June 25th - 27th, Asheville NC

Tuesday- June 25 - Travel to Asheville North Carolina

With only a two-hour drive ahead of us today we had a leisurely morning, I cooked a big breakfast and we took our time leaving Pigeon Forge.  We are not sorry to leave here.  Though the Great Smokey Park was nice but there is soooooo much traffic in Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, and in the Park that we will be glad to be moving on down the road.  And as we moved on down the road heading east of the Smokey Mountains, which are a sub-range of the Appalachian Mountains and past the Cherokee National Forest we came around a corner out of a curve to see a building with a picture of a can of Bush's Beans on the building. 

Not one to pass up a novel experience, and  seeing they had a HUGE parking lot we figured it was worth a stop and this place probably had clean restrooms if nothing else.  Well it seems we had stumbled upon the Bush's Visitor Center in Chestnutville, Tennessee.  Not only is it on the original family owned property, the main processing plant is across the street.  We thoroughly enjoyed the 20 minute video telling the history of the family, the products originally produced and how they came to settle on beans as a niche market.  Being engineers Tony and I could relate to the automation, mechanization, instrumentation and specialization that we saw as they described the process of making and canning their beans.  Everything from purchasing the beans, mainly from Tennessee and Michigan, to the labeling (1200 cans a minute) was covered.  They even showed a cross section of a can lid sealed in place.  Well, I thought it was a well done video with a bit of humor and family history to boot, the dog Duke even got some film time.  We even found out how much Tony weighs in beans!!!!

The visitor center also has a gift shop, of course, and sells most of their varieties of beans.  There are even some that I have not seen or heard of as there are regional flavors not sold everywhere.  I bought one of each of the unknown flavors.  Bush's is also branching out into other bean products like crunchy, siracha chick peas, and black bean chips which will be in the local Tennessee Food Lion grocery stores soon as a test market.  There is a quaint little cafe on site and wonderful smells were wafting through the air.  Of course they could been from the processing plant nearby.  There are also all kinds of hands on displays for kids to look at, storyboards to read, with more family history & pictures hung throughout.  We even got to see the book that the "Secret Family Recipe" is stored in; protected with laser alarms.  Ha, Ha, Ha.  All in all, we managed to kill an hour at this unexpected find.  Oh yeah, I picked up some recipe cards, the most intriguing being the red velvet cupcakes with black beans and the pinto bean pie (picture looks like pecan pie)!  AND Tony was disappointed that there were no free samples.

At Mamma Gerties Hideaway, our campsite was on the second level of a hilly, treed older campground tucked away just outside of town. The view from the third level, out over the Pisguah National Forest, once we tackled the steep walk up was gorgeous.  That first night in Asheville we had company, Gordon and Sheryl from Alabama - more of our Alaska friends from last summer who happened to be camping three miles down the

road.  What fun to see them again, learn that Sheryl's ankle injury from fishing in Homer is healing well, and hear about their camping with grandson and great grandson.  We forgot to get a picture but the next day stopped by their rig at the Asheville KOA to document our meeting.  

Wednesday - June 26 - The Biltmore in Asheville NC

I have wanted to see the Biltmore for a few years so this year we scheduled a stop as we passed through.   Built in 1895 the 250-room mansion and gardens entertained us for the better part of a day.  We started outdoors since the weather was heating up fast and probably spent over 2 hours in the gardens; including the conservatory with the seasonal miniature trains running on the tracks.  Most impressive were the unique varieties of orchids and miniature buildings mimicking the buildings around the Biltmore properties crafted with many types of unique woods.  The grounds were designed by Frederick Olmstead who designed Central Park in Unique and other Vanderbilt grounds around the east coast. 

Of course it was extra for the audio tour of the house but it was worth it!  The detail, family stories and history of the artwork and usage of the various rooms really made the house come alive.  The artwork, collections of prints, and the electric lights and elevator, which were state of the art at the time, were great to see.  Yeah, those rich people spent a lot of money to show off, but in the end created museums to showcase and preserve the immense talents of artists around the world.  Originally opened to the public in the 1930's to help generate tourism for the area during the depression it also generated income for the estate.   It is that legacy that the Vanderbilt family, some of the

descendents still live on the 8,000+ acre estate with their families, is working to preserve yet today.   The Carriage House was one of my favorite repurposed buildings.  The Carriage room itself is now a gift shop, the blanket room a candy shop, and the horse stalls are outfitted with tables and benches amid the horse stalls.  We did a quick trip to the wine tasting building, since the wine tasting was free with our paid admission, but were not really impressed with the wines enough to shell out money.

Thursday- June 27 - Downtown Asheville's Urban Walking Trail and Architectural Trail

From the visitor center we picked up a pamphlet for the self-guided Urban Trail and Architectural Trail walking tours.  The Urban Trail sculptures and plaques take you through Asheville's historical development through the Gilded Age, Frontier Period, Thomas Wolfe times, Civic Pride Era and Age of Diversity.  Mixed in along the way are buildings that represent Art Nouveau, Beaux-Art and Art Deco architectural styles. In other words they are

unique and cool to look at.  Preserved initially because city wanted to pay off Depression Era debts by using the old buildings; they are now a great legacy to those innovative architects.  We also past the Basilica St Lawrence and stopped in for a few pictures even though mass was going on.  The on street parking was reasonable and not too crowded being a weekday.   If you want a great place to eat ask a local cop.  The paninis and homemade kettle chips for lunch at Gourmet Chip, was suggested by two of Asheville's finest.  The paninis were delicious but my buffalo chips with blue cheese were a little too hot for me.  On top of that our

afternoon parking was free! When we went back to add money to the meter it was covered with a tow away cap.  Some company was shooting a movie later in the afternoon and our meter got covered so no one else could park after we departed.  The local cops said that since the meter was covered we did not need to add more money.   Unfortunately we never did find out who was shooting what movie.