5/5/2003 06:35
(Judie )This is my first entry in the journal. I woke up just after 4 am and decided to get up so Don could sleep. We're leaving for the Asheville area this morning. It's going to take about 5 hours so we'll want a fairly early start. Usually Don gets up to walk the dog and then fixes coffee after I awaken. I don't know if I will walk Sammie, but I will at least fix the coffee. I'm really enjoying the trip and not really missing home yet. Don thinks we'll be home way before the 18th, but I'm not so sure. We want to spend a little time in the Panhandle before heading home. On our previous trips, though, we go along great for a while, and then we're suddenly hell-bent for home. So, we'll see if that happens this time.

I'm looking forward to seeing the Biltmore Estate, but our guidebook says the admission is $22.95, and that was three years ago! All I can say is, it better be good! We also plan to explore the southern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway. It's supposed to have a lot of tunnels. We may take another hike or two as well. Sammie seems to really enjoy the walks and it's good exercise for us as well. Sure beats just walking around the campground.

07:31 5/6/2003

We had quite a day yesterday. Got out of the campground just before 09:00 thanks to Judie being awake so early. Judie made coffee just before we left and it reminded me of our trip out west to be driving along with the fresh coffee in our mugs. It tasted great too! We'd decided to keep to the Interstate system to make more mileage and it worked well for us. I-81 is a very nice road through beautiful country. I really think we like it as much as we would have the Blue Ridge itself. Of course you can't take side hikes off the Interstate but it rained pretty much all day so we wouldn't have been hiking anyway.

We were rolling along through Virginia when the wind started to pick up. You feel the trailer when the wind hits it. Anyway, I was ok with that until the rain really started picking up as well and I started thinking 'wind shear'. I slowed to about 45 and I'm glad I did because the trailer was really bouncing. I don't know if things would have been ok if we'd been doing 55 or 60 but I kind of doubt it. Anyway, we came through that ok.

The next excitement was the Tennessee North Carolina border. The Interstate is unfinished in this area so we were shifted to an older road. The pull up the hill was mostly in the Interstate portion but the downhill was old road. Lots of signs saying "Trucks use lower gear. Truck Speed Limit 35 mph." We went faster than that but not over 45! It is a twisty and nasty bit of road.

The last driving excitement was seeing not one but two accidents. I haven't seen an accident in some time other than a really minor fender bender but today we saw a pickup on it's top and a Lincoln that was all banged up and turned around on the highway. In both cases the emergency vehicles were there already but the Lincoln had a couple mile back up behind it. We were fortunate to be going the other direction.

We are south of Asheville in either Hendersonville or Flat Rock depending on what guide book you read. The park is called Phil and Ann's RV Park and it's pretty rough but adequate. It is also very cheap; with our Escapee's discount we got two nights for $25.35 including cable TV! We got in at 16:00. We did almost everything wrong while hooking up. Of course, it was raining so that made it really pleasant. For some reason we took the trailer off the truck and hooked up the cable, water and electric before noticing that the damn trailer wasn't level. So we unhooked the land connections, hook back up to the truck and put it on the 2x4's. Of course, that didn't do it so we had to replace them with the 4x4's. This has been quite a trip for the leveling boards. We have used them in three places so far during this trip vs hardly ever using them in previous trips. I don't know if we are getting more picky or if the places we stop can't do level sites.

The first thing we did was to connect the cable and turn on the weather channel. Turns out there are tornados up in Tennessee and it's probably going to rain all week lightening up around Thursday. We are strongly considering heading south after seeing the Biltmore estate. Driving or hiking just isn't going to be fun this week.

18:00 5/6/2003
This was another amazing day. We started by eating breakfast late, about 10:00 or so. Then we drove off to find Biltmore. It wasn't too tough to find but once we got there we got the bad news: $36 each entry fee! Then there was the $12.95 paperback guidebook, the $7 audio tour, etc. We just said 'NO' to all that extra stuff but we decided we still wanted to see the mansion. We paid our $72 and drove the 3 miles from the ticket booth to the mansion. Walking from the parking lot to the building (described by them as an 8 minute walk) was definitely a 2-umbrella walk. We each had one and we were glad that we had them.

The tour is self-guided so we liked that. Judie read from the free brochure and I think we got more than enough out of it. We enjoyed seeing the place. It is spectacularly over done with Flemish tapestries, tons of overly carved furniture, 10,000 books in 9 languages (all in matching bindings, of course); all the stuff that one would find in a nouveau riche American's mansion. Still, there is lots of interesting architectural and societal stuff that we liked. We've been watching a series on life in a 1905 era mansion and seeing the 'upstairs' and 'downstairs' lives. Seeing a real American version of the same kind of lifestyle was interesting.

We also went through the conservatory and then the winery. The wine tasting was pretty good. And we bought three bottles - one of each of our favorites. We were shocked that the price of the wine was quite reasonable. Skipped the champagne tasting because they wanted you to pay $7 for 3 tastes.

Home to the trailer at 17:30 or so and glad to be there. Stopped at the store on the way home and got food; stopped at the gas station & got gas. Ready to hit the road in the a.m. Want to think about the Passport America RV park system. It could save us money if we go the right directions.

(Judie) It was bad enough that we had to pay $36 per person for admission, but there was no reasonably priced food anywhere on the estate! Don and I both felt that about $18 would be an appropriate admission price. I looked on the lunch menu at the "Bistro" and a Reuben sandwich was $14!! So, if you wanted to spend the day to really enjoy walking the trails and seeing the gardens, you have to buy into some really expensive food. I don't see any reason for such gouging other than pure greed.

08:30 5/7/2003
Decided to stay here another day. It is raining like the devil so we don't want to hook up the rig and there are lots of things we could do like laundry, general cleaning, showers, etc.

Still thinking on the Passport America thing. Come to find out the park in Okefenokee and the Yogi Bear were both members as well as this one so we are actually stopping at typical parks. Did a spreadsheet and found that we would have saved $22 so far on this trip. That does go a ways towards covering the $44 cost! It would be more but these people only give you the discount for one night and Yogi only gives it Sunday thru Thursday.

I went out and did shopping and the laundry. Went to the place recommended by Phil; $1.75 a load but the dryers were hot so I guess it worked out. Went to the library and checked out our email. Nothing much there: a note from Ginny, a joke from Roger (in NYC), a thing about Bush being a loser from Connie. Judie cleaned the rig so everything is clean.

After the cleaning frenzy we decided to take a drive on the Blue Ridge. We left about 16:00 and didn't get back until 19:00. Had a really nice time. The scenery was great. We didn't hike or anything because it was cold (like 59) and windy but otherwise it was great. We put the photos in the BlueRidge Mts North Carolina folder.

Came home and paid the rent on the space and bought the Passport America deal. We'll see how it works out; at least we got our last night here for $7 rather than $12. Worst case is that $44 isn't that much. Then I BBQ'd steak in the dark & we went to bed early.

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