We said good-bye this morning to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and hello to the Blue Ridge Parkway, a 469-mile ribbon of highway that hugs the Blue Ridge Mountains and connects the GSMNP to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.
I don’t know what I was expecting from the BRP. I envisioned something like the historic U.S. Route 66, once a major route between Chicago and Los Angeles that has been taken over by modern freeways and thoroughfares. I pictured a historic route called the Blue Ridge Parkway ambling through small Appalachian towns, yes, but also winding its way past modern shopping centers and office parks, merging with major highways and pausing at stoplights and busy intersections as it circles cities like Asheville, NC, and Roanoake, VA. After all, construction started on the Parkway in 1935; cities and suburbs have grown up around it since then.
In reality, the Blue Ridge Parkway is like a 469-mile-long national park; in fact, land on either side of the road is maintained by the National Park Service. Somehow, it travels uninterrupted from the Great Smoky Mountains in the south to Shenandoah in the north without ever breaking for a stoplight; without ever coming within shouting distance of a strip mall, or even a gas station; without ever degrading itself with billboards or tourist attractions; without even passing a driveway or a mailbox. It’s a two-lane road that follows the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains, ducking through tunnels and passing over stone-arch bridges as it meanders through pristine wilderness. At least every mile or so, there are scenic overlooks that offer breathtaking vistas. And, in the entire stretch between the Smokies and Shenandoah, there are dozens of picnic areas, campgrounds, trailheads and visitors centers. Infrequent and discreet little turn-outs connect the parkway with roads and highways that actually go somewhere in the real world, to gas stations and hotels and interstate highways. But otherwise the Blue Ridge Parkway is a sort of Brigadoon. It’s a timeless little never-world, where the noise and bustle and traffic of 2012 are a million miles away.
We got a pretty early start, with hopes of getting to the Biltmore Estate, near Asheville, only 90 miles away, well before lunch. But on the Blue Ridge Parkway, where the speed limit is 45 mph, and where most cars travel much slower than that as they negotiate the serpentine roadway, it took more than three hours to go that far -- even without pausing to ooh and ahh at every impressive overlook.
We pulled off the parkway, found our way through historic Biltmore Village, south of Asheville, and pulled in to the Biltmore Estate. The house itself, built by George Washington Vanderbilt in the 1890s, is billed as the largest privately-owned home in the country, at 175,000 square feet, featuring 250 rooms (43 of them are bathrooms). The house is set on 8,000 stunning acres along the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the drive from the front gate to the parking lot alone took us 10 minutes. It was another five-minute shuttle-bus ride from the parking lot to the front door of the home.
First things first, though: We stopped at the Stable restaurant, in the complex adjacent to the main house, which used to comprise the carriage house and the horse barn. We expected standard roadside fare: burgers and chicken strips, maybe some North Carolina bbq. What we got was an unexpected treat: a farm-to-table restaurant with unusual and exciting offerings crafted from locally grown, organic food -- much of it grown or produced right on the Biltmore Estate. In my unending quest for the perfect BLT, I enjoyed a landmark sandwich made with fried green tomatoes and pimento-cheddar cheese (which seems to be a North Carolina thing). Delish!
The house itself did not disappoint, either. We took a self-guided tour through the rooms that are open to the public. The kids were flabbergasted by the tropical atrium on the main level, called the “Winter Garden;” the banquet hall, with a dining table that seats 38; the bowling alley; and the 70,000-gallon indoor swimming pool. And then we got all “Downton Abbey,” and toured the kitchens, pantries and servants quarters in the basement. Thoroughly fascinating. Of course, the home is completely over-the-top -- a sheer spectacle -- but we enjoyed marveling at the extravagance and imagining people living, entertaining and working in this home. The gilded age and the lifestyle the Vanderbilts luxuriated in are so different from what we know today, we felt like we were in another world.
After the home tour, we did a quick buzz of the gardens -- there are 75 acres of them, including an Italian garden, a spring garden, a shrub garden, a rose garden and a conservatory -- before talk turned to our plans for the evening.
When Keith and I suggested that we were looking for some good North Carolina barbecue in Asheville, the bus driver who shuttled us from the estate home back to our car cheerfully recommended a couple places to try for dinner. She endorsed Luella’s and pooh-poohed 12 Bones, because, as she put it, she’s a Republican, and 12 Bones is where Obama goes when he’s in town. So, I guess, blech. Besides, she said, 12 Bones is too trendy; they serve things like blueberry-chipotle barbecue sauce (double-blech). Keith and I smiled and nodded politely. Then we Googled 12 Bones as soon as we got in the car. Lady, you had us at “Obama.”
But, in the end, we scrapped the restaurant idea altogether; we stayed so late at the Biltmore Estate that we didn’t think we’d be able to eat out and still have enough daylight to set up camp. So, we went straight to our lovely, wooded campsite at Lake Powhatan, in the Pigsah National Forest.
While I made a quick dinner (sadly, no blueberry-chipotle bbq sauce to be had), Keith attempted to repair the broken tent pole with duct tape and a couple of sticks. The sticks, it turns out, don’t offer much in the way of stability. But the duct tape seems to hold everything together, at least. It’s not pretty, but it’ll do.
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