It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (of Asheville, NC)

Originally published on 11/25/2018

As some of you old hats to my blog may remember, I began working for VIPKID back in April 2018. That didn't really pan out for me so I had to find something else. Back in August, I started looking for something in sales. I came across a post on ZipRecruiter about insurance sales and applied. Little did I know that first interview would begin a new journey for traveling! Larry and I were able to go to North Carolina earlier this month for a Leaders' Summit. I learned all sorts of good stuff about becoming a leader for my own team. I look forward to implementing that information very soon. We also decided that, since we were there, we would make the most of the trip... Boy, did we ever!

The first thing you should know is that we thought we could check into our motel any time of the day. We took a red eye flight from Salt Lake City, UT over to Charlotte, NC, had a rental car waiting for us, and drove two hours or so back to Asheville, NC. Unfortunately, we couldn't check into the motel until 3pm... it was only around 9am. UGH! So, we decided to check out the River Arts District. Let me just say "WOW!" We fell in love with one particular artist, Jonas Gerard. He has not one, but two studios! One of his assistants was adding some UV protectant on some canvases and told us that he went home one weekend and came back to work two days later to find Jonas had painted 42 new works of art! Whoa! Here is a sampling of the many wonderful works of art we saw.

When we'd had our fill of wandering through the different studios, it was time to find lunch... We decided to stay away from the chain food restaurants you can find almost anywhere. We wanted to try restaurants of the local area, so we settled this time on 12 Bones, a neat hole-in-the-wall place in the District. The walls were literally covered with people writing well-wishes, blog URLs, and notes of every kind! Across the street was a mural on the wall (very common for the area!) as well.

Since it was still too early to check into our motel, being only 12pm or so, we decided to check out the Biltmore Estate. Let me just preface this with the fact that we had no idea just how big this mansion really is! We got roped into watching a short film about the George Vanderbilt family, and determined that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity for us while we were there. WE purchased the tickets and headed up to the mansion. Vanderbilt even has a village out past the mansion with a winery and farms. Also, if you manage to go tour this beautiful mansion, beware that there are stairs everywhere you turn! We were really lucky because they had decorated the mansion for Christmas. They even took our picture! There are tunnels, hundreds of rooms, a two-lane bowling alley, a swimming pool indoors with small cabana-like rooms to change your clothes in, a library that would make Belle drool, and statues everywhere.

George Vanderbilt hired one man to oversee the gardens. There were loads of greenhouses with beautiful tropical plants hidden around every corner. I unfortunately must have touched a fern while we were wandering through one of the greenhouses because my hand was really itchy when we came out of there! There were still some roses hanging on to the last bit of the season, so I can only imagine seeing this during the late spring to early summer months when all the roses were in bloom! Larry loves roses and was in heaven with this garden!

One thing we learned in the museum, was that George Vanderbilt and his family had booked passage on the Titanic, but for no reason whatsoever, had changed three minds and sailed on the Olympic instead, just days before Titanic set sail. This likely saved his life!

After hours of walking around Asheville and the Biltmore, we were definitely ready to check into our motel, The Mountaineer Inn. It was a quaint little place. I met the owner, Chris, a 94 year old man who had owned several restaurants before the motel. He never allows locals to stay at the Mountaineer. He only wants out-of-towners. He also said that he would ship Idaho potatoes to use in his restaurants, feeling that they were the best tasting spuds available. I agree! The room was comfortable, having a TV in a nice entertainment center, a king-sized be, a small fridge and microwave, a dedicated closet, and the bathroom... Oh, the bathroom! I'm not sure the picture does it justice! The wall paint was lemon yellow, the tiles were a peach/coral color, the bathtub was one shade of blue, the toilet was another shade of blue with a white back and lid, the sink was very small, and the linoleum matched the tiles and tub!!

Stay tuned for more posts about this fantastic trip to North Carolina.