Visiting Asheville, NC and the Biltmore Estate

Friday, April 17 - Asheville, NC

We arrived here in Asheville, NC, after a short (2-1/2 hour) drive from Columbia, SC, at noon. We are staying at a local campground, which is located about 2-1/2 miles from the Biltmore Estate.

I have to say, right now, that this was one of the best attractions we have visited, other than the National Parks last fall. The Biltmore house and grounds are magnificent! The only regrettable thing about our visit was that we were not able to take any photos inside the house, and that is a crying shame! This house contains 255 rooms, including 43 bathroom, and is 7 stories tall, from basement (finished) to attic (not finished). The basement contains a very large indoor swimming pool with an adjoining weight room/shower room. Also found in the basement were several different food pantries, kitchens, and servant's quarters (there were also servant's quarters up on the fourth floor). Every room we saw was meticulously restored, with period wall coverings, draperies, furniture, etc.

The house construction began in 1889 and was completed in time for Christmas, 1895. George Vanderbilt, the original owner of the house, brought his new bride, Edith, to live at Biltmore in 1898. Their only child, a daughter, Cornelia, was born there a couple of years later. After George died, Edith and Cornelia lived there, alone, until Cornelia was married, in 1924, to a Mr. Cecil (I forgot his name). Cornelia Vanderbilt Cecil gave birth to two sons at Biltmore, one of which, William A. V. Cecil, is the current owner, and the person responsible for much of the restoration.

For additional information on Biltmore and, possibly, pictures of the interior, go to www.biltmore.com.

Tomorrow morning we will head out for Tennessee. We will be staying at an RV Resort in Sevierville, TN, which is a little southeast of Knoxville. Stay tuned for pictures and a blog entry on that adventure.

Here's the link to today's web album. Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AshevilleNC?feat=directlink

On the Road Again - GA

Thursday, April 16 - on the road in Georgia

We departed the resort in St. Lucie West yesterday noon and drove up to St. Augustine, where we spent the night. We parked at a Camping World store parking lot, which is located in the immediate vicinity of two Outlet Malls, so the girls had some time for shopping, while the boys napped.

After breakfast, we left St. Augustine and headed north on I-95 into Georgia. Although we had not planned to, we decided to stop in Pooler, GA, which is a suburb of Savannah, where we visited the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum, just off of the highway. We spent a couple of hours touring the museum and grounds before we headed out again. This is a museum which both Charlie and I had always wanted to see, since we pass it every time we come to Florida, or head home from Florida. Charlie, especially, is an "airplane museum" afficionado, and so he visits every aircraft museum he has an opportunity to visit. His knowledge of aircraft is phenominal, and I always learn so much from him on these visits. Be sure to check out the web album for all the photographs we took here. Lest I forget, both Kathys enjoyed the museum, as well.

Tomorrow morning we will again take to the road, destination Asheville, NC, where Kathy and I will visit the Biltmore Estate, since we have never been there before, and it is a "must see", so we have been told. Be sure to check the blog soon for photos of the "Biltmore".

It's late, and we have an early start tomorrow, so I'll sign off for today. Thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think of our travels as you follow along in the blog.


Here's the link to today's web album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/OnTheRoadAgainGA?feat=directlink

Enjoy!

Happy Easter!

Sunday, April 12 - Easter Sunday!

Happy Easter to all from sunny, hot and humid Florida's Treasure Coast. Our Easter began with a Sunrise Service at 6AM at Tradition Field. Because of the fact that our local parish is in the process of building a new church next to the current church, there is no room on the property to hold the service outside there. The manager of operations at Tradition Field offered to let the church use the field for the Sunrise Service, and, on top of that, they even provided breakfast and FREE tickets to the St. Lucie Mets game today at noon. Pretty good of them to do that.

The service was very well done, and there were over 300 people in attendance. K and I went with Charlie and Kathy Burch, then, since there were so many people lined up for the free breakfast, we headed off for breakfast elsewhere (not FREE, of course). At about 12:45, we headed over to the Burch's coach for Easter dinner. We enjoyed a delicious, spiral-sliced ham, Charlie's "party potatoes", corn, carrots and a salad. For dessert, K brought strawberry shortcake, featuring biscuits made from scratch - everything was delicious!!

After dinner, we sat around for a while chatting and watching the Masters Tournament on TV. We (K, me and Charlie) finished the day at the pool, relaxing in the warm sunshine and cool afternoon breezes.

Hope you all enjoyed your Easter Sunday as well as we did!

The End is Near!!!

