Yesterday was my 28th birthday - whew time flies. Damon woke me up at 4:30 am telling me to get ready because we had to leave in an hour to "go somewhere for my birthday." Needless to say I didn't argue because one, a surprise was in store and two, it must have taken an act of Congress to get Damon up and going at that hour. We were in the car by 5:30 and leaving Grundy for a day full of fun and adventure.
Stop 1 - Starbucks!!! What a great start to any day, but especially for my birthday.
Stop 2 - Biltmore House/Estates in Asheville, NC. After driving for 3 1/2 hours, I still had no definite idea of where Damon was taking me. We arrived at the Biltmore house in time for our 9:45 am tour. I've had patient's tell me that we need to visit here because you just can't put into words what the house is like. AMAZING and ORNATE are the words I would use to describe it. The moment our bus rounded the corner up the long driveway and we could see the huge mansion, it took my breath away. The house was built by George Vanderbilt in 1895 and is 175,000 square feet with 250 rooms (35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, inside bowling alley and swimming pool, and 3 kitchens)! We took the audio tour through the 5 level house admiring all of the design work and Christmas decorations. I wish I had some pictures of the inside, but photographs were not allowed. If you'd like to see a slide show of the house, use this link which will take you to the Biltmore website then click on the picture off to the right.
Stop 3 - Lunch in the Biltmore courtyard and gift shops - yummy gourmet pizza
Stop 4 - Biltmore Gardens - These were truly amazing even in the winter so I can only imagine what they must look like during summer when everything is is full bloom. Damon and I had a great time just wandering around looking at all of the different trees and plants. We discovered these crazy trees that looked like field goals posts and candelabras. Again, here is a link to a slide show if you are interested.
Stop 5 - Biltmore Winery - We took a tour of the winery followed by some wine tasting. This wine tasting was unlike any I've every done before. Typically you pay for the tasting and you have a limit of how many you get to try. This was not the case yesterday. I bet we could have tried all 40 wines if we would have liked, but after about 6 or 7, we were having a hard time differentiating them from one another. We wanted to sit out on the varanda and have a glass of wine with a cheese tray, but we both knew that if we did this we'd be too sleepy to make the 3 1/2 hour drive home, so onto the next stop we went.
Stop 6 - Marion, NC high school basketball game. We were in route to Damon's friends Matt's house to pick up a Christmas tree from his family farm, when we found out that Matt was coaching a basketball game in the town we were driving through. Damon's other best friend Jeremy was also there watching, so we were able to see both guys. Half a basketball game later, we left to continue our journey.
Stop 7 - The Wiseman's house. We stopped at Matt's childhood home to visit with his father, Paul who owns a Christmas tree farm. After a great glass of sweet tea and tying the Christmas tree to the top of the car, we were off again.
Hardees
Stop 8 - Birthday dinner at Hardee's!!! I know this isn't a typical birthday dinner, but at this point we had been gone from the house for 15 hours and we needed to get home to let poor Igor out. So we ate in the car and passed the time by taking birthday phone calls.
Stop 9 - HOME!!! Whew. 18 hours later, we returned home exhausted and excited to see our little Igor. I had such a wonderful birthday and it was great to do so many things in one day. We took over 200 photos yesterday, so I'll post them to our online photo album. Just click on the box to the right of this page and it will direct you there.
Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes. I truly had one of the best birthdays I've had in a long time. What a special day to go exploring new places, see new sights, and spend the entire day with the man I love.
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