North Carolina

I have dreamed of living in North Carolina for the last nine years. It all started when my family took a trip back East. Maryland was the furthest South that we visited but I decided that I loved all of the green trees and wanted to live on the East Coast. I looked at a map and chose North Carolina as my dream location. Why North Carolina...I liked the name. So for the last nine years I have dreamed of living in in North Carolina. I have had North Carolina on my watch list for Travelocity and Southwest and have toyed with the thought of moving away from Utah several times. Well on July 30th all my dreams came true. After visiting the Smoky Mountains Seth and I drove down to Asheville. We arrived in the late afternoon so we took in a movie (Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio) and stopped at a pizza place for dinner.

On July 31st we visited the Biltmore Estate. The estate was built by George Vanderbilt and completed in 1895. It is the largest residence in the United States. We took an audio tour of the house and enjoyed the gardens. This place was amazing. I have been to Versaille in France and was much more impressed by the Biltmore. George Vanderbilt apparently spent half of his fortune to build the estate. It is truly remarkable. If you come to visit….I will probably take you there.

Here the happy couple is in front of the Biltmore Estate.
Seth volunteered to take a photo of me in front of the Biltmore.

He quickly discovered his new favorite game of "keep the camera away from Suzanne." I will spare you all the photos he took. I am quite positive that he will keep me laughing everyday.

He also volunteered to take a photo of me in front the Lion just outside the front doors. The night before we had looked through the pictures of our trip and he realized most of the pictures were of him.


These pictures are from the back porch. The views were spectacular. I'm not sure it looked quite this way when the Vanderbilt's lived in the home. They planted most of the trees on the Estate.



The picture below is outside the Grand staircase tower. There were doors on each level...I suppose to allow servants to keep the windows clean. I wish we could have taken pictures inside...but it was not allowed.

Inside of this room the Vanderbilt's only child Cornelia was born. She gave birth to her two sons in the same room.


The gardens were exquisite. If only Darcy would have hopped out of the pond.




At this point it started to rain. I thought it was romantic...at least until it started pouring.





We thought the trees below were quite interesting. They had shaped a pear and apple tree into this shape. Who knew you could do such a thing.


We arrived back at the car drenched.

Then we had a picnic in the car.

Smoky Mountains

Rebecca recommended that we stay in Townsend, Tennessee rather than the more touristy Gatlinburg. On our way to Townsend we stopped at a laundromat to do a much needed load. I have never actually used a laundromat if you can believe that. I found a way to avoid using the laundry room in the freshman doors in college too. So I took this picture to remind me of the moment. Seth was the laundromat expert. He used one almost every week on his mission. We started our load and then watched a movie on our laptop.

Townsend was beautiful. We had a porch on the back of our room that allowed us to look up at the Smoky Mountains. Believe it or not there is no entrance free for this National Park. We drove in that night and drove around Cades Cove. Cades Cove is a popular loop that becomes very popular at night when the wildlife is out.





We hiked up to a waterfall. The humidty nearly killed us. We decided that people in the South may be "larger" because even standing outside you sweat and feel like you have been working out. Warning: If I look bad in any pictures from this point forward...I get to blame it on the humidity.







We were two of the last people to hike in and were able to enjoy the waterfalls without any other tourists. It was breathtaking.




Once we got back on the road we found that Cades Cove had become a very popular spot. The traffic was literally bumper to bumper.


So we cut across the park and took a “side” road back to the hotel.






It felt like we were driving in circles on this dirt road. Seth took the picture below to show just how dark it was. It was the perfect set up for a scary movie. I was starting to think we would be stranded all night but we made it back safely.

The next morning we continued our journey in the park.

We spotted a bear in the woods. By the time we turned around and parked it was gone. I swear it was in this patch of trees.


We hiked up to Laurel Falls next. These Falls were much more populated. The trail was paved so there were lots of families out hiking. The picture below is of the upper falls.

This picture is of the lower falls which were less crowded.






We drove up to the summit and hiked up to Clingmans Dome. This trail was also paved. They had a trail that lead off to the Appalachian trail also. We saw several backpackers heading off in that direction. It may be something we consider in the future. The views from Clingmans Dome were beautiful. We got our first views of North Carolina.




We loved the Smoky Mountains!

Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Our next stop was Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Home of Rebecca one of my mom’s dearest friends. Rebecca was sweet enough to meet as at Panara Bread Company for lunch. She talked to us all about Tennessee and gave us some great recommendations for the remainder of the trip. We bumped into her again when we stopped at the Walmart for a few picnic supplies.