WELL after the adventure (such a slacker!)

So clearly I’m the jerk who couldn’t take the time right after the end of the trip to finish up my part of the blog.  Ooops.  Guess its just a sign of how it was right back to the grind of the real world, but in the personal life and the professional, as soon as I got back.

But I’m so incredibly glad and thankful we went on this trip, really really glad.  What a great idea that was!  *Pats self on back.*  It really lived up to all my expectations, and really made this milestone birthday much easier to accept.  In fact, I think everyone should celebrate milestone birthdays with a great adventure, shared with friends of the same age as oneself.  It didn’t fly by too quickly, either, but was perfectly paced—I was never really ready to go home (well, until I woke up the day we drove home with an AWFUL kink in my neck, which was not soothed by 8+ hours in the car). 

It was just wonderful to step away from the same old routine of our lives, and see things and people and places so very different from the every day.  I can’t say that I was necessarily rested when we got back (we were on the go a LOT), but I definitely felt mentally refreshed, and that really counts for a lot.  I also really enjoyed the time I got to spend with Morgan and April.  Despite all Morgan’s talk before, during, and after the trip about us wanting to kill each other and needing time away from one another, I really never wanted to kill anyone at all—I was along for the ride and enjoyed learning some new things about both of them I didn’t know before.  I also very much enjoyed sharing incredible/amazing/fun/scary/neat/enlightening/thoughtful/amusing/hilarious experiences with them, and creating awesome memories and great stories to tell our friends and families.  Plus I think it was good to have the company in coming to terms with the aforementioned major birthday milestone.

What a great way to celebrate and enter into a new decade of life, wide open with possibilities. Here’s to 30!!

(Is it too early to start planning for 60?  We were thinking perhaps we might have the money by then to go to Europe…)

Saturday 5/28 Asheville

So we spent the entire day today at the Biltmore Estate.  The weather was absolutely delightful (I thought).  It was a little on the warm side when we were outdoors, but it was still much cooler and less humid than any other day on the trip.  I thought it was a great day.  I had visited the Biltmore a few years ago with Andy (same weekend, actually), and really enjoyed it a lot.  At that time, I knew I wanted to come back with April and Morgan, as I thought they’d both really like it as well.  Today I really enjoyed watching April and Morgan experience it for this first time.

We arrived in the morning, a little before our tour started, and managed to get sunny pictures of the house with not too many people and no shuttles in front of it!  (This is quite a feat).  We sprang for the audio tours, something Andy and I hadn’t done the last time (read: cheap).  I’m glad we got them this time, as it added some much more to the tour of the house.  We learned so much about the family, the people that visited them, and the folks that worked on the estate.

After the house tour, some lunch, and shopping, we spent quite a bit of time in the gardens, which Morgan and April really liked a lot.  We then also checked out the bass pond and waterfall (lots of opportunities for Morgan-related mishaps here, thankfully none occurred). 

We then checked out Antler Hill village, a new installment with shops and restaurants near the farm and winery.  We checked out the farm, where Morgan chased baby goats around the petting zoo for a while, and then enjoyed a demonstration by the resident blacksmith at the Biltmore, who was this amazing man representing a dying breed of American tradesmen.  Luckily, blacksmithing is as much an artisan’s craft as it is a utilitarian one, and today this man makes a lot of beautiful artwork, specifically a lot of leaf key chains, one of which Morgan bought.  He demonstrated how to make one of said key chains for us, and it was amazing to watch this man mold metal into a little delicate leaf—in about 10 minutes.  The juxtaposition of such a dirty, noisy, heavy process and the nuances of the artwork were just incredible.  It got even better when he “played” the anvil for us.  The anvil he played was clearly used for just that, and not making anything, same with the hammers that he used to play it.  Evidently, the anvil can be tuned to different pitches, with different sections of it having different pitches, depending upon how much saw dust is layered underneath various parts of the anvil.  He started to play it by striking the hammers on it, and drawing the sides of the hammerhead along the anvil, and it was incredible—sounded like wind chimes!  Not the heavy “bong bong” of the Anvil Chorus.  It was really amazing to watch this big-armed, barrel-chested, thick-handed man use ball-peen hammers to coax delicate music out of a hunk of .

After the blacksmith it was time for the wine tasting!  Yay!!!  It was funny how Morgan and I jumped right into this, but just couldn’t get April to get over her disgust of wine.  We kept suggesting wines we thought she’d find more palatable, but each time April would make a face, and force the small sip of wine down her throat, then down about 5 wine biscuits to get rid of the taste.  Guess she’d do better at an honest-to-god wine tasting where you spit it out….  Anyway, for those who know me well, it should come as no surprise that I came away with 6 bottles of wine.  In my defense, however, at least 3 of these are intended for other people. 

