Scary Walls

Scary Walls were staring at us.

In person this guy looked like he followed you around the room 

Not so scary kitty and mouse

Upstairs scary wall.
Notice Mountain Mark hanging out with his buddies when
he wasn't protecting us in the chair.  

The house was really cute the way it was decorated but all of the faces on the walls was a bit scary.   I think the more we looked at them, the scarier they got.  We weren't sad to leave them behind when it was time to leave for home.  We were sad to leave all the fun we had and the time we got to spend together, sewing, cooking, laundry, cleaning, taking walks, feeding the kitties, and sharing our hearts with each other.  It was a wonderful trip to the mountains and we will have so many memories to talk about together.  Thank you Mountain Sister Melanie for inviting me to come along.  It was great meeting your cousins and staying in their home.

Mountain Mark

If you look really close, you can see two people in the upstairs
window.....Melanie and her Mountain husband, Mark.  

Meet Mountain Mark!

Since Melanie and I were staying in house where none of the windows had locks on them and you had to hammer the lock open and closed on the front door, Melanie decided we needed a man staying in the house to protect us.  Soooooo.....Mountain Mark, Melanie's husband was born.  He sat in the upstairs computer chair with the light on when it became dark.  I'm not sure if we really felt more secure with this so called man in the house but it did make us laugh.  I always laugh a lot when I'm with Melanie....my new " mountain sister".

Mountain Kitties

Max and Lucy

I was in Mountain Heaven with having these two kitties around me for two weeks.  It didn't take long for the two of them to warm up to me.  It was fun getting to know them.  Miss Lucy slept in Melanie's room and Max slept in an open drawer in the desk in the hallway.  I think they might have been afraid to sleep with me and you know who..." Ida".  I don't blame them.  Dottie and Gary have a second home in Tampa and the kitties travel back and forth to each home just fine.  It was a pleasure taking care of them while we were in the mountains.  It kinda warmed my heart calling Max in for dinner every night.  When I was five, I had a tabby kitty named Max.  We called him Maxie....so that is what I called this Max.

Home Away From Home

Living room

The fun kitchen

a pantry just like you see on Pinterest

Our little sewing area

Sun room 

Melanie's room 

Our home away from home for two weeks was just darling.  It was easy to just stay put on the mountain and only go off the mountain three times in two weeks.  We had brought plenty of projects to keep us busy and content.

Mountain Tea Parties

Surrounded with   huge hydrangeas and blue skies

Garage sale silver tea pot and Biltmore tea cups and spoons

Our copies of the Biltmore china...... tea cups

The Breakfast room tea for two

The whole two weeks Melanie and I were in the mountains, we had tea at 4:00 pm.  We sat in several different places to make it fun.  The first day we  sat in the side yard under the gazebo.  One day was the front porch.  On a rainy day we had tea in the sun room.  Other days we just sat in front of the TV with our sewing and the last day we had cleaned up the sewing area and had tea at the pretty breakfast room table.   Until we went to Asheville to the Biltmore House, we had used one of Dottie's tea pots and two blue cups and saucers.  While we were at the Biltmore House, we each bought a tea cup/saucer and demi spoon like the Vanderbilt's china as our souvenir from our trip.   The last Saturday we were there, Melanie says" do you want to go to town and see what is open?"  I was ready to go.  We came across a couple of garage sales and low and behold...I found a beautiful " Rogers" silver tea pot for the right price.  It was even polished!!!  So our last days in the mountains we had tea in style.  Pretty china tea cups and a silver tea pot!  Didn't we feel special!!!!

The Biltmore House

The Biltmore House

The Fantastic View of the Mountains

The Green House

and there were Stag Horns!

and orchids

beautiful orchids in every color

Looking out into the Rose Garden

Beautiful smelling roses.....

Hundreds and hundreds of roses!

Melanie and I decided since we were only 1 1/2 hours from Asheville, we should take a day and go see the Biltmore Estates.  When were we ever going to be that close again?  ....maybe never and neither one of us had ever been.  So, we set out early one morning and headed towards Ashevile.  It really wasn't a bad drive once we figured out where we were going.  The directions from the GPS took us right to the Biltmore Estates.  The first shock we had was the price of admission.  You would have thought we were at Disney World for the day.  It was $63 per person and another $10 for the audio tour thingy. ...which you needed if you wanted to know anything about the house.  That's right! $73 to walk around 50 of the 250 rooms. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the house.  You could buy post cards of some of the rooms.   You did get to walk around the gardens, green house, shop in a very small village and go to a wine tasting.  Still...$73??...seriously?   We weren't sorry we went though.  It was fun leaning about the house and the Vanderbilts.  It must have been really something to live in such a house of huge rooms, hunky furniture, silk and leather walls.  There was an indoor swimming pool, a two lane bowling alley and a gym.  I sure wish we could have seen the other 200 rooms.  My favorite room was the library.  It had over ten thousand books in it.  I know!  How could you ever read them all?   The Vanderbilts entertained a lot to get use out of such a big house seeings how there were only the three of them living there.  George Vanderbilt, his wife Edith and they had a daughter, Cornelia.   At the end of the day, we were really glad we took the time to go see it all and learn a part of history we other wise wouldn't have.

