Carolina's on My Mind

I'm going to be out of pocket today because last night I went to the James Taylor concert and spent the night with a friend so I didn't have to drive home so late. I'll blog later and let you know how it was, but I wanted to share with you my absolute favorite JT song accompanied by pictures of my home state, North Carolina.

North Carolina is a vacation paradise with beaches on the eastern end and mountains on the western end. It has skiing, whitewater rafting and some of the best golf in the world. The central, or Piedmont, section is home to the Research Park Triangle, the largest research park in the world (and Huntsville's research park is second). This is the section of the state where I grew up. When I was young, the Piedmont also had a thriving textile industry as well as a large furniture industry. The textiles are mostly gone, but there's still a fair amount of furniture made in NC.

The state is home to a number of top-notch universities and boasts any number of famous sons and daughters, including the late, great Dale Earnhardt.

North Carolina is filled with history from the Lost Colony to Old Salem, the first manned flight of Wilbur and Orville Wright and the Trail of Tears when the Cherokee were forced from their homeland.

Want a great place to visit on vacation? How about the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which has the most visitors of any national park in the US. Or you can drive the Blue Ridge Parkway for some of the most beautiful scenery you'll ever see. Visit Biltmore Estate and see how the Vanderbilts lived or climb Mt. Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi.

North Carolina is also home to Krispy Kreme doughnuts and Pepsi Cola.

The state bird is the beautiful cardinal, and the state flower is the dogwood.

The state motto is "Esse quam videri" -- "To be rather than to seem."

And we ARE the great Tarheel state!



Just in case you're interested, here's a list of the slides in the video:

North Carolina map
The Outer Banks
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse
The Wright Brothers Memorial
Concord (my hometown)
A cardinal, the state bird of NC
Dogwood blossoms, the state flower of NC
Fort Raleigh, site of Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony
USS North Carolina Battleship Memorial sign
USS North Carolina
Western Carolina University logo (my alma mater)
NC State Wolfpack logo (my sister's alma mater)
UNC Tarheels logo
Giant chair in Thomasville, which is representative of the state's furniture industry
Dale Earnhardt
Old Salem in Winston-Salem, NC, a Moravian settlement
The Smoky Mountains
Biltmore Estate
Maggie Valley skiing
Rafting on the Nantahala River
#2 son and me at Newfound Gap
Blue Ridge Parkway sign
Cherokee Indian Reservation sign
Carving of Sequoyah, native American who invented the Cherokee alphabet
Great Smoky Mountains National Park sign
Grandfather Mountain sign
Mile High Swinging Bridge atop Grandfather Mountain
Linn Cove viaduct, part of the Blue Ridge Parkway around Grandfather Mountain
Mt. Mitchell, highest peak east of the Mississippi River
James Taylor
North Carolina sign

Walkabout Wednesday: Great Smoky Mountains

Development of Great Smoky Mountains National Park began in 1926 when President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill providing for its establishment. The older parks in the system had been developed by taking sections of land already owned by the government. But the land that eventually became GSMNP was owned by hundreds of farmers and several timber and paper companies. And no one wanted to give up their homes or businesses.



The government is not allowed to buy land for national park use, so the states of Tennessee and North Carolina, which would share the park, appropriated state funds and additional monies were raised by private individuals and groups and even school children who gave their pennies to the cause. A large donation by the Laura Spellman Rockefeller Memorial Fund provided the remainder of the funding.

The first park Superintendant arrived in 1931. Between 1933 and 1942 the Civilian Conservation Corps worked to develop facilities and restore early settlers' buildings, and on September 2, 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the park "for the permanent enjoyment of the people."



While not the largest of the national parks, Great Smoky Mountains National Park has the distinction of being the most visited park with close to ten million visitors each year. The park contains 800 miles of hiking trails (including sections of the Appalachian Trail), 700 miles of fishable streams, camping areas, white water rafting and other family oriented activities. October brings a huge influx of visitors to the park for the fall leaf season.

The area is called Smoky Mountains because they always appear to have a blue haze hanging over them. This is a natural fog caused by warm, wet air from the Gulf of Mexico cooling quickly at high elevation and also by the respiration of he trees. The mist appears blue because evergreens emit natural hydrocarbons that appear blue in sunlight.



Last week the Playfriends visited Great Smoky Mountains National Park, specifically the areas of Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Both areas are filled with fun for everyone including Dollywood, a Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum, the Ripley's Aquarium, Ober Gatlinburg ski area, river rafting companies and plenty of shopping. Candy shops abound to showcase what has become a mountain tradition -- lots and lots of fudge. And the area also is home to the Rocky Top Wine Trail, which features three wineries within three miles of each other.

