Our Welcome to North Carolina was a major traffic jam through the mountains….We had an hour delay and couldn’t detour on those tiny mountain roads with this big RV! For our entire week here, you just KNOW how thankful Bob was for all the great, real-time, mountain-driving tips I was giving him. NOT!

Smokey Mountain National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway - just beautiful.

Asheville

“We” (aka Richele) didn’t plan enough time here so we took a trolley tour. It was a nice way to get an overview of Asheville but we really wanted to spend more time here. We loved the historic Monteford neighborhood and homes, the historic (now Omni) Grove Park Inn, the many art deco buildings downtown, and the fun shopping areas (including a famous bookstore/champagne bar).

The Biltmore Estate

We can’t quite imagine what it would have been like to hang out with the Vanderbilts at their summer estate. The house was finished in 1895. It is 175,000 Sq. Ft and has 250 rooms, 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces…..and there is a bowling alley and swimming pool in the basement. I loved that they had a room full of vases for making all the fresh flower arrangements!

The Biltmore conservatory and greenhouse gardens were my favorite! There is currently a model train display with replicas of the Biltmore estate structures (all made out of bark, leaves, twigs and seeds.) The cactus greenhouse made us feel right at home.

Our Digs

Two great RV Parks…..We stayed at Creekwood Farms RV Park near the Smokey Mountain National Park - the barn and silo were a great backdrop in the center of the park- very cute.
That was great, BUT for those of you Beverly Hillbillies fans….. “ then we loaded up the truck and moved to Beverlyyyyyy - Hills that is!” The Mountain Falls Motorcoach Resort was pretty sweet. I always try and find a few places where we can splurge on high-end RV parks. This one was over the top: It’s own waterfall, pools, tennis courts, a nine hole golf course, and beautiful views from every RV site. There were multi -million RVs and some of the lots had beautiful “cabins”!

The Mountain Towns

There are so many great mountain towns to visit, we loved Waynesville (the Gateway to the Smokies and the town where we found a great drop-in tennis group), Brevard (the home of the unique White Squirrel), Cashiers and Hendersonville (with it’s fun Main Street).

Chimney Rock State Park

It was a bit foggy and cloudy on the day we visited the park, but that made it cooler to climb the 500 stairs to the top. Bob and Sam drove into town to visit the Lake Lure and then came back to pick me up after the big climb.