South Carolina Trip ~ Day 3
Biltmore Estates, billed as America's largest house with 250 rooms and 8,000 acres, was our next destination. Located in Asheville, NC, about an hour or so from Greenville, Biltmore was certainly worth the drive--a pretty one with lots of mountain views.
Here's the sign that welcomed us onto the property. Many flowering trees and shrubs were planted alongside the lengthy landscaped driveway leading to the home: rhododendrens, azaelas, white wisteria, and many others which were not readily familiar to us. What a lot of work has gone into making the property a beautiful showplace!
We thoroughly enjoyed the self-guided tour of the mansion and seeing all the interior decorating and floral displays in every room. Get this: the house features 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms and 65 fireplaces! We toured the basement where there was a swimming pool, gymnasium and changing rooms, bowling alley, servants' quarters and kitchens.
Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed inside, but we took plenty in the gardens. Here's my sister, Bet, smelling one of the snowball bushes. We visited during the Festival of Flowers taking place April 5th through May 18th, so there were lots of spring flowers in bloom.
My favorites were all the white flowers--the white wisteria, the white snowballs, and the white false indigo were ones I really liked.
The Conservatory is the building you see at the end of the large corridor of flowers. Basically, it was a rich man's potting shed and contained all sorts of greenhouse plants. We didn't have time to go in the Conservatory Gardeners' Gift Shop---maybe it's a good thing!
Recommendation if you go: if you are a member of Triple A, you can save $15 off the admission. If you're not a member, ordering tickets ahead online will save a few dollars on your ticket.
When you check in at Biltmore, definitely purchase the additional $8 per person guided tour with headsets to hear about each room and what you are seeing as you go through; we found the headsets very necessary.
Next: Day 4 ~ Visiting friends
~Deb






We made the best of the situation and found Dutch Oven, located along the main street of quaint Abbeville. The homemade cherry pie made up for missing Yoder's--almost.

The Rose Garden and Water Lily Pond were both enjoyable self-tours. We snapped some nice photos and were thankful for the nice weather we experienced all week. So, all in all, it was a good day.
On our way to visit my sister in South Carolina last Monday, we first stopped in Charlotte, 







Randi




Next, a bigger job, was making a girl's jumper for a friend from church. This was a fun item to sew, although there were a few steps where it was definitely a learning process. The fabric Anna chose was a beautiful, springy green with coral pink flowers and peachy buttons to match. It was the perfect combination. My favorite part was using my new automatic buttonholer and sewing on the buttons as one of the final steps. The hem ended up 






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