The " Bald"

The back of the house from the bald.  

Melanie enjoying the fantastic view
Notice the rows of Christmas trees in the distant.

The leaves were just beginning to change

The day we walked up the road to see the Christmas Tree farm, we also walked up to the top of the mountain...called " The Bald".  It's called that because there are no trees up there.  What a beautiful sight it was.  You could turn 360 degrees and see the high mountain ranges all around you.  I couldn't imagine having a house up there and having that view out of all your windows.  Having grown up in Florida, you can have your beaches and hot weather.  Give me the mountains any day!

The Land of Christmas Trees!

Pretty Fall Colors

Little under ground shed

Christmas trees all the way up the mountain

Beautiful Christmas Trees

I think 90% of all Christmas trees must come from North Caroline.  It seems like that any ways.  Tree farms are EVERY WHERE up there.  Fields and fields of them.  There was one right behind Misty Ridge where we were staying.  One of our days, Melanie and I walked up the road to check out the tree farm.  It made you want to cut one and take it home with you.  We noticed that some of the trees were tagged.  You know, with those little different colored plastic ribbons you see on the trees at the stores and lots. I never knew that the farms actually tag them before they are cut.  We ran into Frank, one of the care takers to the farm.  They were bush hogging between the rows of trees and weed eating around each tree.  They were getting ready to cut them and ship them off to the world.  What a nice walk we had that day, with the smell of Christmas trees all the way.

Ida the Ghost

The bedroom I stayed in with Ida

Melanie put flowers on Ida's grave. 

Cousin Dottie just happen to tell us the stories about Ida the ghost the night before they left for France.  I could have stayed in the house for  the two weeks without knowing....ha.  In the 1800's a family lived in the house who had two sons and a daughter. Ida was four years old.  The boys locked their sister in the " tatter house" in the middle of winter and she caught pneumonia and died.  She is buried across the street in a field all by herself.  Dottie said when they had the closing when buying the house that the owners had to reveal the fact that there was a ghost in it.  Really??  Well, the first night after buying the house Dottie was there alone.  Gary was down in their Florida house.  A few minutes after Dottie went to bed, she felt like someone sat down on the bed.  As she felt around there was no one there of course.   After a few minutes she felt the someone get up and then saw a light go up to the ceiling.  Guess who's bedroom this all happened in!  Yes, the one I was staying in.  I kept saying " I don't believe in ghosts....I don't believe in ghosts!"  Dottie went on to tell us how they had hung a big picture over the fire place and that night the picture had fallen off the wall and was all the way across the room against the stairs.  They hung another picture in the same place and it happened again.  When a picture falls off the wall, there is no way it would land across the room, that far.  I guess Ida didn't want the pictures over the fire place?  Well, all was well until the last few days we were staying there.  For almost two weeks, I had been sewing and knitting in a chair by the fire place.  I had kept my hook, scissors and a big blue plastic needle on the table next to the chair.....for days!  I went down one morning and my needle was gone.  I looked everywhere in the room for it.  The cats couldn't have taken it or the other things would have been knocked off the table too.  That afternoon, I went into the breakfast room around the corner to the living room and there was my blue plastic needle on the window sill on the other side of the table!  I don't believe in ghosts but I sure couldn't figure out how my needle got in the other room.  We also had a couple of the kitchen lights go on and off the whole time we were there.  Ida?   It did make our stay in the 1800's house interesting for sure!

Mountain School House

Little wooden school house

Notice the orb about the size Ida would be, next to Melanie. Will tell you what I'm talking about soon. 

Ring the bell, teacher!

Teacher, Miss Melanie

This teacher likes bells...ha

Desks for two

Wood burning stove

Three legged dog

Along with the other old buildings that were moved to the neighbor's land, one was a one room school house.  It was down the mountain a good bit but made for a great afternoon walk.  We ended up walking to it twice in the two weeks.  The first time, we had company.  A three legged dog and his friend, another dog.  We thought they belonged to the neighbors but found out differently.  They belonged to a man down the road and he just lets all his dogs run lose so they end up everywhere.  I have to give this dog credit.  He didn't even know he was missing a leg...ha.  He ran pretty darn good.  Of course he followed us back to the house and when he met up with one of the cats....guess who won!  The dog went running home with his tail between his leg.