machine (fifty cents) and have no idea how I did, but it was fun. I think I got some extra balls; if I did, it was pure luck, as I don't know a thing about pinball.

1st Baptist

 Then we decided to take a driving tour of architecture, because the public art tour we'd originally planned involved too much walking. So we drove around and around the compact downtown of the city, seeing a number of interesting buildings, mostly from the early 20th Century. The First Baptist Church, modeled on Florence's duomo; the City Building; the neighbouring Jackson and Westall buildings, which share an elevator; and so on (pictures in the album), ending at the Grove Arcade, and early version of a shopping center. 

 The Grove is quite a nice space. Upper floors are given over to apartments, and the second floor is offices. The ground floor is filled with small shops varying from arts and crafts to home decor of an upscale variety. Most were already closed for the day by the time we wandered in to admire the arcade's Venetian-themed architectural touches, but a gelato shop drew the four of us in as if there was a chemical trail we instinctively followed. I had a scoop of salted caramel gelato topped with a scoop of peanut butter, and was surprised that the peanut butter was the better of the two. (And having read in the Guardian this morning that a double scoop of ice cream in the U.K. now costs more than ten dollars, I feel like I got a bargain on the gelato, at about $6 for two scoops.) 

 We came out the south end of the arcade to try and locate several of the buildings on the tour that we couldn't get to in the downtown congestion; and while we were there we decided to have dinner before heading back to the condo. A passerby, who overheard us discussing the restaurants in sight, interjected her opinions about local cuisine, and managed to dissuade us from trying a rooftop Cuban restaurant across the street; I was dead-set against the poke-bowl cafe on the side street, and voted instead for the eventual winner, a "southern-inspired" cafe on the corner with outside tables. We had excellent service and pretty good food at Carmel's, despite the passerby's disparagement. (I rated it five stars on Google Maps because four and a half wasn't an option.) Mine was a mushroom pizza with sausage added, once again served on cracker-thin crust. Must be the current fashion. Sherry's was a chicken pesto pizza, very good but way too oily. Half of each went home with us.

 Once back to the car, we embarked on a search for the house Jeff's dad had been born in, on Brevard Road. The information Nancy got from a real-estate web site said the house there had been built in the 1940s, but it looks exactly like the house Jeff's grandparents had built there in the 1920s; so we believe it's the same house. Maybe there was some kind of update that caused the county records to be altered. But it is the same house. 

 Following that, we stopped at a drug store in the neighbourhood so I could get some cash at an ATM, then headed back to the condo for the night. 

* on May 13; see Part One, regarding the North Georgia Folk Pottery Museum galleries.

Tuesday, May 21

 Another great day! Gorgeous weather and lots of exercise. I had my leftover pizza for breakfast, and it was even better as leftovers. We gradually got ourselves together and headed out for our day. We'd planned to take a boat tour of the lake at 10AM, but we got there a few minutes after they sailed. So Sherry and I killed the interval in the town's Welcome Center, which had lots of brochures about things to see and do in the area; and it had a three-dimensional map of the area, which I enjoyed studying; and in the back room was a small history museum, detailing the minor events that took place locally in both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. There was also some coverage of more recent events, such as the founding of the town in 1927, the same year the first tourist buildings were constructed and the year the dam was built. It was interesting that the dam was a private venture, paid for by the sale of electricity. It paid off the dam in ten years, by which time the Great Depression had started and the Morse Brothers, whose vision gave birth to the town and the lake, were ruined. So only the bankers profited.

 We got on the 11AM boat tour; there were eight customers on board. The tour guide was excellent: knowledgeable, well-spoken and funny. She took us all around the lake, showing us various buildings of historical or architectural interest. If there are any famous people with houses on the lake, she was discreet enough not to mention them. She did, though, say at one point, "The people who live in this house don't like having their house stared at, so we of course pause here several times a day to look at it." Another house she showed us was the first built on the lake: five hundred square feet including a boathouse on the lower level. It's the smallest house on the lake, and was bought by the owner of the mansion next door to use as a guest house.

 She also pointed out places related to the filming of Dirty Dancing. There's not much left. The stars were housed in the 1927 Spa Hotel, which has been renovated recently along with two other Spanish Revival buildings on that part of the lakeshore. The cabins that were used as employee lodging in the movie, and where Baby met Johnny, were torched by an arsonist some years ago. One scene was filmed on the golf course by our condo. And the town has an annual Lift Festival, when competitors get into the water and try to lift their teammates out, as Patrick Swayze did with Jennifer Gray. (He was given cinder blocks under his feet, to give him a grip in the mud; competitors don't get that advantage.)