At that point, we were pretty much Biltmored out, so we said good-bye to the estate, and headed back to the hotel for a bit of rest, before stuffing ourselves with ribs and good Carolina BBQ at 3 Little Pigs, a meal that I admit I had been looking forward to for days, if not weeks.  Great little hole-in-the-wall joint between the estate and downtown Asheville, where everything is served on paper, plastic & Styrofoam, is dirt cheap, and tastes AMAZING!!!  Gotta eat there if you’re ever in Asheville.

Highlight of the rest of the day (or night rather) was Morgan screaming in her sleep and sitting straight up in bed.  We’d talked so much on the trip about her rolling out of bed, probably due to fighting for real estate with April (with whom she was sharing at the time) that I thought it had actually happened.  But a second or two later, she was asking to have the light turned on, to get her bearings.  She mentioned something about thinking there was something in the room, so then I started thinking critters are running around.  Finally she said  that she dreamt something fell on her, and she woke up and couldn’t remember where she was.  Good to know the whole thing was all in her head, and not real.  Out went the light, and back to sleep, with no more problems for the rest of the night. 

Friday 5/27 Atlanta to Asheville

This morning we packed up and said good-bye to the very neat, kitchy Hotel Indigo, with its European-sized bathroom.  Before leaving Atlanta, we headed to the Martin Luther King Jr. national historic site.  There was a lot to see there, and I came away feeling like we should perhaps have spent more time, which we just didn’t have.  There was the visitor’s center with an exhibit and film, the famed Ebenezer Baptist Church (as well as a newer, larger, more modern one built right across the street), the MLK Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and the house where Dr. King was born and raised, all up and down Auburn St. (or Sweet Auburn, as Dr. King affectionately called it).

Wow.  What a place, what a man.  I spent an awful lot of time in the visitor’s center exhibit reading everything.  We’ve all grown up and learned the basics about Dr. King, his life, and his legacy, but I realized how little I really knew about him, or the civil rights movement to be honest.  I was really struck at the portrayal of him as a living man, rather than a hero on a pedestal, the challenges his faced during the civil rights movement, the sacrifices made by him and his family, and the times when he almost gave it all up (can you imagine?).  It also was eye opening, all the stuff about the rampant racism in our country, especially in the South.  Not to say that racism isn’t still alive and well in the U.S., but the stuff that went on in the first half of the 20^th century is just so inconceivable to me, not having lived through it.  As we went through the Center for Nonviolent Social Change, looking at exhibits about Rosa Parks and Ghandi, I had some other thoughts start to float to the surface, but never really made it there, about all the nonviolent (or attempts at nonviolent) demonstrations going on all over the Middle East and Northern Africa in the “Arab Spring” this year.  I would love to be able to get Dr. King’s take on those events.

We also visited his and Mrs. King’s graves—very beautiful.  We walked up Auburn St. to his birth-home.  We weren’t able to take a tour, as the next available one was pretty late, but the visitor’s center had a neat kiosk with a 360 degree photo tour.

We also visited the Ebenezer Baptist Church.  Man, if walls could talk….  They almost did, as they had recordings of Dr. King’s sermons, and various folks singing, and playing the organ.  I was struck by how much smaller and more intimate the church actually is in real life—it just always looked pretty big to me in the pictures. 

So with a lot to think about, we got in the car and headed for Asheville, taking the scenic route through the edge of the Great Smokies, much to my delight, Morgan’s frustration (we were on a four-lane divided highway, not a four-lane limited access interstate), and April’s stomach’s dismay.  I wasn’t going mention the snit that this led but everyone else has, so why not?  April announced (10 miles from our destination) that she needed to use the restroom.  Thinking that she might be more comfortable in a reasonably clean and much more private hotel room bathroom rather than some nasty gas station bathroom, I asked if she couldn’t hold it.  Obviously this was the wrong question, for which I paid dearly (other motorists on I-40 might have noticed my head rolling down the road).  Suffice it to say, it was a quiet ride the rest of the way into Asheville.  We were back on speaking terms by dinnertime, however, and decided to indulge in some more of the much-enjoyed Mellow Mushroom, which conveniently also has a location in downtown Asheville.  After dinner we strolled around town a little bit, taking in the uber-crunchy atmosphere of Asheville.

