From Alabama we made our way to Asheville North Carolina.  The popularity of Asheville grew in the late 1800’s when its reputation for clean fresh mountain air and clear water brought people who were having breathing problems.   Tuberculosis was rampant and Asheville became the leader in its treatment.  Families would come with their ailing loved ones and would decide to stay.  The vaccine for Tuberculosis was invented here.

Parked next to the French Broad river, we were very close all the activities.  The first day we decided to take a Red Trolley tour, to acquaint ourselves with the town and decide what we wanted to see.  Of course, the first thing you think about when you go to Asheville, is the Biltmore Estate.  And what an Estate it is!

Biltmore house

The house, designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt,   boasts 4 acres of floor space!  The 250 room mansion features 33 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, three kitchens, even an indoor swimming pool and a bowling alley!  It was equipped with the latest amenities; running water, electricity, refrigerators! We take this for granted today, but back then? Wow! Keep in mind this house first opened its doors to family and friends, after 6 years of construction work, on Christmas Eve 1895!

Stone carvers were the highest paid employees during the construction and are responsible for the house ornate decorations.

This limestone castle sat on 125, 000 acres of forests, including a farm and a dairy, a 250 acres wooded park designed by Frederick Law Olsmted, the man who designed Central Park in New York city and is known as the founding father of American landscape architecture!  The grounds also included 5 pleasure gardens and 30 miles of macadamized roadway.

view of the gardens

In the conservatory, plants and flowers are being grown to supply the house.

This house was the brainchild of George Washington Vanderbilt, and he was 33 years old and still unmarried when he opened Biltmore.  He was the grandchild of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt who quit school at age 11 to go work in the shipping business.  At age 16, he borrowed $100 from his mother and started a ferry service across New York Bay, which eventually became a fleet of more than 100 steamboats that traveled as far as Central America and Europe.  50 years later, the Commodore earned his second fortune investing in railroads.  Patriarch of a sizable family; his wife of 53 years Sophia, 13 children, 37 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren.  He left the bulk of his fortune of $100 millions to his eldest son, William Henry.  Even if his father had deemed him unsuited for business, William Henry took over the family fortune and doubled it.  George was Henry’s youngest child and inherited 10 millions upon his death.

The conservatory

He married Edith Stuyvesant Dresser in June 1898 in Paris and the couple came to live at the Estate that fall after honeymooning.  They were attended by a large staff and were known as kind and generous employers.  George realized his dream of a productive estate.  The farms yielded fruits, vegetables and grain crops, dairy products and honey.  The forest produced 100s of cords of firewood annually which were sold along with lumber process in Biltmore’s own mill.  Today, a million visitors a year visit the estate, which is still owned and managed by his descendants.

There were no pictures allowed inside the house, but I can vouch for the fact that it has been wonderfully restored and maintained, and contains a lot of the original furnishing and treasures original to the house.

12 bones

A visit to Asheville would be incomplete without a meal at” 12 Bones”.  This famous BBQ place has won the title of “Best Bite” on Good Morning America.  President Obama ate there a few months ago.  The restaurant is open from 11 to 4 on weekdays only.  There is always a line at the door, even at 11 in the morning.

12 bones restaurant in Asheville NC

Chicken found a comfortable place to sit while waiting, and dreamed of tender butts and sweet racks!

We ate delicious dry rub ribs with corn pudding and collard greens, Bear also had jalapeno grits.  Sorry, no pictures of the food, I forgot….

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The last day, we drove along the famous Blue Ridge Parkway and enjoyed the vistas.

Yup, he just had to get in the picture again...

View from the Blue Ridge Parkway

After our trip last year, we and our wallet needed a little bit of rest.  Chicken took a vacation with his woolly friends at Really Knit Stuff and I settled into a comfortable life knitting, crocheting,   spinning, weaving and teaching classes.  Bear started getting antsy though, and with the heat coming back to Florida, it was time to start traveling again.  We decided to make a very quiet leisurely trip up to Canada this year,   taking it easy, with many days of rest in between the “touring days”.  So far, it’s working pretty nicely.

Last year, I met Lisa while taking classes at Stitches South in Atlanta.  We kept in contact on Ravelry (for those who do not know, that’s an online community for fiber crazies like me), and we made sure to meet again at this year’s Stitches.  Lisa lives in Alabama and we decided to go visit her for our trip’s first stop.

We had a wonderful time, Lisa turned out to be a wonderful cook, she prepared some smoked pork with a home made BBQ sauce made with peach preserves. Yum!  This year, Lisa became the “grand-mother” of a brand new baby Pygora goat, her name is Shadow and she is the cutest thing I have ever seen.

Shadow

We had quite a time trying to catch her so we could pet her. Her mom and Dad were keeping a watchful eye on her, but we finally managed to do it and Chicken made a brand new friend.  🙂

Chicken, Shadow and Lisa

Two fiber addicts just had to go shopping, and Lisa is a very savvy shopper, she knows where to get stuff for the right price, she took me to a wonderful thread factory and I bought cones and cones of weaving yarn!  YUM!

The next day, we visited the Lyman Ward Military Academy, in Camp Hill, where Bear went to school in 1957.  It was quite a trip back in time for him.  The school was first known as the Southern Industrial Institute, and held its first class in 1898.  Bear’s uncle, John L. Sullivan Woodall attended the Institute, year unknown though.

Tallapoosa Hall erected in 1930

It was founded by Reverend Lyman Ward and his wife Mary.  The area, was still suffering from the aftermath of the civil war, and their dreams was to have a school for underprivileged children, regardless of colors where they could receive a pragmatic education.  The goal was to teach the children reading and mathematics and to prepare them to find work.  The children had to contribute labor.  It was a nondenominational school, which did cause problems with funding.  These same funding problems eventually would lead the school to change into a school for poor white children only (boys and girls), and then, around 1955, to become a military academy.  There were 54 students enrolled in 1957 when Bear went to school there, by January 1958, there were only 34 students.     The students no longer enrolled had been asked to leave, due to the school’s limited staff or the student’s serious misconduct.  Bear left on his own…

Inside Tallapoosa hall

Today although the school is still struggling with finance the students receive a lot of attention in small classes and the emphasis of the program is to build the childrens character. The enrollment for the coming fall of 2010 stands at approximately 100 students.

The rest of the time we spent relaxing in our campground,   on the shores of Lake Martin.

Lake Martin

I finished weaving my mom’s scarf.  It is made of a wonderful blend of 50% silk and 50% wool, hand dyed by Mountain Colors,   the structure is a waffle weave and it was woven on a simple rigid heddle loom.  I hope she likes it. We’ll know in September.

Mom's scarf