Vacation in NC

The week following Labor Day we headed to Asheville for our long awaited summer vacation. Inspired by my girls weekend earlier this year, we decided to splurge and stay at the Biltmore Inn. It was a wonderful week of hiking, biking, and even kayaking!

The day we arrived we had beautiful weather. The forecast said rain for most of our days there, so we decided to take full advantage and rented bikes right away for a ride up to the Estate along the river. It was beautiful and we had a nice ride after being cooped up in the car all morning.

We realized when we got home that these were some of the only pictures we took all weekend. I guess we were so busy doing all these activities, we forgot to get the camera out. While we were there we hiked, had a full tea one afternoon, toured the house, and took a 3 hour trip down the French Broad River through the estate.

I had envisioned this river float to be a nice relaxing event where we'd be able to read, dip our toes in the water, and take some pictures of the beautiful scenery. Not the case. Instead of a raft, they put us in an open tandem kayak. Kayaks sit much lower in the water than a raft, and we quickly found out that it's really hard to see rocks and trees until you're right on them. We got stuck several times. I found that if we were going to make it to our pick up point, we were going to have to keep our eye out for hazards and paddle vigorously to navigate the many obstacles that popped up throughout the ride. In the end, it was a lot more exercise than I had anticipated - but we made it. It ended up being one of the highlights of our trip. Here's a shot of the river as seen from the patio of the Biltmore house.

Just as we arrived back from our river "float" trip, the rain began. It rained all afternoon and we decided it was a good time to tour the house. We only took one picture, because right as we got to the entrance and I took the first shot - we realized that the camera batteries were low. Go figure. I guess you'll all just have to travel there to see it. We had a nice afternoon and recommend that you spring for the audio tour if you ever go.

We headed in to town to hang out our last evening there and enjoyed some great food at Salsa's. Our waiter gave us a great tip of where to go for an after dinner drink, a local pub called Jack o' the Wood. It was open mike night and we enjoyed a drink and an hour or so of some world class blue grass music. A perfect end to our perfect week!