Update 44: Asheville, NC

Update 44: Asheville, NC  Nov. 24-29

Darkness fell before we reached Asheville, NC. The day exhausted us. We parked the RV per the Park's after dark directions, and then went to Cracker Barrel for dinner. It felt like old times when we got up the next morning and look at our surroundings and check out our parking job.  This park is located on a triangle between several freeways. Our site sat perched on a hill with a wonderful view of west Asheville. The rigs across the road sat nearer to the cliff with I-40 down below. 

This part of the park had mostly big RVs: motorhomes and 5th wheels.

Thanksgiving Day came with a brisk breeze and a bright sun shining in a blue sky. Since dinner for two doesn't take all day we decided to explore Chimney Rock. The drive took us SE of Asheville several miles. The road signs indicated that we were traveling toward Bat Cave.  I thought that was an attraction. However, Bat Cave is a little town along the way.  We also passed the Eastern Continental Divide.

We followed the river through the gorge. Near Bat Cave large granite boulders appeared in the stream. They tend to draw people toward them, which is why  lots of No Parking signs are posted along the side of the road.

Also along this route we noticed the devastation caused by the Kudzu vine. We saw it growing in Mississippi and Louisiana on our 2006 trip.  Kudzo, a member of the pea family, climbs anything it comes to, shrubs, trees, fences, telephone poles, guide wires, etc. Eventually Kudzo covers the area with rounded mounds of vegetation that kills the plants underneath it. An article I read says you either love it or hate it.  We are in the "hate" group. Currently the vine covers over 7 million acres of the South. It came into the states with the 1876 Centennial Exposition. The large leaves and sweet smelling blooms in the Japanese garden captured American imagination. During the Great Depression the CCC planted it for conservation of soil. Farmers were paid incentives to plant it in 1940. The government stopped advocating its use in 1953. The problem is Kudzu loves the South! 

It can grow a foot each day and 60 feet each year. It kills the plants under it by blocking all the sunlight.  One herbicide even makes it grow better! One scientist recommends repeated herbicide treatments for four years. It may take as much as ten years to kill it.  Although Kudzu came from Japan, its natural insect enemies were not brought to the U.S. with it.

On the plus side, goats can keep it from spreading.  Some people use the vines to make baskets. One lady makes paper.  Another lady uses the blossoms to make jelly and syrup. One farmer uses it as a hay.Yet another lady makes deep fried Kudzu leaves, kudzu quiche and other dishes. Research houses are looking into its medicinal uses.  Apparently the drug is based on 2000 year old Chinese herbal medicine. Kudzu root has been a common ingredient for food and medicine in both China and Japan.

At the rate Kudzu grows, it can destroy the beautiful wooded lands of North Carolina. Derrille and I find that a sad event.  So far we only see Kudzu in large patches here and there.

As we entered the higher elevations the fog thickened. Then it drifted up and nearly disappeared by the time we reached Chimney Rock.  However...Chimney Rock was closed for Thanksgiving! So we kept going south to the town of Tryon. When we hit the South Carolina border we turned around and headed home in time for me to prepare our little feast.

Not everyone partook of the Black Friday shopping sales.  Several thousand people were with us at the Biltmore Estate where George Vanderbilt built his 250 room getaway house here in Asheville, N.C. He opened the house on Christmas Eve 1895 as a 33 year old bachelor. Three years later in 1898 he brought his bride, Edith here.  Vanderbilt died in 1914. Edith and their daughter Cornelia continued to live at Biltmore.  In 1924 Cornelia married John Francis Amhearst Cecil and they lived in the house. During the Depression in a response to increase tourism for the area, the Cecils opened the house to the public in 1930. This act also brought in money to preserve the estate. Today, the Biltmore is still run by family, making it the largest privately owned home in the United States. The house has 1800 employees that help the family preserve this national treasure.

We had purchased our entry tickets from the RV Park. So we were checked through the entry security and directed to the parking lot "C". The main house is several houses from the entry gate. Once the car was parked we hopped on the shuttle which delivered us to the Biltmore front door. There we exchanged our tickets for ones with a hour entry printed on them. The ticket seller encouraged us to each purchase an audio tour which we found to be an excellent suggestion.

At your assigned time you enter the mansion with a group and follow the predetermined path through the house. A brochure and the audio tour help explain the various features. Although you are free to move at your own pace, that pace is determined in part by how the group is moving. The tour is generally considered to take about 1 1/2 hours.  Because of the large number of people it took us longer.

As usual photos inside the house were prohibited.  Drats! The mansion has four floors (I think) and two basements. The fourth floor provided servant quarters. 

