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!