Weekend Trip to Ashville

 We originally wanted to go to Ashville and stay with a couple that Wayne and Helen had stayed with earlier this year through AirBnB.  Unfortunately, we had to wait until the last minute thanks to the new job, and this being the high season, they were full.  Indeed, many of the hotels were full, but we managed to get rooms at the Biltmore Holiday Inn, which is fantastically priced and a rather nice place to stay.  We left Friday night, and enjoyed a nice drive in the country.   But I took two wrong turns and ended up adding an extra hour to our trip.  Now that we know how to get there from Charlotte, going back will be a lot easier.  Sticking to highways is a good idea.  But we saw some nice country and got to listen to some nice podcasts along the way.

We ate at the restaurant at the Holiday Inn since it had been a long week and we were both exhausted.  We had a nice quiet romantic evening away from it all.  We also read a bit from "Dangerous Liasons" which we are reading from together before we go to bed each night.  We both slept very well.

When we found out how much Biltmore was, we initially weren't going to go but the Hotel had a special deal and a fantastic rate.  So we went.  Due to starting the new job, we couldn't do everything but we did do a lot of the stuff you get for the basic price of admission.  We got lunch at a place along the way but should have waited until we got there. 

The grounds were gorgeous.  We parked the car and then took a shuttle bus inside.  The house is huge.  And you can see it in the picture below.  Biltmore is interesting because its the work of one of the Vanderbelt Grandchildren, a master architect and the guy who designed Central Park.  When we go on trips, we've seen a lot of restored houses but this one was special for a lot of reasons.  Aside from the fond memories Julia had here of coming to sing with her High School choir in the inside garden, this house seemed like a home frozen in time.  So often with these places, they face decades of neglect only for a benevolent patron to take an interest to save the place, with furnitture donated second hand from a wide range of people.  The Biltmore, all amazing 250 rooms of it, has been in private hands the entire time and the furniture is original.  But the biggest difference is how much forethought Vanderbilt put into this place, his own excellent taste, and how much he worked with the master artists he hired.

The most impressive room in the place is the library.  There are over 23000 books there as well as Art Folios, Globes, Shelves and Frescos.  It is obviously a place that was well used and there are dozens of mini libraries throughout the house.  The rest of the house was amazing as well from the vaulted ceilings with tapestries of the banquet hall to the intimate art of Vanderbelt's bedroom with the selected art or the sunny window of the wife's receiving room.  Many of the guest rooms were sealed off, but I suspect those are part of the Butler's tour or the Architect's tour.  The basement has a small museum, perfectly preserved swimming pool and turn of the 19th century gymnasium, along with servant's quarters, a pantry, a vast kitchen, and very primitive laundry room.

The gardens are also amazing.   There are several different styles including a walk-through garden and hot houses full of tropical orchids and wonders from every clime.  The kitschy but awesomely large garden shop at the end holds several curiosities for sale including some excellent hand crafted rocking chairs.  The grounds are fantastic as well and we went on a lovely walk near land sculpted ponds and wood covered bridges.  By the statue of Diana we took several impressive pictures and saw a couple get engaged right at sunset.  The lights were truly amazing.

After the wonderful day at the mansion, we went to downtown Ashville and ate at a Sushi place.  We got Julia's expresso, stopped at a few shops to pick up an interesting set of cards and some scented oil and then went back to the hotel.  We closed out the evening watching Sleepless in Seatle.

It was a perfect day.

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November Update

The end of October was a bit sad for Julia and I as she visited her family in Atlanta.  We spent the first weekend with my folks, and the latter weekend with hers.  This was the seventh annual Freedom Day that we celebrated and we had a fantastic turn out.  Bill, Andrew, Berny, Wayne, Helen, Skip, Mom, Terence, Diane, Alan, Phillip, Julia and I were all at the Marlay House.  I was originally going to have it at the Thinking Man Tavern, but we had to move it earlier due to the wake of dear friend Holly Blain.  The event was fantastic and we had many good conversations before going our separate ways.  Holly's Wake was also a remarkable celebration, with probably 200-250 people there celebrating her life.   Afterwards, Julia went hope to spend the evening with her family, and I went to see the fantastic play The Doctor, The Devil and my Dad at Seven Stages. 

