Another wonderful night’s sleep at Wal Mart, this one in Asheville, North Carolina.
We got up late, coz we can, and drove the few miles down the road to the Biltmore Estate, a must see tourist attraction of the area.
Must see, and must have deep pockets. $ 45.00 to get in, $ 8.00 extra for the audio tour, and no photography inside the building (but you can buy our glossy photo brochure for an extra $ 15.00).
Of course, your valiant Captain snuck a picture or two while walking around!
Anyway, we are tourists, so we did the visit, and it was well worth the money.
Old Grandfather Vanderbilt, amassed a large fortune during the 1800’s, Father Vanderbilt inherited the large fortune, and had doubled it within 10 years, and it was then inherited by George Vanderbilt.
When he got it, the fortune, by today’s prices, was worth 96 billion dollars.
Move over Billy Gates.
He decided to buy North Carolina and the Great Smokey Mountains, and build all the castles of England, Ireland and Scotland, together with The Palace of Versailles, and roll them into one building.
This huge house is named Biltmore. The name is derived from the last part of his own name, and the old English word for open spaces, more. Nobody thought or dared to tell him the correct spelling is Moor.
The place has 250 rooms, eighty of them are bathrooms, was one of the first in the country to have indoor plumbing, electricity and working flush toilets.
It is a maze. The basement contains separate rooms, for vegetables, pickles, and a whole room for drying clothes. A separate room just for roasting meat, a separate bakery, and too many servant bedrooms to count. There are four acres under the roof. It has a huge indoor swimming pool, billiard room, and an indoor bowling alley.
And, as usual, gift shops galore! (Eventually this country is going to be one ginormous Wal-Mac-Sam-K-Mart-Gift Shop.)
For the time it was built, very opulent, no expense spared at all. There are 8000 acres of estate, with all sorts of gardens and greenhouses dotted around. At one time, the estate encompassed 125,000 acres, literally as far as Old George could see in any direction, which did indeed encompass most of The Great Smokey Mountains and some of North Carolina.
It would seem the successors to Old George have frittered away 96 billion dollars, if they have to resort to having strangers from all over the world trample through their house!!
The truth is that the state asked the family to open up the house during the depression, in the hopes of bringing in more tourism dollars.
After this experience, we got on Interstate 40, again, drove 150 miles and are now safely settled in at The Family Motel, in downtown Clemmons, North Carolina.
Our hostess, Karen, ( Marlipop’s sister) made a delicious soup and bread dinner, from leftovers, and then told us it was one of Mom’s recipes!!
Wildlife watch today was tons of butterflies, wasps, bees, Canadian Gooses and a snake.
