Jeff Billimek’s Journal

I spent the morning working from home. Jen worked on packing up and getting ready for our trip. Jen was excited to use her new free bag from Victoria’s Secret. I tried to cram all of my clothes and multiple pairs of shoes into my cool pelican case.

A little after 1pm we hit the road. Jen started off driving and we finished listening to Ender’s Shadow. I had previously listened to it. Jen had two more CDs to listen to and I agreed to listen to them again. The audio book made the drive go by really quickly and overall the drive up to 85 was uneventful. Traffic was moderate allowing us to make good time.

When we hit South Carolina we were startled to see fallen trees, traffic lights out and storm weathered streets. The big ice storm a few days ago really did a number on SC.

After 3 hours of driving Jen was a bit exhausted, so she had the bright idea to pull off an exit that looked like it had a lot of places to stop at. She was secretly looking for a Starbucks - what a mistake this was. Traffic was horrible. The exit she selected was the equivalent to our Barret Parkway.

There was mall and traffic was horrible. We finally stopped at a grocery store. Jen bought two fancy Starbucks drinks and I grabbed an energy drink.

Next I took over driving and fought the traffic back on to the highway. We arrived in Asheville, North Carolina a little after 5pm and checked into our hotel, the Doubletree.

The cool thing about Doubletree is that they always give you fresh cookies when you check in. I love this amenity! The room was nice and we started to unpack and plan our evening events. I used my kool-rad laptop + cell phone (GPRS) internet access setup to check on tickets to the Biltmore. I bought tickets to the ‘Biltmore Candle Light Tour’ and made reservations for us to have dinner at the fancy restaurant on the Biltmore property called ‘The Dinning Room’.

‘The Dinning Room’ is located on the bottom floor of the Inn on the Biltmore Estate. Dinner was wonderful. For a fixed price you get a salad, main course, and dessert. We also got a bottle of the Biltmore Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley. I was a bit confused about how a Biltmore wine could come from Napa. Our waiter enlightened us: apparently after a storm came through Asheville a few years ago and destroyed a huge portion of their vineyards, the Biltmore purchased a vineyard in Napa. They still make all of the wine at the Biltmore but a lot of the grapes are shipped in from Napa Valley. I wonder if all the shipping degrades the quality of the grapes?

As we ate our dinner we saw an interesting device on another table. After inquiring we discovered it was a ‘Belgium coffee service’. This science experiment-looking device apparently makes coffee without the use of a filter. There are two canisters with tubes connecting them. The first canister is heated by a sterno flame below it. As the water gets hot it moves through the tubes to the second canister. When the first canister is light enough the candle is extinguished as the other canister flips a lid closed. As the coffee cools in the seconds canister it moves back through into the first canister via the laws of thermodynamics. We of course had to get this fun coffee device at our table (which sadly cost $30).

(This is sort of what it looked like)

After dinner we headed over to the Biltmore house (The tour was for 10:30pm). At night you park and take a shuttle bus over to the main entrance. The tour of the house is self guided and the place was packed full of people. We had a great time walking through the house and seeing the many decorations. The house is magnificent and serves as an excellent snapshot of history.

Once we concluded the tour I went back to the car and headed out. The long & winding drive takes you in front of the house. I stopped and prepared to take a photo of the house at night. With the camera securely fastened to the tripod, I took a 25-30 second exposure of the house. Actually I took multiple shots but ended up with one in particular that I was most happy with.

(25-30 second exposure of the Biltmore house at night)