The first floor includes the entrance hall, the billiard room, banquet hall, a breakfast room, the library, a salon, a tapestry gallery area where tea was served each afternoon and the music room.  Just inside the entry marble steps lead down to the Winter Garden, my favorite area. With a high domed glass ceiling for letting in lots of light. Plants fill  some of the area. A baby grand looks small where it sits in this room. At this time of year the area was filled with bright red poinsettias. The Winter Garden also provided the backdrop for the photo shots taken of each group. (We did like our photo and purchased it.)

On the second floor the tour took us to the bedrooms and sitting rooms of the Vanderbilt's. The third floor showed four guests bedrooms and the guests sitting room. It also shows one of the many bathrooms.  I think the mansion had 40-some bathrooms when local homes of the day rarely had indoor plumbing.

The first basement included a party room, a bowling alley, a swimming pool, a gym and dressing rooms for both men and women.  The main kitchen, pastry kitchen, vegetable pantry, kitchen pantry, walk-in refrigeration, a rotisserie kitchen and kitchen servants quarters are here too. The main laundry facilities also are housed on this floor.  There seemed to be little rooms for all kinds of individual storage. The tour returns visitors to the first floor and the bachelors' wing which includes a smoking room and a gun room. When we exited house the already cold weather felt colder with the wind chill and the light rain.

What used to be the stables now houses The Stable Cafe, where we ate lunch.

The Carriage House is appropriately the Carriage House Gift shop that does a booming business, especially in the wine section. The rest of the stable rooms contain a bookstore, a toy store, a Christmas shop this time of year, an ice cream store and a coffee stand.

We walked to view a part of the garden before boarding the shuttle back to the parking lot.

The parking lot held just a few cars this late in the day.  However, as we approached our car it was obvious that someone had turned in next to us too close and left us with a banged up back quarter panel.  Oh well..stuff happens.

The exit from the estate includes a drive past the garden area and other parts of the 8000 acres of grounds. The road passes by Antler Village in hopes that visitors will stop and shop. Deerpark, also on the estate, offers trail rides and another restaurant. 

Other outdoor activities and tours can be experienced if desired.  Outside the gates  the Biltmore Village constructed like an English Village of old offers more shopping delights.

We passed on all that and headed into Asheville for a look at downtown. Asheville seemed full of unique shops not usually found in a downtown. Coffee and book shops seem to abound. The Grove Arcade In 1915 E.W, Grove conceived of a new type of shopping mall to enliven downtown Asheville, a five story base and a fourteen story tower filled with shops, restaurants and living spaces.  He died before the project was complete. Only the base had been done. It was the largest building in the region when it open in 1929. The building was closed in WWII when the building was taken over by the Government. The people began to petition for a return of Grover Arcade to the city. In 1997 the city regained title to the property and started renovation. In 2002 The Grover Arcade was returned to its original intent and includes restaurants, shops, offices and 42 luxury apartments..

WeatherUndeground.com forecasted sun on the day we set out for Chimney Rock. We stopped first at the Blue Ridge Parkway Visitor Center. Several exhibits and hands-on displays demonstrate features of the region. The film reminded us that the Appalachian Mountains are the oldest in the world. They are older than the Himalayas and the Alps. Several construction companies, hiring CCC workers for manual labor, started the parkway in 1930. Skilled masons contributed to the construction of tunnels and bridges along the route. Completion of the 469 miles of road took until 1980. The Blue Ridge Parkway includes 151 bridges, 275 vistas and acres of outstanding scenery. The film also spoke to the people of the region. It mentioned that the banjo actually came from Africa, and the fiddle from Europe. We learned this at the Museum of the Appalachia too. What the film added was how those instruments and the people made a sound all their own.

Next we drove to Chimney Rock. The town so deserted on Thanksgiving was bustling with people this day. We paid our fee and entered the park. A road took us to the entry level.and gift shop.

I was delighted to discover an elevator took us up to a walkway leaving only about 44 stairs up to Chimney Rock. The entrance to the elevator is a long rock tunnel. We lined up next to a sign that said it was a 30 minute wait for the elevator and walking up the stairs around the rock should take 20 minutes.  We waited.

The elevator took eight people at a time up the 250 feet and let the group out in a second gift shop. Amazingly the doors out were at the far end of the gift shop and food booth. Hmmm. 

 We took a direct line outside and along the walkway. Then we climbed the stairs. The wind blew sharp and cold. The view was beautiful. It looked over the length of Lake Lure, a manmade lake with lovely homes around it. From this height, our car looked tiny in the parking lot below.

After we stayed as long as we could, we decided to skip the elevator and walk down the staircase. We met several people coming up the steep mountainside and angled staircases that let me know without a doubt that we made an excellent choice in riding up and walking down.

On the way down we peeked into a cave that could have been used by moonshiners to hide their stash.

We warmed ourselves up on the way to Wal-Mart too develop photos. We also added a day to our Asheville stay to run errands. Then a decision needed to be made regarding the itinerary. We opted to skip the next stop and drive directly to Selma which is SE of Raleigh.

Next: Selma, NC