Here are all the pictures from our Asheville trip.
Elvis' living room. You can see a grand piano behind some custom-made stained glass.
We got up nice and early to prepare ourselves for the visit to Graceland. We arrived right before 9:00, and found a parking spot right up front (who else is crazy enough to see this place right when it opens???). There are 3 different ticket options, and we chose the middle one which allowed us to tour the house, the car museum, another museum that housed several rhinestone laden outfits, and Elvis’ plane. Just so you don’t consider us total whackos for visiting this place, we opted not to purchase the VIP tickets for $68 per person (we do have a little integrity).
The house itself was the most interesting, and slightly eerie if you ask me. Only the two lower floors are available to be toured, as the upstairs is off limits to tourists. If there is one word that comes to mind from our visit to the house, it would have to be mirrors.
Elvis' grave. He was originally buried in a cemetery, but moved to Graceland for security reasons.
There were mirrored walls, stairways, a fireplace, really mirrors were just everywhere. Not sure what exactly that was all about (other than sheer vanity), but it was slightly unnerving. Oh – and just so you know, there are 24 karat seat belt buckles on the plane.
So after getting our fill of Graceland, we headed off to make the 2 hour trip to Little Rock so that we could stop somewhere to watch the #1 Texas vs. #6 Oklahoma State game. We stopped at a pseudo sports bar once we arrived in Little Rock, and watched the game in its entirety. After catching our breath from a very close game (Texas pulled it out, of course), we drove further west to Texarkana where we planned to stay for the night. The next day was a relatively short 5 hour trip that would lead us right into our garage, and more importantly, home.
The sixth day of our trip was spent mostly in the car. We packed up some on Thursday evening, and then finished getting ALL of our stuff together on Friday morning. We took off from our Cabin at Willow Winds just shortly before the required check-out time, and headed west towards Memphis. Nicholas and I both dreaded making Eisley sit in the car seat for another long stint, but she was amazing and made the trip very smooth. We traveled for about 4 hours, and then stopped off in Monterey, Tennessee for lunch at The Cup and Saucer Diner. The food was mediocre, but it was food, and the people there were very hospitable. After lunch we made the last part of the drive to Memphis and found a hotel.
We unpacked the car yet again, and rested for just a bit before doing some research on our dinner options. We found Leonard’s Pit Barbecue, a local restaurant that has been around since the 20’s. The food was pretty good, and we got our fill of the whole Memphis barbecue scene. After dinner we went back to the hotel and settled in for the night, arming ourselves with a 6:00 am wake-up call in order to make it to Graceland by 9:00 the next morning.
Eisley got to face outward for the first time on our morning hike.
So day 5 of our Asheville adventure started out with another hike on the Mountains to Sea Trail. We hiked for a couple of hours, and this time Eisley faced outward in the carrier for awhile. It may not sound like too big of a deal, but it was to us because this meant that she had grown big enough (and stable enough) to support herself a little bit, and she was quite happy being able to have the same view as her parents. While on our hike we saw a rafter of wild turkeys (that’s a group in case you are curious – I googled) which was pretty exciting, and took a few more pictures.
After hiking, we got ready and made it down to the Tupelo Honey Cafe for lunch. The food was great and lived up to the ratings we had seen online. We finished eating and wandered around the downtown area just a little bit more before heading back to the Biltmore property to check out the winery. We completed a short self-guided tour of the winery and did a tasting (but not before letting Eisley have her own bottle tasting). There was quite a selection of wines and some of them were pretty tasty.
We posed in front of some flower gardens outside of the Biltmore Winery.
Once we made some purchases at the winery, we loaded up again and headed off to dinner. We were able to go to the Native American restaurant that Nicholas had wanted to try for his birthday and we enjoyed a nice meal that completed a great day and our last night in Asheville.
Our plan for tomorrow is to head towards Memphis, spend the night, and make it to Graceland first thing Saturday morning. From there we are moving on to Little Rock to eat somewhere and watch some of the Texas game. It is certain that we will have lots to report after Saturday’s events. I mean come on, Graceland AND Little Rock??? Keep your eyes peeled…
We enjoyed the view outside the Biltmore House. Those are the Blue Ridge mountains in the background.
Asheville is famous for the Biltmore Estate, which contains the largest home in the world: a 175,000 square foot castle built by George Washington Vanderbilt in 1895. It’s now open to the public. We had bought our tickets the day before and arrived at the Biltmore around 11:00 am. We spent a few hours touring the house, which contains 4 floors that include a library, an indoor swimming pool, a bowling alley and a 4-story chandelier. It was all very state of the art for the 19th century.
After touring the house we had a cranky baby on our hands. We stopped at a bench to feed her, then went walking. We toured the gardens, which were just a short distance from the mansion. The flowers probably weren’t as pretty as the are in the spring, but they were still beautiful. There was so much more to see on the estate, but we were getting hungry. We decided to save the rest of it for another day and went to find some lunch.
Eisley enjoyed the hammock near the pond outside our cabin.
We made our way to Biltmore Villiage, an area of Asheville constructed for the workers who helped build Mr. Vanderbilt’s house. Now the area is full of chic retail establishments and restaurants. We found a place called La Paz that looked child-friendly. It was standard Mexican fare and was surprisingly good for being so far from the border. After our late lunch, we walked around the villiage, venturing into some of the stores. As the sun started to set, we headed back to our cabin.
Back at Willow Winds, we decided to walk down to the pond behind our cabin. We got a few good pictures of Eisley as the sun was going down. It was chilly though, so we didn’t stay out long. We spent the rest of the evening indoors.
