A day at Biltmore

The alarm went off brutally early this morning. I didn't get to bed until 2:30am this morning. But duty called, so I went and made a huge cup of coffee, had cigarettes, and talked to Robert for a bit for dramatic renewal of purpose. After that I crawled through the shower and headed out.

The portrait from the first floor, since they just Don't Miss a Trick up there any more. From left to right: My Dad, My step-mom Eve (aka Mom), me in the back in the navy t, and in front of me Carl's daughter Reagan. Cole is beside her in the striped shirt, and Carl is behind him holding baby Ava in her Uncle Steve cha-cha coat. Lisa is on the far right, difinitively de-bunking her claim that she doesn't show up on film. That girl is harder to photograph than a wild Asian Tapir.

The front entrance. I didn't have anyone pose, though I should have. To the right of the lion, Lisa is holding Ava over her face. Cole is at the bottom of the steps.

We went inside and did the main floor, and kind of ran through one of the upper floors. We didn't get there until quarter after eleven, and had to fight the traffic to get in. That place is really busy this time of year. We had lunch reservations at 12:30 at the Grove Park Inn, and had to get back down to catch the shuttle over there at 12:15.

Lunch at the Grove Park Inn. I didn't take pictures of the family eating, but I did catch the guy at lower left shoveling it in!

Lunch was good. We took our time and enjoyed. Lisa and Dad fought over the check. Dad had intended lunch to be part of the Christmas present. This trip was a gift from him to us, and a chance to spend some time together.

We got back to the house and did some more of the upper floors, but we had to move through them fairly quickly. I was fascinated by the fabric and wallpaper restorations they have done - they literally took scraps of original fabrics and had them re-woven, and took scraps of wallpaper from under the edges of windows and under outlet covers to have the wallpaper re-printed by a custom block printing process in France, just as the original paper was made. I could have spent a long time just looking at that stuff, be we had to get back downstairs. We had a below-stairs tour at 3pm.

The woman who did the below-stairs tour was super nice, and very knowledgeable. Also, we were the only people for that tour today, so it was like we had our own personal tour guide. She took us through the servants' access and stairways behind the scenes, though the bachelors quarters, and discussed the color coding of the servants areas. We also went into the basement, where she talked about how the mansion was powered and heated. In it's day, the Biltmore was a real cutting-edge Bill Gates type of place. It was fascinating.

By this point, though, Dad was flagging. All the walking, the heavy meal, and him carrying Ava around were taking their toll on him. He skipped the below-stairs tour, and by the time we got back from that he was ready to go. We ran through the gift shop, where Lisa sneakily paid for my wine. I wanted some of the white cabernet they make, but there was none on offer. When we got done there, we caught the shuttle back to the car. We ended up doing gifts in the parking lot, but it was fine.

I have a strict rule that I buy people things they want, not things that I want, or want them to have. But I broke that rule this year. When I was little, I had a stuffed zebra that went everywhere with me named Zeebee. I still have Zeebee. I saw a stuffed zebra this year, and just couldn't resist getting it for Ava. They are trying to wean her off a cheap little stuffed dog that Cole won at a fair that is falling apart. She was holding the zebra and hugging it when she got it (butt up to her face - no comment), but the true test will be when they get it home and it goes up against the real sleep puppy, or her new penguin that she likes. But she has her own Zeebee now, for what its worth.

Ava with her little stuffed zebra I got her for Christmas. She was actually much more interested in blowing the horn and driving Dad's car at that point.

Lisa got me a new David Attenborough DVD - Yay! I could really use it the way I have been not sleeping lately.

The view of the house from the end of the lawn as we left.

On the way out, Mom and Dad stopped, as did Lisa and Carl, to upgrade their tickets to season passes. Dad was hinting around that I should too, but since I haven't been to Asheville since Michael and I were dating, I didn't really think I needed to do that.

By this point, frankly, I was Uncled and Son'd out for the day. We ran through McDonald's for dinner and headed home, finally. I was really worn out.

I had conducted a poll during the day with various people about whether or not I should tell Donnie about the shennanigans at the Dirty Santa thing last night, and consensus seemed to be that I should tell him. I figured someone else would have spilled the beans by now, but when I texted him, he said he didn't know anything about it. So I called him and we talked for a bit. Apparetly we will just have to go over the rules for the end of the game also next year. He already has to be very specific about going through the number of steals.

I texted back and forth with Brad a bit on the way home. Things have been so nuts lately that I haven't talked to him much. But there is just only so much to go around. This was the busiest weekend though. I have Sundays off for the rest of December, which will be nice. I'm tired.