Taking a trip for us typically begins with dropping off Roddy, our beloved miniature dachshund, with one of our relatives. For this trip, that meant he got to visit his "grandparents" up in Lugoff, South Carolina, that being Jill's parents. I know not everyone sees a dog as being a member of the family but I have for a while now. Not having any legitimate siblings and being from a very small family, I've learned to appreciate what family I have and for me that includes those members who happen to be particularly hairy and walk around on all-fours.
Having safely deposited Roddy with his caretakers, we loaded up the car on the morning of August 31st and hit the road. Our selection of vehicles currently consists of my wife's Ford Focus (AKA, Frannie) and my Chevrolet Silverado (AKA, Agent Orange - it has a somewhat unique burnt orange factory paint job). We tend to take the Focus on trips like this for no other reason than it's much better on gas than my Silverado. It's not the most comfortable of cars for a guy my size to drive or ride in (my knees don't meet the center console all that well and folding myself up to get in the door is a bit of a chore), but what it may lack in luxury it more than makes up for with economy. Plus, it has a deceptively large and spacious trunk, meaning it's never particularly difficult to pack.
We left home fairly early that morning, early enough that stopping for breakfast seemed like the logical thing to do. (Side Note: I hate eating while driving as well as eating while riding. Apparently I'm not coordinated enough to do both without getting food down the front of my shirt.) I, personally, had been having a real hankering for Shoney's breakfast. I'm a sucker for scrambled eggs and pudding (that being traditional, Southern liver pudding - hey, don't knock it until you've tried it, smart guy), but as luck would have it our route wouldn't be putting us on a direct collision course with one of their restaurants. Instead, we stopped at a Waffle House near Newberry, SC and I have to say this may have been the finest meal I've ever had at a Waffle House.
I feel like I have to point out the quality of our experience because I've eaten at Waffle House a lot in my life. It's convenient fare when you're coming home late at night from a concert, sporting event, or what have you. I have the distinction of having been in a Waffle House that had a bomb threat called into it. (No, really, I'm serious.) What's more, on our first trip to Asheville Jill and I stopped into a Waffle House for breakfast and we saw a group of patrons request a cup of scalding hot water. Why? Because they wanted to use it in order to sanitize their silverware. (Like I said - no, really, I'm serious.)
That said, I had a 3-egg Fiesta Omelet (which comes with cheese, ham, onions, tomatoes and jalapeno peppers) with hash browns done the only way God intended them to be - that being covered, peppered and diced. Jill had a combo that involved a blueberry waffle, and it was quite tasty as she let me try a bite of it. It was a fantastic meal and a great way to kick off our trek.
The holiday traffic on the interstate wasn't too bad, which was a pleasant surprise. It began to thicken up as we approached our next stop (other than the welcome center coming into North Carolina; restroom/stretch breaks are good for the mind, body, and spirit), that being Hendersonville, NC. Hendersonville is home to the North Carolina Apple Festival, an annual event held every Labor Day. We didn't get into the bulk of that traffic, however we did get tied up somewhat as we stopped by McAbee's Fruit Stand to pick up some fresh gala apples. (Next door to McAbee's is a shop called Bloomfield's which was once known as the Dish Barn - I'll let your imagination wander as to what sort of offerings that can be found therein.) They're some of the sweetest apples I've ever tasted and way more inexpensive than what you'll find at your average grocery store - we bought a peck and a half for $10.
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| A plaque outside the North Carolina Welcome Center commemorating the Blue Star Memorial Highway |
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| A map of the state made from various textiles inside the North Carolina Welcome Center |
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| McAbee's Fruit Stand in Hendersonville, NC - some of the best apples you'll ever taste |
Apples in hand, we continued onward towards Asheville. If you've never had the occasion to do it, I cannot emphasize enough how unique of a driving experience going up a mountain can be. I've only done it a handful of times and the variance between it and your average daily commute is very refreshing, not only in terms of being able to see breathtaking natural scenery but also maneuvering through the variances of terrain inherent to traveling through a region like this. There's lots of hills, curves, and what have you, in other words, and I like driving on them.
Not too far from Asheville proper is the Western North Carolina Farmers Market. It's a blast to look around a place like this because it's so much more than just fresh fruits and vegetables. We found a vendor that had an assortment of pickled veggies, among them being pickled watermelon rind. After having developed a taste for it during my recent trip to Atlanta, GA (see blog entry "I Went to Atlanta for a Week"), I couldn't not buy a jar of theirs. (Like I said with the liver pudding, don't knock it until you've tried it!) We also got a few bags of pumpkin seeds, guacamole bites (tortilla snacks dusted with an avocado-flavored mix of spices), and homemade Amish peanut butter (it's basically fresh peanut butter with marshmallow fluff blended into the mix - yeah, try and wrap your head around that concoction).
