Liquid Sunshine

Today finds us in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina. The weather, unfortunately, is not as cooperative as it has been all trip long up to now.  But we are not complaining because Savannah, Georgia where we were two days ago is now under a tornado watch. We will gladly take a little bit of moisture over that.

We are visiting our friends Jackie and Glenn, whom we met on a cruise to the Mediterranean a year and a half ago.  Jackie and Cheryl keep discovering personal similarities and are convinced we must be twins at heart.  And check out this great breakfast spread Jackie created this morning (Not visible are the hash browns and the egg casserole, too! )

We then spent the drizzly morning visiting the Arts and Craft guild on the Blue Ridge Parkway and then made an impromptu visit to the Grove Park hotel where we had a personal tour of the historic hotel from the in-chimney elevator operator.  Yes, you read that correctly the elevator shaft is within the chimney.

Here is one of the fireplaces at the base of that chimney.  It is hard to get the proper scale without the right perspective, so let me note that the andirons on the side of the fire are each at least six feet tall, and a person can easily walk into the firebox if there was no fire there.

And a couple of exterior shots.  Reportedly, the builders went to Yellowstone National Park to study the best way to use the rock and keystones.  The rock is all from the local mountains, and the start to finish process took less than 12 months to build.

Shortly thereafter we bid adieu to Jackie and Glenn and moved the Beach House over to the RV park near the Biltmore Estate for our visit tomorrow.  Imagine our surprise to arrive and discover another Unity in the same paint scheme as ours.  We knocked on the door and met Roger and Suzanne, a lovely couple who are currently full-timing in their RV aiming to end up eventually in Fort Worth.  We compared experiences and agreed to join them for dinner tomorrow evening.