On Thursday (3/23) we spent the day at George W. Vanderbilt’s Biltmore estate in Asheville
North Carolina. It is the epitome of ostentation. It is purported to be the largest house in
North America, with a total of about 4 acres of floor space (that comes to about 180,000
square feet, according to my calculations). We combined the tour that we had always
wanted with a volkswalk. We could have done an 11K walk if we had just stuck to the
gardens, but we opted to do the 13K option that included the self-guided tour of the house.
That is adding two kilometers (about 1.2 miles) for doing a tour of about one half of the
house. Imagine trying to keep up with that house.
The interior of the house was as opulent as you might expect. Unfortunately, no one is allowed to take pictures inside. We saw of a few the 34 guest and family bedrooms and 45 bathrooms, but they were enough to see that we are talking about a lifestyle that, even in 1895 when the house was finished, was not experienced by many. I cannot adequately describe the interior – it must be experienced with a tour.
When we had finished the interior tour, we took on the volkswalk in the gardens. This was a
walk that was rated a 1+ in difficulty (where 1 is a flat walk on paved roads, and 5 is walking
up a long, steep mountain on natural trails). The trail started out on flat paths through
formal gardens and the conservatory. Then a hill with a cinder covered path was added to
go through the azalea gardens and down to the
grand views of the house.
For all the effort we expended to complete the walk, we covered only a minute portion of
the current 8,000 acres of grounds.
In order to recover from the walk, we had lunch in the Stable Café. This is, as it sounds, a café in the old stables. It looked to us that some of the ambiance had been created by new material (like the hay bins in the stables that made up the booths), but we were told that they were all original. After gaining some nourishment, we proceeded to the gift shop and the ice cream parlor to separate ourselves from more of our money. (The server at the ice cream shop convinced us we should get the apple-nut ice cream, and she did not steer us wrong – it was very good.)
By this time, it was late in the afternoon, and we drove another 5 miles (all on the estate) to get to the winery. Until 1958, this was the dairy, but starting in the mid 70’s they were using it to produce wine. Most of the wines - the Cabernets, Merlots, and Chardonays - did not overly impress us. We thought the Northwest wines were better – these tasted kind of harsh and unfinished. An exception was the Riesling. They described it as “on the dry side of semi-sweet.” I’m not sure what that means, but I think it is accurate. As a rule, we find Rieslings too sweet for our taste, but this one was pretty good. By the time we left this and got back to our camp, it was after 6:00, and we were bushed. Fortunately, we had had a lunch that was big enough so that all we needed to do was to snack for dinner, then crashed for the night.
Our van was due for an oil change, then on the way back to the camp on Thursday evening a warning light on the dashboard came on. The light on the dashboard has the label “Check Engine.” In the owners manual, the description is “Engine failure, see a dealer” - not very helpful. In any event the light was yellow rather than red and I found a dealer in the phone book. The service department had closed at 5:30. In order to try to get things fixed, we just went out to the dealer on Friday morning to see what they could do for us. They said that they were busy now, but if we came back at 1:00, they could see what the problem was, and possibly fix it. They were going to be too busy to change the oil, however, so they suggested we take it someplace else for that. We found a place to change the oil at about 9:00, but they weren’t going to be able to get to it ‘til about 11:00. We cooled our heels for awhile and did get to the Mast General Store. The store was very interesting with a wide variety of merchandise. We did our part to help the local economy, then went back to get the oil changed. We left the car off and did some grocery shopping, and when we got back to the car, they said that they couldn’t do anything for us because neither they nor their supplier carried the right oil filter for the car.
Now it was time for us to get some lunch and then get back to the VW dealer. They put a
diagnostic computer on the car and determined that the problem was some fan that
increased the air flow to one of the emissions control devises, and was not critical. They
turned off the warning light and suggested that if it comes back on we could take our time
to get it to a service area when it was convenient. They did, however, sell us an oil filter.
By now it was about 2:00, and our entire accomplishment for the day was to get an oil filter.
Following all of this, we drove out to the Great Smoky
Mountains National Park. The ride out was very pretty, and it was clear that the park is
spectacular, but a measure of our road weariness and frustration with the day was that we
decided not to go much further than just the visitor’s center.
We entered the park on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but we left by way of commercial highways, and the town of Cherokee – part of the Cherokee Nation reservation. Most of that route was lined with “shlock” shops and one big casino – operated by Harrah’s. The one good event of that part of the trip was related to signs we have seen for much of the time that we have been in the south – “Boiled Peanuts.” We decided to stop at a vendor advertising them and try them. We lucked out because he had just finished selling his previous batch and another batch wouldn’t be ready for some time, but there were a few in the bottom of the kettle that he could give us to taste. We found that they tasted about as unappetizing as they sound. I guess you need to acquire a taste for them.
Friday night we stayed in a motel back in Asheville. Finally, on Saturday morning, we found someone that could change our oil (as long as we had the filter), the warning light has stayed off. We headed out on the next leg of our trip.
Originally, we had planned on leaving Asheville by way of Chattanooga, TN, then down to Atlanta and Florida. As it happens, our friends in Atlanta will be busy about the time we would have gotten there, so we have modified the trip to go first to Charleston, SC, then Savannah, and then Florida. We will then pick up Atlanta on the way back up toward Washington DC and New England.
When we left the mountains we discovered how much they affect the arrival of spring. In
Asheville and the surrounding areas, the foliage consisted mostly of