Thursday, April 9 - St. Lucie West, Florida

The "end" is, indeed, near. We have less than one week left here in Florida. Hard to believe that the "snowbird" season is over! Most of the people have already left the resort. As of April 1, there have been an average of about 4 coaches per day leaving.

On a happier note, I started playing golf last week, as the "golf group" is losing members rapidly. I was asked to join the group last week, and have been playing ever since. My golf scores have improved steadily over the past week, until today, that is! I don't know why, but I completely "lost it" today, finishing with a dismal 44 for nine holes (par is 27). My best game came yesterday, when I shot a 36!

At this point, I have to pass along a funny story, which took place today, during our round of golf. One of our group, Gary, was attempting a putt on the 5th hole, when his putter suddenly, and inexplicably, broke. As he stroked the ball, the head of the putter broke away from the shaft as soon as he hit the ball. "What the f...?", he exclaimed, as he looked, incredulously, at his club. Needless to say, we didn't count that stroke, and he was able to salvage a "par 3" on the hole with a borrowed putter. I should also mention that, as the season is drawing closer to the end, the golf rules get laxer and laxer (is that a word?)! For example, if a player hits his ball into the water hazard, and any part of the ball remains "above water", he gets a "free lift"! I have seen a lot of strange things out there on the course over the past week - balls skipping over water hazards, balls hitting palm trees and bouncing out onto the fairway (or onto the green!), balls staying up in the palm trees, and other phenomena! However, I guess the strangest thing out on the golf course lately, has been MY PUTTER! I picked it up at a flea market for $2! My golf buddies keep referring to it as a "miniature golf" club, because it looks like it came from a miniature golf course! Strange thing is, it works!!

OK! Enough about golf. Good news! The Sox won their home opener on Tuesday, 5 - 3, against Tampa Bay. Beckett had 10 Ks over seven innings! I am going to see the Sox - Yankees on June 11th, compliments of Enzymatics! The tickets were donated to the Waldorf School auction, and Enzymatics bought them! Doesn't get much better than that!

Have to sign off for now! We are going to the Easter Vigil service at 8PM. Sorry that I have no pictures to post tonight. Keep checking back.

With Aaron and Chris in Orlando

Tuesday, March 31 - back at Port St. Lucie



Chris and Aaron arrived at Orlando International Saturday night at about 9:15PM. By the time we picked them up and got back to the coach, it was after 10PM, so we got settled and went to bed for the night.

On Sunday morning, we awoke to a tropical rain storm. During the night, we had a wild thunderstorm, but Aaron managed to sleep through it. Can't say the same for Beasley, though. He absolutely abhors thunderstorms! He actually trembles when it thunders. Poor guy! Fortunately, the storm only lasted about 15 - 20 minutes, then it just rained for the rest of the night. At about 10, we headed off to Sea World to spend the day. Just as we arrived at the parking lot, the sky opened up again, so we decided to wait in the car until it passed. Finally, we headed into the park as the rain subsided about 10 minutes after it started. If you have not been to Sea World recently, or ever, this park is a MUST! We attended several shows, saw lots of sea creatures, and generally had a blast! We also took lots of pictures here, so check out the web albums after you read the blog.



After Sea World, we spent some time at the pool, back at the resort. Aaron loves the pool! He is like a fish in the water.



On Monday, we awoke to a beautiful day, so we headed off to Disney's Animal Kingdom to spend another exciting day exploring the wonders of wild animals. As luck would have it, so did about 100,000 other people. It was very crowded at Animal Kingdom on Monday. It took us 1 hour and twenty minutes to get onto the African Safari ride, which turned out to be a "bust", since we didn't see very many animals, since they were spending the day "in their caves/lairs/habitats/dens, due to the heat. This was not a very good "take", according to Aaron. He thought he would be able to get close enough to the animals to "pet" them, so he was disappointed when we couldn't.

For the weekend, here's Aaron's grades for the parks: Sea World - two thumbs up!
Animal Kingdom - so so!

Here are the links to the photo albums from the weekend:

http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/SeaWorld?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AtThePool?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AnimalKingdom?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/MeanwhileBackAtTheRV?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/TimeToGoHome?feat=directlink

Anticipation!

Friday, March 27 - Tropical Palms RV Resort, Kissimmee, Florida

We arrived here at Tropical Palms RV Resort this afternoon and are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Chris and Aaron in Orlando tomorrow night. After arriving and getting the coach set up, we went out to do some scouting around. We went to Sea World and Animal Kingdom, just to familiarize ourselves with the route, since we will probably be visiting these venues on Sunday and Monday with Chris and Aaron.

