After touring Atlanta for two days we headed back North… not far though. A couple hours drive from Atlanta is Asheville North Carolina. I would say Asheville is a very nice town, but I don’t remember seeing the town of Asheville itself….. we went direct to the Biltmore House, county home of George Vanderbilt.
One word “Amazing”, well maybe “Huge” or “Holycow”. Amazing what a few million dollars would buy back in 1895! Want copper roofing with your initials embossed on every piece? Want a forty foot chandelier hanging down your five floor staircase?
Want a special bar-b-que room? How about 20 separate rooms for your friends to change in before you go swimming (in your 58 foot long in door pool or course) or horse riding? Maybe a billiard room that you could put most normal homes into? No problem, just inherit 100 Million, double that in ten years to 200 million, then factor in dollar value in 1895 and you have a cool 90 Billion to spend as you like… at age 44, and still a bachelor so you don’t have to quibble over the size of the ladies dressing rooms…..
However you do it, this is one amazing place. We spent the day here and probably could have come back the next day to see more. We missed out on the “Roof top tour” which should have produced some nice panorama shots from the ramparts. The farm, gardens, nature center and riding stables (the new ones) were closed by the time we got out of the house. We did make the winery to get in a little tasting session though.
Having taken the entire day here we retired for the night, the hotel was nice, but nothing like the guest accommodations at Biltmore, but then too we had air conditioning!
Tuesday we were off and running again, up to Mooresville NC, home of many of the NASCAR team. DEI (Dale Earnhart Inc), Robert Yates, Penske Racing and many others.
We went in and out of garages taking pictures and looking for interesting souvenirs (and came away empty handed for the most part.) After hitting the shops we wanted to in Mooresville we went down the road to Charlotte. Charlotte is home to Lowes Motor Speedway and most importantly Hendrick Motorsport – which just happens to be where Jeff Gordon keeps a couple of cars at. (Along with several hundred (?) trophys including four Winston Cup’s.
We got into Lowe’s and were able to watch some cars running around the track. Not sure if they were testing or giving rides or both. But was fun to see cars under speed and not just an empty track. Then down the road a couple miles to Hendrick Motorsport. They have a nice showroom with all the trophys, and a room with a number of the cars used by Jeff and Jimmy Spencer including their dirt track cars they started racing with. I thought Jeff actually started with go-karts, but none were to be seen here. You could look out into the garage area and see the work being done on the cars but not as close as I would like… like next to them. “Oh you want a 3/16 open end, no problem here you go.” It was getting late in the day so we took off North again to get down the road toward home.
The ride through West Virgina was fantastic, early evening, the sun was turning the sky all sorts of golds, the clouds were coming into the mountains showing why they are called the smokies, and then a twin rainbow just before dark. A great way to end up the vacation.
Until I have a home like the Biltmore, or drive a car like Jeff,
George