When our visit was over, we returned to Alabama with fudge, fabulous beef jerky (who knew they had a beef jerky outlet?), Christmas decorations, new clothing and accessories, jams and jellies (another mountain tradition) and wine. We did our part to stimulate the economy. :-)

Our week was cut short because of the snow storm moving in. While we'd have loved to be snowed into the mountains, we all had obligations at home requiring us to come on back. ::sigh:: We had a terrific time and the week was filled with lots of fun and laughter. We played board games, ate, shopped, ate, sampled wine, ate, plotted books in the hot tub every night, ate and laughed lots. It's safe to say a fun time was had by all.

Have you ever visited any areas of Great Smoky Mountains National Park? Every visited any of the United States National Parks? Tell me about your experiences. One lucky commenter today will receive a copy of Linda Winstead Jones's recent book LAST OF THE RAVENS, which is set in the Smoky Mountains.

The Launch of Walkabout Wednesday!

Welcome to the first installment of Walkabout Wednesday, my chance to share some of my travels with the Playground's visitors. Today's featured tourist spot, the Biltmore Estate, is located in my native state of North Carolina and is situated about fifty miles from where I attended college.

The lives of wealthy Victorian era Americans were filled with parties, travel and leisure. One notable name of this Gilded Era was Vanderbilt, a family that made its fortune in the railroad industry.

In 1888, George Washington Vanderbilt, grandson of railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, visited the mountains of western North Carolina with his mother and fell victim to the lure of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains.

Not yet married, George had a dream of building a vast country estate and he found the ideal location in Asheville, North Carolina. The area boasts breathtaking scenery and a climate that’s relatively mild for a mountainous area.

With a bankroll rivaling the gross national product of a small country, George purchased 125,000 acres of pristine wilderness area and set about to create a self-sustaining estate such as those he’d seen in his European travels.

He named his holdings Biltmore Estate from his ancestral Dutch town of Bildt and the English word Moor, which is an open, rolling landscape.

His next decisions were critical ones: who would design not only the house itself, but the gardens that would surround it?


Richard Morris Hunt, the first American to study at the prestigious Ecole Des Beaux-Arts in Paris and one of the founders of the American Institute of Architecture, was selected to design the house. Hunt is also know for his design of The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island, the pedestal base of the Statue of Liberty and the Tribune Building in New York City, one of the first buildings with an elevator. Together, Hunt and Vanderbilt decided on a French Renaissance chateau design with a limestone façade and a steeply pitched roof.

Vanderbilt and Hunt not only created an architectural wonder, but a technological one as well. Biltmore House had all of the latest technology of its time. Central heating, indoor plumbing for all thirty-four bedrooms, electricity, mechanical refrigeration and two elevators are but a few of the amenities afforded Biltmore’s residents and guests. Some of Thomas Edison’s first light bulbs illuminated Biltmore’s passageways and the house contained an electric calling system for servants in addition to a newfangled gadget called the telephone.

A two-lane bowling alley with equipment by Brunswick and an indoor swimming pool with underwater lights provided indoor recreation for the Vanderbilts and their guests.

Hundreds of local workers and skilled European artisans were hired. Tons of Indiana limestone was brought in as well as imported Italian marble. To facilitate the transportation of these raw materials, Vanderbilt had a private three-mile-long rail spur built from the estate to a neighboring village. A woodworking factory was built on the estate to produce the ornate trim seen throughout the house and a kiln was erected that would produce 32,000 bricks per day.


Construction of Biltmore Estate took six years and while still incomplete, the house was formally opened on Christmas Eve, 1895. The finished product is a mansion that contains 250 rooms encompassing 175,000 square feet. Biltmore’s size earned it the title of “America’s Castle” and to date it remains the United States’ largest privately owned home.

The design and construction of Biltmore’s gardens were entrusted to Frederick Law Olmstead, considered by many to be the father of American landscape architecture. He is credited with designing the U.S. Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C. and the campus at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. But his most notable design is New York City’s Central Park.

The various gardens cover sixty-five acres and include a shrub garden, walled garden, rose garden and conservatory and Italian garden. Each features various trees, shrubs and flowers, which provide an array of color and texture throughout the seasons.

When Biltmore Estate was completed in late December of 1895, George realized that he had a dream home, but no one to share it with. In 1898 he married Edith Stuyvesant Dresser and their only child Cornelia was born in 1900. Cornelia married the Honorable John Francis Amherst Cecil in 1924 and their children share ownership of the Biltmore properties today.

Not content to simply sit back and enjoy his home, George and Edith Vanderbilt dedicated their lives to helping others. They purchased a nearby town where most of the estate’s employees lived and renamed it Biltmore Village. The town, with buildings and a church designed by Richard Morris Hunt, grew and is today designated as a historic district.

