Road Trip - Day 8 (Biltmore)



After a late night driving, we all slept in this morning...except for Sam...that kid was probably up at 6.  Finally waking up and getting out of our hotel, we made it to Hardees while breakfast was still going.  This was a treat and I believe a first time experience for the kids.  Magan and I reliving tales of Hardees being the only restaurant in Good Hope.   And the kids were super excited about the new menu of options...and the current Blueberry biscuits.  Ruby sat up in the window claiming that as her seat. 

 

At the Biltmore, we found a giant mansion of a house that NO ONE thought to put air conditioning in during the late 1800s.  It was neat, lots of fans to keep cool, and if you see in the pictures the kids keeping a device to their ears, that was our audio guide.  And apparently this was a busy time, as in some areas you just waited in a large line to get from room to room.  Ugh.  But the house was pretty neat, and lots of technology of the times was built in.  They had a indoor swimming pool, with hot water pumped in from the boiler, a two lane bowling alley, clocks in the servant's quarters all wired to one central clock to ensure that they were never late, I think there were ONLY 15 bedrooms on the second floor. 

 

In front of the house before we left we climbed the stairs and walked the long uphill route to some gardens and a statue of the Goddess Diana.  You can tell from our expressions that we were a little beat by this time.  Back down to the car, we drove through the gardens, then around the property, and enjoyed some ice cream at the Antler Lodge and Winery.  Beautiful place!

 

Back home at the hotel Ruby and Mom went to sleep, while I took the others swimming.  It was fun because it was an indoor pool, but had a sliding roof that was open, and it came a large rainstorm while we were swimming.  I think we all enjoyed playing in the rain.  No one complained about the rain getting them too wet.  Almost ready to go back to the room, and Sam comes running up to me after climbing the ladder to get out.  He sliced his thumb pretty good and it was bleeding bad...so the others continued to play while we went to the restroom and found some tissue to stop the bleeding.  Healed up pretty fast, but still left another mark on injury prone Sam.