5-17-10 Monday (Santa Sighting)

It’s Biltmore day!  First we need to rent an electric scooter for Jim’s Aunt Patty.  Aunt P has emphysema and we can’t have her getting all out of breath on us, can we?

Above: Jim rides the scooter to the van.

Above: Tonia’s dog, Trib on the way back from the scooter rental place.

  Above: On the side of the road.  I would never have thought to put fluid tanks on TOP of the RV.

Above: Load ‘em up!  Ann, Morgan and Jim.

   Above: “Short Coxe” (insert sophomoric snickering here)

Above: Santa awaits the bus to Biltmore (the reindeer are apparently vacationing separately).

Above: The scenery up the long driveway to Biltmore.

Above: The view from Biltmore to the front lawn.

 

Unfortunately, no photography was permitted inside the house.

  Above/below: View from a back balcony.

Above: Aunt P zooms by.

At this point in the pictures is where we’ve finished the Biltmore home tour.  The next group of photos was while still on Biltmore property.  We stopped for lunch.

We enjoyed the house tour.  No one in the group wanted to do the audio tour so we pretty much just wandered along with a brochure.  Jim and I like audio tours but decided we’ll do that with his grandmother when she comes for a visit.

Above: It’s a good think Aunt P doesn’t read the blog… she’d kill me.

Above: Tonia has dessert.

After lunch it was time to tour the gardens.  Breath taking.

Above: A view from the start of the gardens.

  Above: Ann & Jim.

Above: Me!

  Above/Below: Tonia.

Above: Ann & Morgan.

Below: Many photos.  You’ll have to survive without captions.

 

Above: The front of the house.

Above: Jim drives us back to the RV to freshen up for dinner.

We all met up with Lu & Steve for dinner.  Lu is Aunt P’s ex-sister-in-law.  We had a great time at Cheddar’s.

Above: Lu & Aunt P.

The other day I told you that we got the Biltmore tickets for $40 each instead of $60.  To upgrade to an annual pass is normally another $40 per ticket but with a special they were running, it was only another $25.  Jim and I upgraded.  It was worth it for us because we plan to return to Asheville a couple more time before the end of June and definitely in December to enjoy “Christmas at Biltmore”.

As passholders we’re entitled to a lot of perks.  Some of my favorites:

• Unlimited daytime visits for a year
• Discounts on tickets for friends and family
• Discounts on estate shopping and dining
• Unlimited access to the new Antler Hill Village and the privilege of bringing unticketed guests to the Village after 5:00 p.m.

We were also told (I don’t see it listed online) that we can bring a car load of people to see the gardens for free. 

I mentioned Jim’s grandmother coming for a visit.  We also have our friends Mike and Dave who have also expressed interest in visiting.  Jim and I are working on setting dates.

More news?  We’re leaving the RV in Asheville.  Since we’ll be back several times before our DC trip it just makes sense to pay $50 to store it there than pay for gas each time.

The A/C is working wonderfully.  I straighten out the misconceptions of the feared javelina around the area.  In the evening, we went ghost hunting.  Check it out here.

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