 A number of people have funiculars to access the lake below their houses. In some cases it's their only access to the water. Others have long slides that toss riders into the lake. She showed us the largest house on the lake, a fifteen-thousand square-foot French-style palace occupied by just two people. 

 When the Morse brothers went bust, all the land they owned around the lake was auctioned off; one man, a Mr Powers, bought 200 acres, which he gave to his daughter. She never built on it, and later in life gave half to two nephews and put the other half into a conservation trust. The two nephews ended up doing the same with their property, so now there are only 200 acres on the entire 24-mile-long lake shore that are undeveloped. 

 We found the entire cruise around the lake interesting and relaxing. So glad we did it. 

 Afterwards we went up the road a few miles to the village of Chimney Rock. The plan was to buy some sandwiches or whatever and have a picnic up on the mountain in Chimney Rock State Park. But because we'd missed the 10AM boat tour, it was past noon when we got to the chosen provider of foodstuffs, the Old Rock Cafe; so we just had lunch there. Glad we didn't have to carry food or a cooler around while we hiked. 

the tunnel

 Chimney Rock is a short stone tower that stands over the Broad River valley. The former owners, in order to bring tourists in, built an elevator 260 feet up to the level of the tower's top, and a tunnel into the rock to connect with the elevator. At the top is a walkway out to the belvedere on top of the rock. It has an excellent view of Lake Lure just a few miles away, and of the surrounding mountains. 

 From another point in the park is a trail leading to Hickory Nut Falls, which, at 404 feet, is one of the highest in the state. The trail is a mile and a half each way, improved but not paved. It took us a long time but it was worth it. The falls flow from a natural spring on top of the mountain, and it's been wet recently. We happened to be there just as the sun was above the falls, giving our view some special effects. (The final scenes of the movie Last of the Mohicans were filmed at the top of this waterfall.)

 After spending the afternoon in the park, we decided that the Fog & Scaffold Athletic Club should have its annual meeting, as there is a very nice miniature golf course laid out on the bank of the river. We had a business meeting first, in the bar there, and then hit the links. I had a two-stroke lead at the halfway point but ended up finishing third. Good enough. It was fun. 

 We followed this up with dinner at the Highlands, a pretentious restaurant with a balcony overlooking the river. The ambience was very nice. The food had highs and lows. For example, my prime rib sandwich was fine, nothing really special, but it was served with what I have to call steak fries, but cut in a way I've never seen, before being fried up perfectly. They end up looking like crescent moons. Sherry had fish tacos that I thought were so-so. I know it sounds odd, but they had a fishy smell. They were served with rice that was simply boring, undercooked and underseasoned. The service was mostly good, although turgid, but I suspect the waiter was overextended. There were long gaps in the service, when we were waiting for things. He apologised at the end, which leads me to suspect that the problems is either that he is stretched too thin, or that the kitchen is disorganised, or both. As for the prices, they were slightly higher than I would willingly pay were it not for the ambience. I hesitate to call it any kind of good value, but it was not outrageous.

the Riverwalk

 Before we left, Sherry and Nancy took a quick look at the Riverwalk the village is building. It's a work in progress. San Antonio has nothing to worry about here. Then we went to the condo and crashed.

Wednesday, May 22

 Today we went to the Biltmore Estate. This is the single biggest attraction in this part of the country, other than the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Biltmore is the gigantic house built by George Vanderbilt, grandson of the Commodore who was in his day the richest man in the world. It was built during the Gilded Age, that late-19th-Century era when a handful of robber barons first came to control a significant part of the wealth of this country. They were the Oligarchs of their day, though none were as wealthy, relatively speaking, as the richest people of our own time. 

 The house was originally to be a sort of Appalachian version of a Newport cottage: 6,000 square feet or so, maybe Greek revival. But his architect, believing that money was no object to a Vanderbilt -- and it seems he was right -- convinced George that he should build a house "worthy of the estate" he was acquiring in the North Carolina mountains, which eventually came to more than a hundred thousand acres. (The entire Pisgah National Forest began with 87,000 acres of estate land sold to the government -- at a very low price -- by his widow, in recognition of George's wishes.) The resulting mansion, at something like fifteen thousand square feet, is still the largest private residence ever built in the United States. It's built in a French Empire style, and looks like the chateau of Blois, with the stairs moved to the front of the house.