Then I went home.  For Julia, she enjoyed a nice week her family, the dog and the two cats.  (We brought Sasha back and forth with us during the missing week.)  For me, I saw John Wick, and otherwise spent my idle time playing nonsensical internet games.  The weekend we visited her folks, they took us out to eat at a magnificent Pizza place (Campania).  We spent Halloween night watching Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein, which was just perfect.  Sunday was a nice relaxing day, and then we went home.

School is challenging but good for Julia.  Work has been pedantic in some of its hour requirements, but the work itself has been much more interesting than it was at Well's Fargo.  It was a slow but intense week for both of us. We're looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend at home for once.  My writing is going well, as is the podcast.

Current Status

Julia's school work is going well. I will be starting a new job on Monday with OpenSystems here in Charlotte as a Scrum Master/Business Analyst. We have gone on several interesting trips of late.

We have been to Atlanta to spend time with family which was nice. We saw the Metropolitan Opera at the Regal, "Macbeth" which was quite impressive though be warned that the tickets are more expensive than regular movie tickets.  The singers were very impressive.

We went to Chimney rock near Ashville to hike for a day before I start the new job and are looking forward to going back later in November. Hopefully to do Chimney Rock and Ashville in the same time. It was exhausting but I managed to do it. Julia, of course, is in considerably better shape.

Charlston is a neat city. We used AirBnB to stay with a neat lady by the name of Elayna. She is an artist and has three artistic children as well. If we use the site on more time successfully somewhere else, I highly recommend it. We went on a 'ghost' tour of the local dungeon as well as a generic historic tour of the city. Like Savannah, this one has only been scratched on the surface and I think we need to do at least one, maybe two more trips before we've even begun to do stuff there. There were far more elements of the confederacy on display than I'd like...this is where it begun after all, it did give me ideas for a series of short stories in the Forever West universe that I might write next year. Especially if I sell any copies there. We saw several galleries and really enjoyed the market there. We bought a small beach print. We also ate at a fantastic restaurant Julia picked called the Fish House which had a view of the aircraft carrier and a frigate at sunset. Julia also spotted some porpoises while we were at the beach and the waterfront.

Building a Home

I think first and foremost, congratulations are in order for my little brother Brett Ricks, who just last Saturday got married to the lovely Tory Pitts.  He is the seventh of us to be married, though Julia and I may still be the last to have kids; since we're waiting until she graduates.  I don't know much about Tory but given the pictures it is obvious they are very much in love.  Alas, the ring ceremony is a bit too soon after my bout of unemployment to be able to attend in Salt Lake this coming Friday, but I will certainly be there in spirit.

We have slowly been putting our apartment together.  We've put up a new shower curtain (power drills are harder to use than it looks!), wall hangings, my old bed, and a lot of bookshelves.  We still have to set up the TV and speakers and get a new couch but we're going to Ikea this coming Saturday. Julia is an excellent cook and we're enjoying dinner together.  So far our activities consist of lots of netflix and internet and reading together.  We don't know a lot of folks here, but we're slowly changing that.   We've been watching Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Being Human, Metropolis, and lots of Family Guy.

Julia during the day works on school and getting her Search Engine Optimization business started.  She's been listening to Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and helping me with Forever West.  Right now, I plan to submit it to Baen with her first corrections and hope for the best, and continue during the year making editing improvements to self publish it myself.  I've been working and writing and releasing a few stories at a time to Amazon.  I'll be making physical copies of the books as soon as I've finished reediting my first round of stories for an anthology.

Otherwise, life is good.  There is strong reason to believe I'll be going perm soon.  We're looking forward to visiting Atlanta this coming weekend, and then Julia's uncle in South Florida for her spring break.