The Vanderbilts also founded the Biltmore Forest School, the first school for scientific forestry in America as well as Biltmore Estate Industries, an apprenticeship program to teach traditional crafts like woodworking and weaving. Edith founded the School for Domestic Science where young women were trained in housekeeping skills, which would give them a distinct advantage in the job market.

Biltmore House is filled with priceless artwork and custom made furnishings and was the scene of many social galas. But despite its grandeur, George strove to make Biltmore a warm, inviting home for his family.

In March 1914, Vanderbilt was rushed to a hospital in Washington, D.C. with appendicitis. An emergency appendectomy was performed. The surgery, however, was not successful and George Washington Vanderbilt died on March 6. He was buried in the family mausoleum on Staten Island. His wife remained at Biltmore until 1925 when she remarried. She left the management of Biltmore Estate to her daughter and son-in-law.

Biltmore Estate operated its own dairy, which provided products for not only the estate, but eventually all of western North Carolina. In 1985 the dairy operation was sold and the dairy barn on the estate was remodeled and turned into a winery, which is the most visited winery in the United States with over a million visitors each year.

William Amherst Vanderbilt Cecil, grandson of George W. Vanderbilt, owns the estate today and accepts no government funding to maintain the house or grounds. Imbued with the same “can do” attitude of his grandfather, he defied those who told him that the estate could not be profitable. Cecil, who had a background in New York banking, returned to Asheville in the 1960s to find it in economic trouble. He rolled up his sleeves, wore many hats and began to market his childhood home. By the end of the decade, Biltmore was showing a profit, a trend that has continued to this day.

Biltmore Estate is open to the public every day except Thanksgiving and Christmas. During the Christmas season, the house is decorated in authentic Victorian tradition and special candlelight Christmas evening events are planned.

For more information, visit http://www.biltmore.com/ to discover the magic of Biltmore Estate.

Have you ever visited Biltmore? Another castle?

P.S. The Playfriends would like to extend birthday greetings to Barbara Vey, a very special friend of the Playground.

Proud-as-Punch Moments

I often joke about being the matriarch of the Playground group and rightfully so. I could have given birth to all the Playfriends, and I have a child older than the youngest Playfriend. But I like to think I'm young at heart because after all, age is just a number.

Last weekend I visited #2 son at Western Carolina University where he's enrolled in graduate school. It's my alma mater too. He ran track in high school and college, setting quite a few records along the way. Last Friday, though, I saw him in an entirely different light. He wasn't the kid who could run fast. He was Coach Puett. From the sidelines I watched as he instructed the runners about their pre-race warm up, directed a few helpers to set out cones to mark the course and greeted one of his students (he teaches health and physical education courses too) who'd come out to help and get extra credit.



The women's teams ran first and his team finished first. Then came the men's race, one like I've watched since he started running at age four. One of his runners went out strong and owned the race all the way to the finish line.

As I stood watching all the teams congratulating each other and engaging in the post-race dissection of their performances, one of the other parents came up to me and asked if I had a child on the team. I told her my son was one of the graduate assistant coaches, and when I told her his name, she just beamed. "My son is so excited to be working with Coach Puett. He's a phys ed major and told me he wants to be just like Coach after he graduates."

Talk about proud!

That made me doubly glad I didn't sell him to the gypsies when he misbehaved as a child. I don't know about the rest of you parents, but for me, parenthood was the most difficult job I've had. I had no training, save for a little babysitting. It was learn-as-you-go and the hospital didn't issue me an instructional manual or give me a card with a toll-free customer support line when they discharged us from the hospital. I really felt I was on a strict pass/fail system. Well, folks, I think I passed.

After he'd finished with his coaching duties, we had the weekend to ourselves. Since he is a real outdoorsman (must be a genetic fluke or something), I suggested we go to the Blue Ridge Parkway for an easy hike and a picnic. Here's proof I did actually hike.

And here we are at the top of the bald where we ate our lunch.

And if you look very closely, you can see a group of people on the next bald. That's our return route to the parking area.

The particular spot where we hiked is called Black Balsam Knob, named for the groves of balsam trees, which appear black from a distance. Sadly, these trees are being decimated by the balsam woolly adelgid, creating large areas of "ghost" forests. I was playing with my camera and only took a black-and-white version of this shot, but it shows a lone dead balsam tree.

Here's a grove of black balsams. You can see how they look black on the mountain in the distance.

And this is what it looks like when you hike into the grove. I felt like Gretl in the fairy tale and had this strange urge to leave a trail of bread crumbs.

At the end of the hike, we were rewarded with this -- blackberries. We also found wild blueberry bushes and picked those too but my picture was blurry. The berries were awesome, and as Bear Grylls would say, "filled with vitamins and minerals." Speaking of Bear, there's a MOAN-day topic for you.

Have you had a proud-as-punch moment with your kids? Tell us about it. We won't think it's bragging, just that you're a proud parent. And we'll pat you on the back too.