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Visit to Asheville, NC and then river rafting July 2-5, 2020*.
(*the year of our Covid).
On the way to Asheville, the Broadway hit show Hamilton became available on Disney Plus for streaming, and as Merle was watching it on her phone and singing along, she was one happy camper.
We were able to get to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC on time despite the directions on the phone sending us to a private residence, then to the employee entrance, but we eventually made it.
This mansion, which was built in 1889, included a banquet room with a ceiling seven stories high.
We imagined servants working feverishly during a formal dinner trying to keep the guests happy, but they had one strict rule at the table:
When, century from then, cell phones would be invented, none were allowed during dinner.
:)
This was the view from their salon, of course without our heads in the way.
What mansion would be complete without an indoor bowling alley?
However, in those days, a human had to pick up and re-set the pins, and roll the ball back to the players.
And of course they had an indoor swimming pool.
Apparently it was BWOW (bring your own water).
After the mansion, though not seeing about 32 of the 35 bedrooms, we went for a tour of the grounds.
Here, Merle literally leads me down the garden path.
This area was referred to as the Walled Garden. They had some amazingly large types of certain flowers, and Merle was hoping to find one wilted such flower to get the seeds, but they were all in tip top shape, AND, there were a ton of gardeners (aka secret service agents for plants) littering the place.
Even I can see the obvious....
After a socially distant bite for lunch, we checked out their Downton Abbey exhibit. Although that fictional location is in England, the Biltmore Estate still had somewhat of an Upstairs Downstairs feel to it also.
Next day, Pam and Grant Cloys came up from Greenville, SC to have lunch with us, though we had to remove the masks to get the food in.
Merle wanted to see a waterfall, so Grant suggested we take a ride along the Blue Ridge Parkway, which was a long and winding road up and up and up. We eventually got to the top, and we had some beautiful views, though not surprisingly, no more cell signal.
We were able to eventually make it to Looking Glass Falls, which was cool.
For full disclosure, however, half the state was there cooling off in the mist, and a generous estimate would be that maybe 20% of the peeps were wearing a mask. However, there was one dog wearing a bandana.
Next day (Sunday), we went to McCaysville, GA for whitewater rafting with a group called Rolling Thunder.
We wound up getting there about 11a and weren't done until about 330p, so full credit to an earlier Burger King breakfast sandwich as an effective appetite suppressant!!
We made it home but then I learned that cousin Joy's parents live in Asheville...so apologies for not calling!
Back to business tomorrow.
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