It's understatement to say that we are excited about seeing Chris and Aaron. We have been looking forward to this visit ever since Chris announced that he and Aaron would be coming to Orlando. We almost can't believe that the day is almost here.

Tomorrow we will drive out to the airport, just to get familiar with that route, since we will be taking it after dark tomorrow night. We will also make a trip to the local Whole Foods Market to do some grocery shopping for Chris and Aaron.

Please be sure to check back either Monday or Tuesday night for a report on our visit with Chris and Aaron. I will be too busy to post until then. Their flight leaves Orlando on Tuesday morning, so I may be able to post Monday night. If not, then I will definitely post on Tuesday night, after we return to Port St. Lucie. Oh, yeah, I will have pictures! Until then, be safe!

The FMCA Rally at Perry, GA

Sunday, March 22 - back from the Rally in Perry, GA

I know that it has been some time since my last post. I apologize for that. Over the past week or so, we traveled up to Perry, Georgia for the FMCA biennial rally. Our trip began on Wednesday, March 11, as we traveled up to Titusville, FL to get a closer view of the shuttle launch which was to have taken place that evening. However, as the countdown was in progress, a leak forced cancellation until at least Sunday. As a result, there will be no pictures of the launch, since we had to leave for Georgia on Friday morning. We spent Friday night in Tifton, GA, at a place called AGRIRAMA, which is Georgia's historic farming museum. We could not check into the rally field until Saturday, so we spent the night in Tifton, which was quite a bustling community. On Saturday morning we headed off to Perry, and the rally field, where we would spend the next week dry-camping. The rally itself did not officially open until 1:00PM on Monday, so we had 2 days to spend scouting out the area. The photo, above, shows the Perry Hotel, in downtown Perry, where we found a flea market in progress along Main Street.

As luck would have it, it began to rain on Saturday, and it continued to pour right through the weekend, finally giving way to clearing skies on Monday afternoon. There is nothing like dry-camping in a field when it's pouring outside, and all you can think of is "will my coach start to sink into the mud?" I don't know if you've ever seen Georgia's "red clay", but when it gets wet it is like grease. If you get stuck in it, you will need a tow truck to get you out. Fortunately, none of us got stuck in it, and the sun came out on Tuesday morning and stayed out for the remainder of our stay.

What, exactly, is the FMCA rally? It's a lot like a convention, only the attendees are all in motor homes, campers or trailers, instead of hotels. There are seminars on various topics geared to motor homers, and vendor display areas where one can buy almost anything from food to RV/camping supplies. There are also NEW coaches on display, and some really good deals to be had on new coaches. Presumably because the dealers would much rather sell the coaches at the show rather than drive them back to the dealership. There were more than a few new coaches sold at this particular rally. When folks are not attending seminars, or cruising the vendor booths, or visiting the new coaches, they are probably back at their coaches, sitting out in the sunshine visiting with friends (we did a lot of that). All-in-all, we had a very enjoyable time, made a few purchases, got some things on our coaches serviced (free, of course), and ate lots of GOOD FOOD!

But, alas, all good things must end, so, on Friday morning John and Nancy left for Titusville, while K, Kathy B. and Gailsey made one final trip to Tuesday Morning, and the boys, me, Charlie and George, traveled up to Warner-Robins, GA to the Robins AFB Air Museum. This was an excellent trip, and Charlie was most informative when it came to pointing out the various aircraft on display. His knowledge of things aeronautical is phenomenal.

Upon returning to the rally field, we met with the girls, hitched up the cars and got underway. Our first stop was back to the AGRIRAMA, where we spent Friday night. On Saturday, we departed Tifton heading for St. Augustine, FL, where we spent the night in the Camping World parking lot. We made this stop so that the girls could do some more shopping at the Outlet Malls in St. Augustine, while Charlie and I had repairs to attend to on our coaches. I had to repair the water pump on my coach, as it blew a fitting Saturday morning before we left AGRIRAMA. Fotunately, Camping World had the part(s) I needed, so the repair was simple, and only took about 20 minutes to complete.

Finally, on Sunday morning (today), we headed out and began the final leg of our journey to Port St. Lucie. We arrived here at about 1:15PM and promptly got out our recliners and "vegged out" for the afternoon.

Be sure to check out the web albums (yes, I said "albums"). I have two albums for you today. One is from the rally at Perry, while the other is from our side-trip up to the Robins AFB Air Museum. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

http://picasaweb.google.com/chuckb42/FMCARallyAtPerryGAMarch2009?feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/chuckb42/PhotosFromTheRobinsAFBAirMuseum?feat=directlink