One item we had while at the farmers market that wasn't what we were hoping for wound up being our mid-day snack. (When we've had a big breakfast we'll sometimes skip lunch in favor of a morsel to tide us over until supper.) There's a bake shop inside the farmers market that specializes in breads and various confections. We had intended to get a bite to eat from the sandwich shop next door, but they were closed by the time we sought out sustenance. We selected what I believe was some kind of an apple turnover. While it wasn't terrible, to my palette the dough tasted like fried chicken breading and the filling wasn't all that sweet. The worst part about it was that it was ridiculously greasy - that and the fried chicken taste make me think they needed to change the oil in their fryer because even fried foods shouldn't come out like that.
A downpour came through the area while we were at the farmers market. The rain was fashionably late this day - I say that because invariably it seems like every time we take a road trip it's going to rain at least part of the time. Fortunately, the rain didn't last long enough to cause any real issues as we took that time to sit on a bench and enjoy the moment.
Our home away from home for this trip was a Days Inn, the same Days Inn we stayed in the first time we came to Asheville. We enjoyed our initial stay thanks to the accommodations being affordable and comfortable, as well as the fact that this location also gives patrons a free breakfast buffet with everything from grits to danishes. The room we had this time around was alright, even though it wasn't as nice as we'd hoped it would be. Apparently this Days Inn is in the process of renovating their rooms, and ours was one that hadn't yet been renovated. The room wasn't the most posh either of us have ever stayed in (a control knob on the air conditioner was broken, the bed was mostly caved-in, and the shower had next to no water pressure and also would go from scalding hot to ice cold at random - on the plus side, the TV was an excellent Samsung model and the WiFi was blazing fast) but it worked well enough.
What I can never get over when it comes to hotels is how their rates change on a daily basis. Case in point, the room we had cost us right at $90 a night and this was with a AAA discount. This was a holiday rate, of course - the day after we would leave, the rate for that same room dropped to around $50 a night. Go figure.
For dinner that night we set up shop at a nearby Buffalo Wild Wings location as we wanted some grub but we also wanted to watch the football game of the weekend, that being the University of Georgia Bulldogs versus the Cow Tech - um, Clemson University Tigers (yeah, that's it). Never having watched a game at a BWW, we figured we'd do well to show up early in advance of kickoff. We'd finished our meal by the time the game began, but the game would be only part of the entertainment we'd get that evening. As it would turn out, the restaurant became packed with Clemson and Georgia faithful. It was like a scene from Gangs of New York, UGA red on one side and Clemmy orange on the other. There was a point where I thought sure we'd see a knife fight break out between the two sides, which is why we left around halftime. We didn't want to be witnesses to collegiate sectarian violence and we needed to get our rest as we'd be touring Biltmore Estate bright and early the next morning.
Built in the late 1890s, Biltmore Estate was once the home of George Washington Vanderbilt II and his descendants still own the property. To this date, it stands as the largest private residence in the United States (even though no one lives there anymore, although members of Vanderbilt's family still live in their own homes located on the grounds of the estate). In addition to the house, also featured are the stables (which now host a series of shops and eateries), the gardens, a winery, and a resort and shopping district known as Antler Village.
Touring Biltmore Estate is like a trip back in time as the home has been expertly preserved in order to display the extravagance of life for the Vanderbilts. The home has everything from an indoor pool to a quite medieval-looking dining hall. (PRO TIP: There are no available restrooms inside the home, so if you need to take a squirt or a squat make sure you do it before you begin your tour.) There are so many more features to it than what I could ever fully describe here, it's a landmark that you have to see for yourself in order to fully appreciate.
While the home was wired for electricity when it was built, one thing that it did not come equipped with is anything resembling air conditioning. Even though we were in a higher elevation during a time of year I thought would yield cooler temperatures than what we're accustomed to in the midlands of South Carolina, the day we were on the Biltmore grounds was one of the warmer days we've had as of late. It goes without saying then that walking around inside the home was rather uncomfortable seeing as how the only form of AC to be had therein were shop fans scattered throughout. (I will commend the family and maintainers of the property for recognizing the need for restroom facilities and water fountains as they are prevalently available all over the grounds - just not inside the house itself.) I chalk it up to having an authentic experience to the life of the Vanderbilts as my sweat has now mixed with theirs.
An amusing visual - it was amusing to me, anyway - that I noted during our tour of the house was the sight of visitors who were taking an audio guided tour. What made it funny was the fact that the devices used to present the guided tour look a whole heck of a lot like handsets from an office desk phone. If you saw them and didn't know what was going on, it wouldn't have been out of the ordinary to wonder "Why is everyone on the phone? How do you guys have a signal in here?"
After our tour of the home we went through the gardens and the gift shop that's beneath the hot houses, which are essentially green houses but much larger. We didn't go through the hot houses because: 1) We'd been through them previously and 2) we were already plenty hot as is. I sat in a very expensive chair in the gift shop and we sampled a delicious variety of fruity syrups that can be mixed into lemonade in order to create a completely different beverage.
