Asheville Trip

This weekend we took a trip to Asheville with Lee's friend Brandon and his girlfriend Caitie to see the Biltmore. I had never been to the Biltmore before (Lee either), or Asheville for that matter, so I was super excited.

Lee and I both got sick last week, so we were a little worried about how the trip would go but we took lots of Kleenex and managed okay.

We left Saturday afternoon and checked into our hotel around 7:00. We headed downtown and had dinner at a little place called Mayfel's. Then we went to The Chocolate Lounge for dessert. Mmmm.

We had some time to kill on Sunday morning before our Biltmore trip, so we went for a drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Even though most of the leaves have fallen off, it was still so beautiful and the weather couldn't have been better. Here are some pics taken along the Parkway:






Finally it was time to head to the Biltmore. We decided to do the Candlelight Christmas Evenings tour so we could see the house all lit up for Christmas. Our tour of the house was at 6:15 so we got there around 2:00 to see the rest of the grounds.

The first stop was the winery.

After a lengthy tasting, we walked away with a LOT of wine:

Next we visited the farm, where we had the best. milkshakes. ever. from The Creamery and Lee and Brandon played dress up:

Of course the best part of the farm was the animals. I could have spent the whole day petting this horse:

And Lee was in love with this fat little goat:

Finally it was time to head to the house. We stopped to snap some pics before touring the gardens.

The conservatory:

We walked a long way to the bass pond so we could see the Boat House. It turned out to be this gazebo. FAIL.

Lee and Brandon had a romantic moment on a bench though:

I didn't get any non-blurry pics of the house after dark, so you'll have to settle for this sunset picture.

You can't take pictures inside the house, which was actually a relief because there's already too much to take in without the stress of trying to capture everything on camera.

If you haven't been there before, you'll have to take my word on it that it's amazing. And if you haven't done the candlelight Christmas tour, I highly recommend it. There was something magical about the fireplaces, trees and candles being lit, and there were carolers and other performers throughout the house. It definitely put me in the Christmas spirit.

There were three things that struck me about our trip to Biltmore:

1. It's mind boggling to think about a house of that size being built so long ago, in such a remote location, with such cutting-edge technology for the time. It would be a huge feat for today, much less 100 years ago.

2. The house is amazing, breathtaking, awe-inspiring and a million other adjectives. But I couldn't help but think "what a waste of money." Not the cost of admission -- the house is a one-of-a-kind experience that I definitely think is worth the money (or at least worth the discounted tickets we were able to score). But the actual house and grounds itself is so flamboyant. It would be impossible to justify a house like that today, even if you had all the money in the world. There are so many better places that money could be spent.

3. We've gone on 3 awesome trips in the last month and seen some pretty amazing things, all without ever leaving the confines of North Carolina. (See trips one and two here and here.) We really do live in an awesome state.

That's it for our mini-trips for a while. What other NC destinations should be on our must-see list?

One More Thing

I forgot to mention the best thing about Wishpot...if you see something on someone's wish list that you want to buy or have already bought for them, you can "reserve" that item so they don't get duplicates.

You can also choose to hide the reservation from the wish list creator. So, everyone else will know that the item is already reserved, but the wish list creator won't know that someone is planning to get them that item.

Helps avoid the hassel of friends and family having to ask around to see who's buying what off of a traditional Christmas list.

It might seem greedy or presumptuous to create a list of things you want others to buy you, but I'm in the camp that it makes things SO much easier for the gift giver. They're able to quickly pick out a gift you'll love and you get exactly what you want. It's a win-win situation.

Making My List, Checking it Twice

I'd like to introduce you to a new site I found:

wishpot.com

Now, I'm not crazy about the name. If it's supposed to imply 'wish spot' then they should've just thrown in the extra 's' -- without it it feels like Wish Pot. Maybe it's supposed to be a pot for storing wishes? Instead it reminds me of wishing for pot. Anyway, I digress.

Wishpot is sort of like a shopping cart or wish list for the whole internet. See something you want, add it to one of your Wishpot lists via a super-convenient toolbar button. It stores the item, website, price and other important info.

You can create lists that are public (either viewable by everyone or only your Wishpot friends) or private. I've started a public wish list for myself, a private list of gift ideas for others and a private list of decor ideas for the house.

You can designate a priority for each item: thinking about it, wouldn't mind having it, want it, really really want it, and I neeeeed it!

I don't think this will replace my traditional Christmas list, but it's a nice way to gather those things online that make me think "ohhhh, I'd like to have that."

So check out wishpot, get your list going, and add me as a friend.

If not, you're getting fruitcake for Christmas.

Wordless Wednesday: Doc Holliday

Zombies, Lady Gaga, and Luigi

McKinney's in the Halloween spirit.

Today's Pub Thursday was complete with pumpkin carving contest, costume contest, and Halloween-themed snacks.

The studio got in the spirit and decorated their pods

Fish pumpkin complete with hook and worm

Blowfish pumpkin

The interactive producers' pumpkin: stemming from the constant request to "make it viral"

Spooky snacks

Lady Gaga and Boy George

The Mario Kart cast of characters

Barbie and Ken, complete with box

The Nationwide media team/pitcrew

H1N1 Virus

But nothing could compete with when the zombies and Michael arrived:

I heart my work.

A Whole Lotta Happy

The traditional first anniversary gift is paper, so my gift to Lee this year was tickets to see Jamey Johnson at the NC State Fair. Lee loves Jamey Johnson and the tickets were cheapola AND I was excited to have an excuse to go to the fair.

