Asheville, North Carolina

Just figured out the photo sizing - duh! Now I just need to figure out how to wrap text around my photos... Oh well, sort of short of time to do this right now so you'll have to be patient with my learning curve.

We spent 3 days camping outside Asheville at the campsite in the photo above. It was perfect weather, there were hot showers and no bugs. My kind of place. This is the new car, which is working out just fine. It's completely crammed full of stuff when all packed. No room for Jim to pick up souvenirs of the trip all along the way :-)

We spent a day roaming around on a hop on, hop off trolley, which allowed us to see a lots of things we'd have otherwise missed. And we got to hear lots of stories about the history of Asheville and its quirky inhabitants. We saw several gorgeous residential areas and several interesting parts of town, like the newish River Arts neighborhood. The next day we spent almost all our time at the Biltmore Estate. It's a huge property with extensive gardens near the mansion. The mansion was fashioned after one of the French chateaus on the Loire. Orchids like those above above were in one section of an immense greenhouse, pictured below.

Here is the greenhouse behind one area of the formal gardens. To the left is a long descending shaded walkway covered with grape arbor.

There are many different gardens on the estate - azalea, spring, shrub, rose, etc. This is part of the Italian garden, a welcome respite from the hot sun.

This is the view of one side of the chateau from the Italian garden. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos indoors. A real shame because it is spectacular!

There are 3 ponds outside the chateau, each full of exotic waterlilies and other flowering plants like lotus, papyrus and other types of lilies. 

The ponds are the home of lots of koi. They followed people walking around the edges of the pond, begging for food...

Near the chateau entrance were many potted arrangements like these. I liked the shadows caste by the eucalyptus on the pillars behind.

Got to get the day going now - more to come on Asheville, the Great Smokies and Nashville later. Gotta catch up before we're in yet another state...