Thursday 5/26 Atlanta

So today was a fun day for two important reasons.  It featured lots of sights viewed in the comfort of air conditioning, and offered lots of places to sit down.  Of course, those weren’t the only reasons for fun today, but two of the big ones.  We visited the Georgia Aquarium, reputedly the biggest in the world.  The major feature here was the whale sharks.  My father didn’t believe me that they could have even one of these enormous creatures (the biggest fish in the world), but it turns out they don’t have one—they have four.  They also have 4 manta rays, which are also enormous.  To top it off, none of these creatures were hatched in the aquarium, they were actually flown there, full size, from Southeast Asia.  Apparently UPS really can deliver anything….  We spent quite a bit of time ogling the gigantic sea life from every angle imaginable, including underneath the tank!  So impressive.  What I think impressed me most was the fact that this all exists in the middle of downtown Atlanta, which is a landlocked city.  Most other aquariums that I know of and have been to sit right on the edge of large bodies of water (the Shedd in Chicago is on Lake Michigan, the Baltimore Aquarium is right on the Chesapeake Bay, Monteray on Monteray Bay in CA, you get the picture).  But nope, all this is smack in the middle of Georgia, surrounded entirely by city.  Which is what makes it all the more impressive.  I would definitely recommend this to anyone visiting Atlanta, especially with kids.  Or adults who act like kids when in aquariums (read: Morgan).

After the aquarium, we visited the Margaret Mitchell House, which is actually where her apartment was, in which she was living when she wrote her legendary novel.  It was a small but impressive museum.  I admit to really knowing nothing about this woman, so it was definitely educational to learn more about her and her life, as well as a little bit of background on her book.   Funny sidenote: The tour guide kept talking about how, when Ms. Mitchell stacked up all the type-written chapters of her book, they made a stack 4'11" tall, almost as tall as she (Ms. Mitchell).  The lady kept gesturing to show about how high that would be until quiet little Morgan piped up and informed that group that she was 4'11" tall.  Everyone's head swiveled around and looked more closely and interestedly at Morgan than they had before.

Anyway, there was also a room dedicated to the book and the making of it into a movie.  This was especially interesting as that room focused somewhat on how David O. Selznick really changed much of her story when he Hollywoodized it, despite all attempts (real or imagined by him) not to.  I admit that its been about 15 years or so since I read the book, and thought perhaps it might be time to read it again, with a more adult perspective than the last time.  In the gift shop I picked up a 2-hour long DVD about the making of the movie.  Only for the true die-hard fans I guess—can’t wait to watch it with Mom!

Prior to dinner, we headed back to the hotel to relax for a bit, during which we watched a relatively minor thunderstorm blow through Atlanta.  Given the forecasts for the evening, we decided to venture the 4 blocks up Peachtree Street in the car, rather than chancing it on foot.  Words cannot describe how relieved I am that we made this choice.  Almost immediately upon leaving the parking garage (and, admittedly, going in the wrong direction on Peachtree from our hotel), all hell broke loose meteorologically speaking.  I’ve never felt a car dance around in the wind like Morgan’s was, and after several Southern U.S. cities were flattened by tornadoes this spring (Tuscaloosa, AL, and more recently, Joplin, MO), I was envisioning us getting caught in the EF5 that would flatten Atlanta.  The 11 o’clock news revealed that we only ever experienced straight line winds, but holy hell, what winds!!!  At one point something blew across the hood of Morgan’s car, which, according to April, looked like a small child.  We sat in the car, with limited visibility due to the monsoon, watching block after block of lights go out in the middle of town.  The scariest point was when we watched a traffic light arm pivot 90 degrees and almost smash into the building that it was sitting in front of.  Imagine my relief when we finally arrived at our destination, and had to go downstairs to get to the theater.  At least if an EF5 did hit mid-town Atlanta, we’d be safely underground.

Evidently, however, this was nothing compared to what was going on at home in the same storm 500+ miles away.  A photo message from Andy revealed a flipped over tractor trailer (empty) in the yard of his freight dock, and Facebook pictures of deep water in front of shopping centers, and status updates stating that my hometown was “a hot mess.”  Apparently this storm was one of the worst to hit my home county in some time. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but it made for a wild and wooly evening all along the Atlantic seaboard!

But back to the Shakespeare Tavern—what a neat place!  It’s a total not-for-profit (or non-profit, honestly can’t remember which) organization, with the food prepared and served entirely by volunteers.  In fact, it seems as though the only paid people in the whole deal are the actors.  Who were fabulous!!  So were the volunteers too.  It was like dinner theater with a twist.  And the play was great.  True to Shakespeare down to every line, but modern delivery and acting that allowed you to follow along even if not a scholar of the Bard.  They performed “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and during the play-within-a-play scene near the end after the wedding, I was in tears I was laughing so hard.  I would DEFINITELY recommend this if anyone visits Atlanta.

