Day 22 - Grandfather Mountain

 

Saturday, May 28, 2022

Weather - Cloudy, with a high of 76F and low of 54F up on the mountain

Steps - Shaun:  10,089, Shannon:  6,431 (Shan took her watch off half way through the day)

Varmints - more goats, more bunnies, a chipmunk, a Blue Jay (our first of the trip), a hummingbird (also our first), and some animals in a wildlife sanctuary (2 bull elks, 2 black bears, 1 cougar, 1 otter, and 2 bald eagles)

It ended up that today's only excursion was to Grandfather Mountain. Shannon is a bit under the weather, so we cut our day short in order to rest up, pack, and be ready for the 10-hour drive home.

Grandfather Mountain was quite a bit east of Asheville (as you can see on the map), but Shaun had read about it online and thought it would be a cool way to end our trip. From the park's website: "Grandfather Mountain is a place of amazing biodiversity and scenic beauty that towers 5,946 feet above northwest North Carolina. A part of the United Nations’ Southern Appalachian Biosphere Reserve, the mountain is estimated to be 300 million years old — with certain rock formations dating back 1.2 billion years."

It was interesting because we actually had to book tickets ahead of time to be allowed to go on the mountain. As a prize, we received a CD that guided us through all the sites on the mountain. The first place we stopped at was a picnic area (with bathrooms) and a 1/4-mile trail through the forest. They have very good signage that speaks to kids and suggests good ways to protect the environment, which I thought was very clever.

Next stop was a pair of rocks called Split Rock and The Sphinx which are over 600 million years old and actually predate the mountain. It's hard to tell from these pictures, but The Sphinx actually does look like the Sphinx in Egypt, but it was formed millions of years before the manmade one. Pretty cool, huh?

The parking lot we used for Split Rock and The Sphinx connected to the third stop on the tour, the nature center, café, and gift shop. We headed there for lunch and then visited the gift shop, where Shaun got another interesting jelly combination—Balsamic Basil Plum Jam. Doesn't that sound delicious?

We had originally decided not to visit the nature center since we both hate to see animals in captivity, but Shaun changed her mind and decided to see the few animals that had been rescued here. There were two bull elks with giant racks that were also molting their winter coat. Next were two cougars, only one of which we could see up in a tree (we didn't get a picture of him, though). Next was a river otter who was scratching himself on a log, so he thwarted Shannon's efforts to capture a picture of him at every turn. Next came an enclosure with two bald eagles, and finally were two enclosures for the bears. We happened to be at the rail for the bears when the keeper started a talk about them, so we had a front row seat. Unfortunately, only one of the four bears came out to eat her treat of walnuts hidden in gas cans (so that she had to work for it). Her name was Flower, and she was really roly-poly. She actually ate the walnuts in two of the bins and peed on the third one, so the missing bears are going to be bummed when they make it out of hiding. The last enclosure was their oldest bear (she is 28 years old), and she was just hanging out close to the wall, so we didn't get any pictures of her.

After leaving the nature center, we proceeded up the mountain, which was really steep with a couple of significant switchbacks. Also, they were controlling how many cars went up, so we had to wait for a few minutes to get to the top. Once we parked, we walked up a bunch of steps to the access point for the Mile-High Suspension Bridge. It is named this because it is actually 5,280 feet above sea level, but the bridge is actually "only" about 80 feet from the ground, but trust me, it was plenty high!

After crossing the bridge with a bunch of other people, we had the "opportunity" to climb over a bunch of rocks to get to a higher overlook that gave a 360-degree view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was cool, but Shaun got nervous around all the crazy people in their flip-flops with their phones held out not watching where they were going. She just knew that she was going to get pushed off the side of the mountain, so we didn't stay in that area long.

We worked our way back off the bridge, by which point the crowd had cleared significantly, so we checked out the Top Shop (the gift shop) and then left the way we came. We decided to go back to the cabin rather than going to Black Mountain, as we had intended, because Shannon wasn't feeling great, and we wouldn't have had a ton of time there. It was just as well because we had our packing to do, and we even got time for a little nappy-poo!

After dinner, we took one more set of pictures that showed the far mountain peaks with a bit of a pink tinge, so we decided that was the perfect way to end this blog entry. Tomorrow we'll be heading home, and with that, our trip will officially come to an end!

Day 20 - Chillin' on the Mountain (with a twist)

 

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Weather - A total wash out that we luckily were aware of, so it didn't matter to us at all since we never left the cabin.

Steps - Who cares?

Varmints - Just before midnight, we were attacked by a GIANT Polyphemus Moth!  Check him (or her) out:

Isn't this a cool moth?  We've never seen one this big.  He was every bit of 5 inches across, and he must have been drawn in by the light from inside the cabin because he stayed checking us out from the door wall for quite some time.

We spent the day just reading, doing laundry, eating, and watching a movie. In the evening, we played euchre with Dad and Mike (Shannon and Mike won the day, so Shannon is the reigning Intergalactic Champion of the World for this week). 

Tomorrow we plan to tour both the botanical gardens and the arboretum in Asheville, and we're still trying to decide what to do with our last day. More on that tomorrow!

Day 18 - The Biltmore Estate

 

Tuesday - May 24, 2022

Weather - Mostly sunny with a high of 74 degree - very nice!