Biltmore

 

 

Blois

We had tickets to go in at 12:30, but the Asheville Visitor's Center employee told us we could go into the grounds at any time, see the gardens and wander around the miles and miles of remaining property before our timed entry to the mansion. We planned to do that. Naturally, it didn't happen quite the way we planned, because we weren't actually ready to leave as early as that would require. We left the condo around 9:30 and got to the estate a bit before 11am. After cruising around in circles trying to figure out where to park, we found someone who could give us advice on that point...even if we had to have him repeat it several times, and then I said it back to him to make sure I understood what he'd said. He has a local accent, I suspect.

the stables

 We only had time for an early lunch in the Stables cafe. The stable and coach house were the first part of the estate to go up, in 1889, and Vanderbilt would live in the top floor apartment when he came to check on the progress of construction. Now the building and its courtyard is given over to restaurants and gift shops. I had a wedge salad, made entirely from ingredients produced on the estate, and it was excellent and filling. Sherry had a chickpea sandwich called the "Not Tuna Melt." She expected hummus, I think, but it was chickpeas, intact. A little weird, but in a good way. It came with ordinary french fries. Nancy had a roasted chicken quarter, which she says was excellent, as were the smashed potatoes, while the coleslaw was too vinegary, and it didn't have a good colour. It looked a little wilted. Jeff had some kind of sandwich; none of us remembers what it was, and he's not here to testify at the moment, so we move on: into the house, where they give you an audio guide wand and let you loose in this massive place.

The entryway: grand stairs, lobby, winter garden

 George kind of rushed the construction so that he could host his entire family for Christmas in 1895. As a result, a number of the major rooms on the main floors were incomplete when the house was occupied, and some remained that way for the rest of George's life. (I feel you, George.) As the insipid audio guide puts it, the present appearance of the rooms is "an interpretation of George's wishes, based on extensive research." After a few rooms like that, I decided that the audio guide wasn't worth listening to. The woman who recorded the guide speaks unbearably slowly, and each room's brief lecture begins, "As you move as far into the room as possible...," as if she expects people to heed her; her voice is irritatingly breathy; the information she imparts consists of rare dollops of interesting fact submerged in a bathtub of drivel. "Guest" speakers were heard but did nothing to elucidate anything. 

 Anyway, after a few rooms like that I dispensed with the audio recordings. That made it easier to go through the house, taking photographs, and that made me look for things to photograph. (My digital SLR Nikon camera stopped working after half a dozen shots, so I had to switch to my phone. Irksome.) Considering how much time I wasted listening to the audio for the first 7 or 8 rooms, I doubt that I missed anything of real significance. On several occasions I spoke to docents positioned around the house, and found out the reason there are no working bathrooms inside the house: "120-year-old plumbing and no sinks in the bathrooms." I also learned that the 40 or so bathrooms in the house are all exactly the same, from the master suite to the lowliest servant's quarters. Vanderbilt ordered plumbing fixtures from England for all the bathrooms, the same stuff, and had all the walls done in the same white tile because it was considered (correctly) to be more hygienic than wallpaper, and easier to clean. But he wanted his guests to know the luxury of having a maid deliver a pitcher of hot water. (I suspect the maids got their own hot water, rather than delivering it to each other to taste the luxury.)

the staff dining room

 The areas of the house open to visitors include parts of the ground floor, the two floors above that (there's at least one more up there, but it's closed off), and one of the basement floors, containing an exhibit about the construction and the workers who built the house; a swimming pool and changing rooms for the ladies; a bowling alley; and two kitchens, one with the giant rotisserie and the other with all the other gear needed to feed the huge numbers of residents, guests, and staff. The entire house had central heat (which is being upgraded for air conditioning with the addition of a room-sized heat pump out back somewhere); I noticed that the main kitchen had two radiators, while other rooms had registers for forced-air heating.

 The whole place boils down to this: it's huge, and no expense was spared. It was expensive to furnish and too expensive to maintain, it's magnificent and beautiful and it was, and is, a point of pride not only to the family but to the people of western North Carolina.

the back yard

After viewing the house for several hours, we drove to the 73-acre garden. Jeff and I waited outside while Nancy and Sherry went in. Well, I started to go in for a quick look, until I saw how many stairs I'd have to climb just to see it. I decided the shade of a tree in the parking area was preferable. Then, before leaving, we drove all around the estate, a slow five mile trip, with lots of putative wildlife sightings, especially beaver, which were wandering through the grass or standing on a rock beside the road. In the end we decided they were the Biltmore Beaver, a small fluffy-tailed rodent resembling a squirrel or a marmot. We also saw some wild turkeys.

 Before coming back to the condo we stopped for dinner at an Italian place in Lake Lure. The service was excellent, the prices were reasonable, the ambience was good (it's on a hillside overlooking the town, with Chimney Rock visible in the middle distance), but the food was not very good. The garlic rolls were dripping oil, and my own lasagna is better than theirs; and I don't really do lasagna well.