Nashville, TN to Asheville, NC to Pine Island, NC
Following a noisy night in Nashville, we piled into the car and made a direct approach to Asheville, NC forgoing the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. The reason for our haste was the impressive Biltmore Mansion and their Flower Carpet Garden Evening Event. We arrived in Asheville without a problem, checked into the Ramada Inn, checked out the used book store nearby, and headed to the Mansion. We opted to go to the Winery first and greatly enjoyed the tour and wine tasting, wishing that we knew ahead of time that we could have sampled over 15 wines so that we saved the heavy reds for last. We purchased a couple of bottles of wine in the gift shop and drove the 4 miles to the Mansion for the last two hours of the evening event. The place is enormous. In our two hours we saw the Flower Carpet Garden, the first floor and the basement, leaving the rest of the house for the next morning. That night we greatly enjoyed our dinner at Nova in downtown Asheville, although parking was quite difficult and a bit of an issue.
The next day we were up and out bright and early, scoring a free breakfast at the Ramada and headed back to the Mansion arriving right as it was opening at 9 am. We turned in our tickets for the audio tour and crept up to the second floor. We could not have planned this any better as far as avoiding the crowds on a weekend. The night before allowed us to take our time and the same went for this morning as we traveled through the upper floors of this 285 room Mansion barely disturbed by the other visitors. We finished our tour by 11 am and walked through the Italian Gardens and the Conservatory until noon. With an 8+ hour drive staring us in the face we left the Biltmore Estate, grabbed some Wendy's, and hit the road. Aside from the length, the drive went smoothly and we were greeted at the beach house on Pine Island, NC by my parents, Fred and Rita, my middle sister Kim and her daughter Kai, and the wonderful hamburgers that they grilled.
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