More Vacation

More of our vacation... Hey at least you don’t have to look at slides, a few photos sure but no slides.
My Beloved loves history. Kitty Hawk was pretty good considering I don’t care much for flying. Nags Head beach was beautiful we watched the sunrise, ahh so special. Greensboro and the home of their first governor and a museum near it.
We drove up to Alexandria, Virginia and went to Mt. Vernon this is a must see for anyone near DC. We did the Jamestowne Settlement in Virginia- this was super cool too. Speaking of DC we enjoyed all the monuments even though my feet swelled, blending into my ankles that became as big as my calves. We got to tour the Capitol and almost got ran over by the big guy, I was not ready for that and missed the picture. And yes we had the sad pleasure of watching the changing of the guard at the Unknown Soldiers tomb, I cried-what a sap. Arlington was both beautiful and heartbreaking. We went to several of the Smithsonian’s and seen way more stuff then my mind can remember. Thank God for cameras and brochures.
We drove on Skyline Drive through most of the Shenandoah National Park, got to see a black bear run across the road in front of us. We don’t have bears in Texas anymore, well maybe down in Big Bend but not anywhere near us.

Ashville NC

I mentioned to y’all before that we took a vacation up to North Carolina and did the emerald mine thang, but I didn’t tell you about Ashville. First let me say how pleasant we found North Carolina to be. With awesome views and beautiful countryside from the outer banks at Nags Head and Kitty Hawk all the way over to Asheville and all points in between. I am still struck by the beauty and amount of various greens in that state. The cleanliness of all the areas we visited was very refreshing.
On to Asheville, the Inn on Biltmore Estate was our destination and it turned out to be very nice. Our room was lovely and very comfortable they came to turn down the bed and leave us chocolates and ice in the evening and left a newspaper on the door in the mornings. The staff was exceptional, called us by name, and we weren’t even wearing name tags.
When we asked for a sandwich not listed on the lobby bar menu they went out of their way and did it and charged us no more then they did for any other sandwich. All the food we ate during our stay on the estate was really very good.
The grounds were rolling green hills, with large forest, fields of corn and they have quite an impressive vineyard. I am not a wine drinker in fact I really don’t like it at all. But I did try what they gave us to taste on our tour of the winery. The winery used to be the dairy farm and it sustained the estate for a while during the depression. The family then sold it to Pet.
The gardens were delicious. Full of my favorite color, purple, which may have been Mrs. Vanderbilt’s as well from the way her bedroom looked at the Biltmore House. The house I cannot even imagine that I could give it justice in description other then to say at its time it was the most innovated it could have been. It had full bathrooms, underwater lights in the indoor pool, a built in rotisserie, built in refrigerators. And it was very well decorated and a bit opulent, still is. Of course no photos were allowed but you can see some of the interior on their website.
Yes everything there was on the higher then we are accustomed to side of the account book, but it was well worth it. When we start repeating the places we have vacationed at this will be on the list.
If you are near Ashville I recommend you plan on spending at least one full day touring the estate even if you aren’t able to stay at the Inn. There you can see the house, stables, gardens, winery and they have numerous tour packages land rover, canoeing, segway, bicycle walking, horseback, horse carriage and most likely others that I can’t think of. We had a great time, enjoyed ourselves and even rested.

Hiddenite NC

Guess who got to take a travelling vacation? You got it We Did. And we went mining. Mining for jewels. Our first time was on our honeymoon, we went to Murfreesboro Arkansas hunting diamonds, but alas we found none. This time however we were going for emeralds. Those can be found in North Carolina near a little caution light of a town named Hiddenite. What fun this was. Buckets of dirt are such fun for the inner child in me. We shoveled dirt and rocks into a screen and jiggled joggled the screen in the sluiceway at Emerald Hollow Mine. We found all kinds of rocks-pretty rocks, I mean gems. And yes I had great luck with finding emeralds, a whole hand full as a matter of fact. Maybe not cutting, polishing and setting type but by golly I found ‘em. My beloved found a hand full of garnets and some really large pieces of smokey quartz.
We found lots of different types of rocks and I can’t remember all them but here is a list of the ones I do remember

Emerald-one I left with the lapidary to cut
Garnet
Ruby
Sapphire-two I left with the lapidary to cut
Topaz-both silver and yellow
Amethyst
Citrine
Tourmaline
Aventurine
Quartz of many different colors
Tiger eye-one dime sized but a “nice specimen”
Moonstone
Jasper
Fluorite
Pyrite

Amazing that in this one place they had such a diverse array of rocks. I tell y’all if you are any where near Asheville you need to head on over to the mine. If you don’t have the time to work your bucket there you can get it to go. Really. They will sell you a bag full of dirt and rocks heck you can even get it sent to ya. This is fun for kids too as we miners get dirty and our hands get stained from the red-orange dirt/clay and it looks as if you have been working in a Cheeto factory. I hear there is an opal mine in Oregon. hummm