#26 Take a Road Trip

Another item on my 30 before 30 list was to take a road trip this year.  Labor day weekend I made that happen!  Matt and I jumped in the car and headed to Asheville, North Carolina, home of the lovely Biltmore Estate.  This estate is the former home to George and Edith Vanderbilt.  It was absolutely gorgeous there!  The drive from DC to North Carolina was also quite scenic. We were surrounded by intense beauty the entire weekend.

Saturday morning we woke up early to begin our day tour of the Biltmore.  The grounds of the estate cover 8,000 acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Matt was most likely sick of me taking pictures every other minute, but seriously it was the best place for a photo shoot!  The home was built in the late 1800's where George, Edith, and their daughter Cornelia resided.  There are over 250 rooms in this mansion. It took us 3 hours just to complete the inside tour of the home.  Some of my favorite rooms included the library, breakfast room, and Edith Vanderbilt's bedroom.  Also included in the home was a bowling alley, indoor swimming pool, and gymnasium which was pretty unheard of for the time.  The audio tour was totally worth the ten extra dollars.  It provided great detail of each room, and personal stories from the Vanderbilt's journals.  Other than the kitchen, most rooms in the home were designed for leisure (library, banquet hall, billiard room, breakfast room, music room, tapestry gallery, library, etc.  Not a bad a life!

 After we finished our tour of the home, we stepped outside to explore the EIGHT gardens surrounding the property.  We definitely got our work out in on Saturday after walking through acres of land.   The gardens and grounds of the Biltmore were the work of Frederick Law Olmsted; designer of new York's Central Park.  We learned on the tour that Olmsted considered the Biltmore his crowning achievement.  In addition to the Gardens, there was also Antler Hill Village to tour.  This part of the estate included a winery, museum, gift shops, and some yummy restaurants.  You can also pay additional money to bike, kayak, river raft, ride horses, etc.  We took our road bikes and had every intention to bike, but by the end of the day we were too exhausted to get them out.  The Biltmore is also an awesome concert venue!  While we were there, Foreigner was preparing to perform later that evening.  I was singing, "I WANT TO KNOW WHAT LOVE, I WANT YOU TO SHOW ME" all weekend long.  

Overall, we had a great day touring the Biltmore.  I would definitely recommend visiting the estate.  We concluded the evening watching college football at a sports pub.  We were both pretty starving and tired at this point.  College football was a perfect way to end the evening.

Day two of the road trip we decided to go to Gatlinburg, Tennessee to see the Smokey Mountains.  Again, another beautiful day and beautiful drive.  It now makes perfect sense as to why they are called the Smokey mountains.  Fog hangs low over the mountain range that gives it a smoke-like appearance.  

The town itself kind of cracked me up.  I swear every corner had a Waffle House, a place to take old-fashioned pictures, mini golf, or some kind of air gun store.  We decided a ride on an Alpine Slide in the Smokey's was a must.  We took a tram, and then a chairlift up to where the alpine slide was.  Matt was convinced he could beat me down the mountain, but I am pretty sure you know how that went down :)

 



Do you like how I look like a homeless girl in these pictures?  Our original plan was to take our bikes and go on a ride in the mountains.  We ended up going on the alpine slides first, and then it rained so we didn't get to  bike.  Thus I am prancing around in my t-shirt, bike shorts, and Matt's Cal shorts all over TN.  Classy.

Don't judge but we ended the day with dinner at the Waffle House.  It was only appropriate to dine there while visiting the South.

I can't get over how beautiful this part of the country is!  Our labor day road trip was a success--we explored somewhere neither of us had visited, we didn't get sick of each other, and we experienced a fine dining experience at a Waffle House.  I can now check this one off the list and am that much closer to reaching my 30 before 30 goals!