The boy and I took a lovely vacation to celebrate our first anniversary. We drove down to North Carolina to visit my brother for a couple of days. Then we drove to Asheville to check out the Biltmore Estate. The first day we were there it was rainy and overcast so we didn’t take any pictures outside of the estate. We did manage some pictures inside the greenhouse though. I highly recommend taking the audio tour, as there are so many rooms to see one could easily get overwhelmed without at least some guidance as to what is cool to check out in each room.

We had a great time hanging out at the winery in the village after touring the house. We toured the production area which was very interesting. Then we headed over to talk to the Smithy. On the way we may have taken a short detour to check out some of the mohair fleece they have for processing demonstrations. We spent a good while talking to the apprentice blacksmith who actually happened to be from Ohio. So many cool tools to check out that have barely changed since they were invented. You know what they say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

The next morning there was a break in the weather so we headed back to the Biltmore to get some pictures outside of the house and a few more in the gardens in the daylight.

I found several flowers that I would love to see if I can grow somewhere in my house or yard. I do however need to get some better gardening skills before I can invest in a ton of flowers. Heh.

After we left the Biltmore we drove over to Tennessee to take a drive on the infamous Tail of the Dragon. It’s an 11-mile stretch of highway with 318 curves in the road. It’s quite popular with the motorcycle crowd and the touring crowd. The locals aren’t always too thrilled to have to drive up and down the road though when they’re in a hurry.

We had a good time and did three passes before heading up to Maryville, where we stayed on a mountaintop. Driving up and down the mountain was an adventure in itself and the boy definitely got his fill of driving super windy roads. It was a bit nice to finally get onto straight roads when we drove back to Ohio the next day. This place is a new bed & breakfast and the owners are wonderful hosts. We had a great time relaxing up there and are hoping to get back again some time.

One of the best parts about finally getting home after a long and very rainy drive was a phone call telling us to go out and get the big stick off our shed. After some prompting the boy went to check it out and we found that his parents had left us a super comfortable swing for our lanai. (I had to wait until the next day to get pictures.)

All in all it was a great anniversary trip. I think we’ll try to do something each year for our anniversary from here on out.