Steps - Shaun:  10,346, Shannon:  10,201

Varmints - Bunnies galore and a lone deer in the yard

Sorry about how crappy the picture is, but I was taking it through a very dirty window!

Today we had scheduled a behind-the-scenes tour of the Biltmore Estate, as well as a viewing of the Monet and Friends presentation that was much the same as the Van Gogh one we each saw in our respective cities (but we like Monet a lot better than Van Gogh, so we were excited!).

This is the view from the back porch of the house.  Incredible isn't it?

We got up at 7:30, had breakfast, saw a cute little deer out the window of the cottage, and headed back down the mountain and south to Asheville. We arrived in plenty of time for our 90-minute tour, and boy was it wonderful! We had a very learned docent named Wilma, and the other great thing about just the logistics of the tour was that everyone had their own little speaker that allowed Wilma to talk right into our ears. This really helped when we passed through areas where everyone else was making noise. I wish all tours would use this technology!

Let's just lay out a few basic facts about the Biltmore Estate first, shall we? It is the largest privately held home in the United States that started out as a dream of George Vanderbilt's to build a 6,000-square-foot hunting lodge but wound up becoming a 175,000-square-foot gigantic French chateau (no, that's not a typo). The property was once 125,000 acres, which included all of Mount Pisgah, but at some point about 85,000 acres were sold to the federal government and is now a part of the Pisgah National Forest. There are 250 total rooms, 35 of which are bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces. Every finish is first class, and it's a marvel of wood, metal, and stone. Let me tell you, it's quite a house!

The tour took us to many places we would have never gotten to see, but it also left out many of the places that could be seen from the normal audio tour, so we had a wonderful lunch in the café in the converted stables, and then we went back into the house and took the audio tour so that we could see everything we had missed.

This gave us an hour or so to get out to the venue where the Monet presentation was being held, so we just hung out there until we could get in. We enjoyed all the pretty pictures (which lasted about 45 minutes), as well as the information about all the artists and the history of their lives. However, it wasn't done as well as the Van Gogh exhibit because the pictures weren't projected onto the entire floor, creating the immersive quality we had experienced with the Van Gogh one, and there were weird transitions where the screens just displayed a color. One thing that bothered Shannon in particular as well was that they were dispensing a fragrance in the room to create a multi-sensory experience, but the smell just caused her to sneeze and her nose to run. Probably not the kind of experience they were going for. All-in-all, it was a bit disappointing, but we still enjoyed it.

After the Monet exhibit, we drove into Asheville and picked up some Italian carry out and then went to a pizza place we'd been to in Cleveland called the Mellow Mushroom, and it had vegan cheese for Shaun! It was a lovely meal, and now we have dinners to last through the rest of the trip. We've decided to go back to the Biltmore tomorrow since we didn't get a chance to see the gardens, and then we'll go through downtown Asheville to see what's what.

Day 17 - Bryson City to Asheville

Monday, May 23, 2022

Weather - Rain, rain, rain, with a high of 64F

Steps - Shaun: 6,550, Shannon: 6,713

Today was a travel day disguised as a shopping day, as we meandered our way east from Bryson City to Marshall, a little town 30 minutes north of Asheville. That's where we ended up choosing to stay because we wanted mountain views more than we cared about direct proximity to Asheville. Our route took us through Dillsboro and Sylva, which we had read about in our travel guide. The former was a bust, with all but one store closed for some reason (even thought the shop we wanted to visit, Dogwood Crafters, said they would be open on their website). Granted, it was raining cats and dogs most of the day, so maybe no one wanted to brave the weather to open their businesses? Anyway, Sylva was much better.

Our first priority in Sylva was to visit a bookstore we had read about called City Lights (but not like City Lights, the iconic bookstore in San Francisco). It was set up on a hill and had a café attached. It was a typical indie store, with a nice used book section in the back, so we were both able to find some goodies to buy. From there, we went to a nice brewery that had an attached restaurant and event space for lunch. The restaurant had a vegan burger for Shaun and tomato soup and grilled cheese for Shannon, so we were both happy campers. 

We wandered around the Sylva a bit, checking out the shops and taking pictures of the pretty cloud formations, before we continued on to Waynesville. Compared to Dillsboro and Sylva, Waynesville is a positive metropolis. We got to check out two very different bookstores, one that was super cool in an old 3-story building with the main stock in the basement, though it didn't feel that way because it was so well-lit and airy, while the other was also in a basement and leaned into that feeling, with lights shaped like old gas lamps and a monastic library kind of vibe. By this time, though, we were feeling a bit shopped out, so we didn't stay long in Waynesville before embarking on the last leg of our journey to Marshall.

The view from the deck of our VRBO. Pretty nice, huh?

Sorry, this picture of the kitchen area is a little askew.

The living room and kitchen from the loft.

The host of the VRBO we chose had warned us that the driveway was a bit treacherous, and indeed, it is a graveled, puddle-filled, narrow, winding drive to get up to the house. It's a good 15 minutes outside of town at the end of the road in the boonies, but it has a spectacular view and is very comfortable for us. 

We spent the rest of the evening unloading and unpacking, getting settled in, and watching movies. We're looking for our Biltmore Estate-filled day tomorrow!