Got back to the hotel, and almost cried when we saw “out of service” signs on the elevators.  We were staying on the 12^th floor.  I thought we were going to have to sleep in the lobby, or else they would need to provide sherpas to carry us up 12 flights of steps.  Luckily, the guy working the front desk was able to use the fireman’s key to take us up, ala the elevator operators of the first half of the 20^th century.

After the Adventure

So, its been about 2 weeks since we returned and we are still talking to each other.  While I have been home since then to see my parents and give them the gifts I got them, we are taking a small break from spending time with each other or at least I am.  For me it's been back to my normal routine of work and sleeping.  I have also been working on organizing the over 2,000 pictures we all took.  I've deleted a lot and have it down to about 1,700 of course there are still a lot of duplicates, so its a work in progress.  I'm still trying to decide if I want to create a book or just get prints made and put them in an album. 


Overall the trip was wonderful and I had a really good time, but was ready to come home.  My favorite two places were Charleston and Savannah.  I could probably handle living there, just would have to learn to live with the heat and humidity.  Favorite place we went to would of course have to be the Aquarium.  Not really sure I had a least favorite some things were not a enjoyable as others but didn't hate anything.


I am glad to be home and my next adventure will be trying to find a new job or deciding if it's time to head back to school again.

Saturday May 28th THE BILTMORE

Today we spent the entire day at the Biltmore. It was so fantabulous. The architecture, the furnishings, the history, and the art work. I could picture myself walking down the halls in a big skirt all layered up. Of course I always picture myself as a guest rather than what I would most likely be...the help. Even the help appeared to be treated well for the period. Every servant bedroom had a window which of course had an excellent view from it. Also it turns out that the Vanderbilts were dog lovers as they had 5 (that's right, 5) Saint Bernard's. One of the Saint Bernards was named Cedric and he has a statue as well as a tavern named after him in the local village. We toured the grounds, gardens, ponds, etc. I took a lot of pictures.

We also went into Antler Hill Village. We saw a farm and got to go through the petting zoo. We also saw a blacksmith at work and he played the anvil for us. It was a much prettier sound than I had expected. The blacksmith was interesting because not only was he making these really cool objects by hand, but his family had been blacksmiths for hundreds of years, he spoke like my dad (but with a southern accent) and he could touch some really hot metal.

After the Biltmore we went back to the hotel to rest a bit and then took ourselves out to the Three Little Pigs for BBQ. It was yet another good meal for us where we were stuffed full of gooey BBQ goodness.

This was the only day on the trip where I developed a sunburn...although a mild one and pretty much just around my shoulders.

After dinner we hunted up a post box to send out our postcards (which will arrive after our return from vacation, but oh well). We then went to bed...until 3 am when Morgan woke us from a dead sleep when she cried out. I thought we were being attacked...Lis thought a mouse was after us...Morgan just wanted the light on. Turns out something had startled her in her dream and no it was not about the ghost tour (which I was relieved by because otherwise she would never let it go that I had made them do that). After this we all went back to sleep.

Friday May 27: Atlanta to Asheville

Today we went to the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial. What I found most interesting about the memorial is that they portrayed MLK as a man rather than an untouchable hero. They showed his weaknesses in that he gave up time with his children to fight for what he believed in. They spoke about when he was to the point where he was ready to give up. They also had information about his wife, Rosa Parks, and Gandhi. You got to tour the church he preached in as well as his father and his grandfather. You also had the opportunity to see where he was born.

After we finished up at the memorial we headed back on the road to Asheville. We took the scenic route which in 50/50 hindsight might not had been the best for my tummy as it got extremely upset with me. Then my road partners got upset with me (and me with them) when I had to ask to stop to use the restroom about 10 miles out from Asheville. So we stop, I go into the restroom and miracles of miracles there is a stall open; however, to my dismay there is not toilet seat on the toilet. Now while I will try some new things that is not one of them...so I had to wait for the other stall to come open.

We finally arrived at our hotel in Asheville...the only one that had 2 queen beds. Bless their souls. We went out to dinner at the Mellow Mushroom. We had been seated outside until it started to rain at which point we moved ourselves inside, despite the fact that Lis thought it would just be a light shower. Who wants soggy pizza? We had a lovely dinner and then walked around the town for a bit. We saw a miniature drum circle with people dancing around them. We also saw the crunchy granola-ness of the town. :) Then it was off to bed for the three of us.