We left Asheville Friday morning to make the short (3-hour) trip to Grassy Cove, Tennessee. We said that we’d be there around dinner time, so we decided to stop at the Knoxville Zoo (yet another freebie). It’s a really nice zoo but we were kind of getting zooed-out. The kids still had fun, and the highlight was the gorilla who was ticked off that he couldn’t go outside and kept hitting the door and running and sliding on the hay in his enclosure. We finally left the zoo at 5ish and drove the rest of the way to my brother and sister-in-law’s house. My mother and stepfather are also here so the kids have lots of people to entertain them.

Today we went to the Fiddlers’ Jamboree in Smithville, Tennessee. After listening to kids playing bluegrass music all day, Aliya has finally decided on her instrument for lessons next year – the violin. It was a fun day but SO HOT. I don’t remember when I’ve ever sweated that much in my life. We stopped for dinner on the way home and everyone is finally asleep again. Ahhhhh.

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Thursday morning Aliya and I headed off to the Biltmore Estate with my industry friend Rachel.  The Biltmore is the largest single-family home in the US…it’s still family-owned even though it’s more like a museum and nobody lives in the house any more.  It was originally built as a country retreat for George Vanderbilt and his wife, Edith, and later their only child, Cornelia.  The house is 175,000 square feet, with 250 rooms, 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces.  Originally there were 125,000 acres of land…it currently sits on 8,000 acres.  It is AMAZING…words really can’t describe how beautiful it is.  They don’t allow photos to be taken inside the house, so I can’t even SHOW you how beautiful it is!

After our tour of the Biltmore, we had Mexican food for lunch at Neo Cantina, and went to the Western North Carolina Nature Center (another freebie with our Museum of Science membership).  It was good for the kids to run around a bit and they got to see some less-common animals – African wild dogs, wolves, and they really liked the river otters swimming around against the glass.  After a nap we went to downtown Asheville for dinner at the Mellow Mushroom, and walked around town a bit.  It reminds me a lot of Cambridge Mass – lots of live music on the streets, artsy people hanging out, just a really great vibe.

It’s pretty sad that even on VACATION I can’t find time to update my blog.  I have been good about updating my work blog, but between the driving, the driving, and the driving, I haven’t had an extra moment.  I think I need an iPad keyboard so I can be more efficient in the car.  If I haven’t said it before, I LOVE my iPad with 3G.  It’s so great for navigating and finding gas, restaurants, hotels, ice cream – all the necessities, along the way.

We are currently at my brother and sister-in-law’s house in Grassy Cove, Tennessee.  It’s 7 a.m., everyone is still asleep, and the only sounds I can hear are the birds chirping and the cows mooing.  It’s an absolutely gorgeous day and the sun is doing a good job of burning off the fog.  I’ve got to start working on Hank (my sister-in-law’s dad) to sign over a tiny little plot on his cattle ranch.  I love Tennessee!  It’s like Vermont without the cold and snow.

We left home on Tuesday after Ben came home from work.  The kids and I had spent the day packing, doing errands, and cleaning up the remaining work projects.  Traveling has become so much easier for me since the current technology allows me to stay connected, although the downside is that I’m never disconnected.  Yesterday I got an email from a door company in Wisconsin while we were driving through North Carolina.  I’ve responded to at least 100 emails from the car during our trip, but this one was too hard to answer by email so we stopped at a rest area, everyone got out and left me in the car, and I called the customer.  The funny thing is that I’m not responsible for customers in Wisconsin, or anywhere outside of New England, but because of my work blog I get questions from all over the world.  Last Saturday someone from Egypt contacted me via Twitter and I answered his question with several back-and-forth Tweets.  Crazy!

Anyway, we left home with no idea where we would stop for the night and no hotel reservation.  We had packed dinner so we didn’t have to stop, and we were just going to drive as far as possible to cut down on the driving time the next day.  We ended up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania at 11:30ish, which I thought was pretty good progress.  It was a good chunk of our trip, but not so late at night that everyone would be toast the next day.

Behind our hotel was a big field that sloped up, like our own personal amphitheater for the wildlife show.  I first saw a bunny, then two turkeys, then three deer, and a while later the kids started yelling that there was another deer.  I grabbed my camera and took this photo of a doe with her fawn.  They were booking across the field and it was tough to see the fawn because of the camouflage.

We left the hotel pretty early because we had to get to Asheville, North Carolina that day and it was 500 miles away.  I always check for museums and zoos with a reciprocity agreement with the Museum of Science, which gets us in for free or half price, and I found a zoo in Roanoke, Virginia which was about halfway to Asheville.  It was a decent zoo, but pretty small…at least it got the kids out of the car and running around for a while.  They had a wildflower garden so I broke out my macro lens and gave it a try – photos to follow.  The zoo was right next to the Roanoke Star – the largest man-made free standing star in existence…I kept thinking about the man-made part of their claim to fame.  Is there a larger non-man-made star?

The kids passed out on the way from Roanoke to Asheville, and woke up with about an hour left.  The drive through the mountains was beautiful, and the kids were amazed by the dead coyote we saw beside the road.  Looking for more roadkill got them through at least 15 minutes of the trip.  We stopped at a scenic overlook which wasn’t overly scenic, but we found a bunch of empty but intact chrysalises on the stone wall which were very cool.  Norah just finished studying the whole caterpillar to butterfly thing in preschool so she told us all about them. 

We got to Asheville around 8:30, and I had made reservations on the way down (by iPad) at the DoubleTree.  We went to Asheville because when I posted on my work blog that I was going on a road trip and wanted some ideas for places to see great doors (I know, I’m weird), my work friend from Asheville offered to take me to the Biltmore Estate.  Asheville was only a couple of hours out of the way and I had never been there, so off we went.  I think that’s a great way to travel…i just need a VW bus and I’ll be ready to go where the wind takes me.

When we got to the hotel the kids went straight to the pool with Ben, while I unpacked and did a little work.  There was a TGI Fridays attached to our hotel so we went there for dinner at about 10.  I started feeling kind of queasy and anxious so I went back to the room and took some vitamin B12 because it was the same kind of feeling I had when I was B12-deficient (except the feeling went on for months).  I didn’t think it would help, but oddly enough – an hour or so later I felt fine and was able to eat the dinner Ben brought back as take-out.  I don’t know if it could have been the B12, but I don’t know what else it could have been.  I was really happy to feel better though.

The next morning Aliya and I got up early to meet my work friend in the lobby at 8:15.  I have known Rachel for over 20 years, but I haven’t seen her for probably 10.  We’re not close friends, but she likes my work blog and frequently comments or emails me about it.  I have relationships like this all over the country and social media has really helped me maintain them or form new ones.  Very cool.

I am going to write about the Biltmore in a separate post, since this one is bordering on becoming a book.

P.S.  Everyone is still asleep!!!