We hoofed it back to the house with haste (easier said than done; from where we were in the gardens to the house is an all-uphill walk of about one-third of a mile) as we had to be back there by 2 PM in order to meet up with our group for the Architect's Tour.
Biltmore offers several bonus tours that aren't included on general admission to the grounds which gets you into several areas of the home that are otherwise off limits. The Architect's Tour begins in one of the courtyards near the front entrance of the home then takes you inside and up the grand staircase to the fourth floor. Once you're there, you get to see a scale model of Biltmore and architectural blueprints that were used for reference during construction (the walls of this room are adorned with a variety of prints of European cathedrals and other similar buildings as these were inspirations for Biltmore's design). Next you're welcomed into what was described to us as being Vanderbilt's "man cave" - a room that is fairly small compared to most in the home but one that definitely fits the description as it was filled with books and wooden decor. We were ushered up a spiral staircase in the corner of the room (having broad shoulders made getting up that thing fairly interesting) then onto a catwalk encircling the perimeter of the room. From the catwalk, we were lead outside the home onto what is essentially a ledge; there was no risk of falling though because we were securely tucked in by the masonry of the railing (here again, being a bigger guy made getting out there somewhat of a challenge). Back inside the man cave and one more time onto the catwalk and we were outside the home again, onto an observatory platform (it can be seen from the ground if you look up above the grand staircase where the American flag flies). There's a huge metal dome on this platform that serves as an anchor for a gigantic metal chandelier that hangs above the grand staircase (it was incredibly hot, as you might imagine). The last portion of the tour granted us access into an area just below the roof where we could see how the stone shingles where tied together and attached to the home using wire. This was an awesome thing to see and I'm certainly glad we opted for this as it was well worth the additional cost.
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| Members of our tour group getting some knowledge from our guide |
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| The view from the ledge outside the man cave - you can't tell how steep the roof is until you've seen it from this angle. |
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| Another view from the ledge, this one looking down over the atrium courtyard. |
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| The dome above the grand staircase - this thing was hot enough that you could've literally cooked an egg on it. |
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| The view from the observatory platform down on another tour group. |
The final leg of our day on the grounds at Biltmore consisted of spending time around Antler Village, which is a relatively new addition to the area. Antler Village holds the winery, various shops, the Biltmore resort, and a handful of other attractions. We were somewhat interested in taking a winery tour but we didn't not only because of time constraints but also because quite frankly neither of us have thus far been able to develop much of a taste for wine. (I'm a beer drinker, personally, and my wife prefers fruity cocktails.) Instead, we went through some of the shops and killed a bit of time until we were due for supper at Cedric's Tavern.
As it turns out, Vanderbilt had a beloved Saint Bernard whose name was Cedric. Therein lies the inspiration for Cedric's Tavern, a pub with an old world, English feel to its presentation and menu. Not long after we were seated our waiter brought out a batch of pretzel rolls with a compound butter made with grain mustard; sounds weird but take it from me, it was really tasty. I like to take the opportunity to try new and different eats when we're traveling and Cedric's menu presented an item I couldn't pass up - tavern deviled eggs. I'm not typically a fan of deviled eggs as the consistency of the boiled egg white doesn't jive with my mouth at all (I'm not a big fan of any not-quite-solid but not-quite-liquid food - Jello, yogurt, etc.), but I had to try these. Why? Because they're served with candied bacon, that's why. They were without a doubt the best deviled eggs I've ever tasted, which may not be saying much given my lack of exposure to them but even so it's worth pointing out. Jill and I both selected the fish & chips for our main course, which came with mushy peas (it's an English thing - think refried beans but with green peas), french fries and tartar sauce. Mine was a truly massive piece of deep fried fish perfection which I washed down with a nice pint of Cedric's Pale Ale. (I knew I wanted to try one of their resident brews but I wasn't sure which to pick; our waiter was generous enough to bring me out a sample of both so that I could choose after having tasted them.) When we made our reservation at Cedric's we mentioned that we were in town for my wife's birthday - no, the wait staff didn't sing to her, but our waiter did bring her a trio of frozen ice cream truffles with "Happy Birthday" written in chocolate syrup on the plate. Like the rest of the meal, they were a real treat and I can't say enough about how great of a way Cedric's Tavern was to cap off what had been a long day at Biltmore Estate. Our waiter made the occasion especially memorable as he was helpful, attentive, and conversational without being pushy or trite. You cannot overvalue staff like him and how they can make a dining experience all the more better.
So ended another great road trip for us and another set of memories I never hope to lose. Not to get sentimental here, but writing this blog and looking back on those days has genuinely made me value a trip like this one. It's the kind of event that not everyone gets to have even once in their lifetime and here we've been twice in less than 4 years. I consider myself to be very fortunate and incredibly blessed to be able to do things like this and to have someone like my wife along with me for the ride. It's a special thing, and it's made more so by the fact that we always manage to find a way to make our trips into adventures by doing things like the Architect's Tour. It's not so much the tour itself but, for me, the fact that we did it and we did it together that gives it real meaning.
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