Gardens at Biltmore Estates

There were beautiful gardens at Biltmore. The conservatory had beautiful orchids, the Italian Garden had lily pads and Koi fish and the views from the balcony were expansive.

 

 

Day at Biltmore Estates

 

Today was all about Biltmore. The estate is 8000 acres. This includes Biltmore House, Gardens, a winery, Antler Hill Village, lodging, and farm grounds. The main residence is the Biltmore House built for George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895.It is the largest privately owned house in the United States at 178,926 sq ft. of floor space and 135,280 sq ft. of living area. It is still owned by George Vanderbilt's descendants and remains one of the most prominent examples of Gilded Age mansions. Here are some pictures of the interior rooms.  

Learning the History of Asheville

Today we had a presentation about the history of Asheville and then we took a trolley around town to see many of the sights.

There are lovely restored Queen Ann homes that are now mostly Bed and Breakfast places. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The building on the right is the Asheville City Hall It is an Art Deco building that was built in 1926. The building on the left is the Buncombe County Courthouse. There was supposed to be a a building that matched city hall but the county wanted something different and they had a "box" built in 1928. These buildings anchor downtown and remain a topic of controversy. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 In the afternoon we visited a pottery studio and went to the went to the Marquee Market. These are in the River Arts District where many buildings were totally destroyed during the floods two years ago when Hurricane Helene devastated Asheville.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are many booths at the Marquee Market. Original Art and other items are sold there. I think Marta could start an import business of African baskets. One booth was full of them. The large ones were $100 or more and medium were about $50.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We ended the day at the Asheville Museum of History that is housed in the Smith-McDowell House. As you can see from the pictures we have had perfect weather.

 Arrival in Asheville, NC

I took a red eye from PDX to O'Hare. The United app gave me directions to get to the gate for my flight to Asheville. I discovered that the concourse is quite empty at 5:30 am.

 

  

The hotel where I am staying is in the central downtown area. My room is lovely. My friend Martha who I taught with in Italy, and her husband Roger are great hosts. They picked me up at the airport, took me to lunch, and gave me a nice tour of Asheville. I will spend more time with them after the Road Scholar program ends on Friday.  

My first impressions of Asheville is it has lots of art, music, and restaurants. There are some un-housed individuals that congregate in the center of the downtown area. The population is estimated to be about 93,500. Two years ago Hurricane Helene devastated much of Asheville and surrounding towns. Some areas still recovering. 

Fall 2026 Travels

Tonight I start a wonderful fall of travel. Here is my travel schedule:

Sept. 26- Oct. 6 Asheville, NC, Road Scholar trip and then stay with a friend. 

The trip is Signature City Asheville

Oct. 16 - Oct. 27 Portugal, Road Scholar trip. I am traveling with a Union-Whitten High School Classmate. The trip is The Best of Portugal: From the Age of Exploration to Today.

Oct. 30 - Nov. 16 - Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) tip to Victoria Falls, and South Africa. My trip is Southern Africa Discovery: Victoria Falls, Kruger Safari & the Cape Peninsula. I was able to get a greatly reduced price on this trip during the O.A.T. Labor Day sale and being able to travel in October. 

 

  

I hope to post almost daily while traveling - so stay tuned! 

Final Day of an Epic trip

 

 

 

 

 

 

This morning we went to an artisan village and looked at some beautiful pieces of Chilean art work. It was a pleasant, low key ending to my trip. We had arrived back quite late last night from Easter Island so it was nice to have nothing scheduled until 10:30 am. I am now packed, have my boarding passes and hope to be back in Oregon on United flight 740 at 12:22 pm on Sat. Feb. 28. We had a farewell lunch at a very nice restaurant. These are my final pictures form Santiago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am very thankful for good health during this trip and safety in the air and on the roads. Our group leaders were aware of the airline strikes in Argentina that happened the day after we left. We learned that we were delayed flying to Iguazu Falls because of a hole in the runway. The flight that left before us had to turn around and go back to Rio de Janeiro and then they waited on the plane for several hours and it was very hot on that plane. It took that flight 8 hours and it is normally a 2 hr. 10 min. flight. Highlight of the trip for me was seeing Iguazu Falls. It is so massive and the water roars. Off to the airport now and I will post again when I'm back in Newberg.. 

Leaving Easter Island

Easter Island, Hawaii, and New Zealand make up what is called the Polynesian Triangle. The Polynesian Triangle is a region of the Pacific Ocean with three island groups at its corners: Hawaii (Hawaiʻi), Easter Island (Rapa Nui) and New Zealand (Aotearoa). This is often used as a simple way to define Polynesia. My son Mark noted that this week while I was on Easter Island, my daughter was in Hawaii since she lives there and my grandson Reeve was in New Zealand because he is living there. So we had the three corners of the Polynesian Triangle covered this week. I think this was a quite unusual and interesting coincidence .

Since chickens and roosters roam freely in Hawaii it was no surprise that the waiting area of the airport on Easter Island has free range poultry. 

Notice the large plane on the runway in the background.

It was a very comfortable 4 hr. 30 min. flight from Easter Island back Santiago. The runway on Easter Island is very long and can accommodate large planes because NASA built it. This is because they wanted a location in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for a space shuttle to land in case of an emergency.