I’ll let the pictures do the talking:

No State Fair recap is complete without a list of the food eaten. We consumed:

- A footlong hotdog

- A bloomin’ onion

- A bag of cinnamon sugar mini-donuts

- Nachos

- A giant lemonade

- A slice of pizza

- A bag of Kettle Korn to go

I wanted to try the frozen cheesecake on a stick and the deep fried Oreos, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Our best purchase was definitely the mini-donuts. We were ECSTATIC to find them. They were JUST like the Doughnut Man, a la La Grange Christian Church Bible School. I wish I had another bag right now. It just might be worth the $5 admission fee to go back in, get some more donuts, and leave.

I'm not even kidding.

Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls

After our Outer Banks trip for our anniversary, we waited a whole 5 days before heading to the opposite end of the state last weekend for a camping trip. Literally, from one end of the state to the other in one week.

A while back, we planned said camping trip one drunken night with our dear friends Chrissy and Mike. I woke up the next morning and said, “we’re not really going camping are we? That was just drunk talk wasn’t it?” Nope. It wasn’t. They still wanted to go so we set the date.

Lee and I left bright and early Friday morning. The drive was beautiful, as the further west we got, the more colorful the leaves were. We even saw a baby bear cub galloping along the side of the highway. So cute! Especially from the safety of the truck. I was hopeful that this would be the only bear encounter of the trip.

We checked into Davidson River campground near Brevard/Asheville and set up camp. We took Sugar along with us and she was in hog dog heaven. She loved being outdoors and spending every waking (and sleeping) minute with us.

Friday afternoon was a quick hike and a trip to the visitors center to pick up some trail maps. Friday night was hotdogs on the campfire. Chrissy and Mike arrived late Friday night and after they set up their tent we called it a night to rest up for Saturday.

We knew it was going to be a COLD weekend, especially at night, but our sleeping strategy on Friday night was NOT a good one. I shivered almost the entire night. Sugar decided that she was going to sleep in between us on the air mattress. (This is a dog who sleeps outside and only comes in the house on occasion.) But the dog is like a FURNACE so I was thankful to snuggle up and use her as my own personal space heater.

We slept in on Saturday morning and Lee cooked bacon, eggs and biscuits for breakfast. We went for a long hike in the morning and then decided to go waterfall hunting in the afternoon.

Our first stop was Looking Glass Falls. It’s a beautiful waterfall, but you literally drive right up to it, so there were a million people there. Sugar was hyper-excited and we had a hard time keeping her from jumping on every person and dog in sight. We all agreed that we like waterfalls that require a little work to get to, so they’re a little more private.

That’s when we decided to go to Courthouse Falls.

You know how sometimes on trips you have experiences where you think “man this was a bad idea?” but it’s too late to change your mind and your husband is about to drive you off the side of the mountain and you keep thinking that you’re lost and somehow it’s always those experiences that make everyone crazy with laughter and it ends up being the best part of the trip and you know that’s the only part you’ll remember 10 years from now? Yeah, that was Courthouse Falls.

I had a brochure of waterfalls in the area. We were following the directions to Courthouse falls. The directions were really simple, like “turn left here and go 8 miles and turn right here and go 6 miles and then just after the creek crossing is the trailhead.” How hard could that be right? Well what the brochure neglected to mention was that 90% of the drive was a Forest Service road, which essentially means “a narrow one-lane gravel road up the side of a mountain.” So we’re lumbering along, up and up and up the mountain and Lee is going way too fast and I keep telling him to slow down, what if there’s a car coming! And we’re looking down the very steep side of a mountain, down to what is sure to be our death.

And we keep thinking we’re lost, like “this totally cannot be right” until magically the directions make sense every time we’re about to give up hope and just beyond a small concrete bridge there IS a gravel road on the left.

But we pass a Christmas tree farm nestled into the mountain and it’s so cute that Chrissy and I demand the truck be stopped so we can take pictures. And then it’s SNOWING. These big fat white flakes on the backdrop of fall leaves of every color. And everyone is smiling at the incredibleness of it all. And finally we get to the trailhead and pile out and Sugar doesn’t have to be on her leash because there’s not another soul in sight and she's LOVING IT.

And we hike the half mile to the waterfall and it’s BEAUTIFUL. It’s not even any more beautiful than Looking Glass, but it IS, because we worked hard to get there and it’s ALL OURS, nobody else’s. And the dog immediately jumps in the water (did I mention it was just snowing?) but she’s frolicking away like it’s 80 degrees outside instead of 35.

We got some priceless pictures. No random strangers in these shots like the ones at Looking Glass.

On the way home we cheated and went to Wal-Mart, where Lee bought a sleeping bag that actually has a working zipper. (Not that I can say much. My sleeping bag was the black one with neon splatters all over it and a hot pink liner a la 5th grade Miss Summer Sleepover. Oh you know the one.)

We cooked a delicious meal Saturday night - steaks, baked potatoes, pasta salad and of course s'mores for dessert. Wine + beer + whiskey + fellowship around the campfire = happy and sleepy campers.

Saturday night was about 10 degrees colder than Friday night, but we were better prepared (and wore more clothes) so things weren't nearly as shivery.

Sunday morning was another delicious breakfast of sausage and cinnamon rolls. Then we packed up camp and made our way home.

Sugar is just now getting over her depression of being back home. She was hoping we would live there forever. It was a fun trip, but that will not be happening any time soon.

Lee at Looking Glass Falls

Me at Looking Glass

Christmas Tree Farm

Mike in the river at Courthouse Falls

Sugar shaking off after her romp in the freezing water

Hello. My name is Sugar and I love camping.

Courthouse Falls