Written by Kim
Alex had a golf trip with some Myrtle friends in Asheville so I tagged along instead of sitting home. We left a few days early to check out the Sierra Nevada brewery and Harrah’s Cherokee casino before the golf tournament started.
We started our trip with a stop at the Sierra Nevada Brewery in Asheville. Many times on our ay to visit Alex’s mom we noted we would like to check it out. Wow – Sierra Nevada Mills River Tap Room is quite a facility. It has a big brewery, huge restaurant, gorgeous outdoor natural amphitheater and 18 acres of gardens where they grow produce they serve in the restaurant. The restaurant has a limited menu (and lots of beers & a few wines) but food was delicious.
Our next stop was Harrah’s Cherokee. It was the first major casino in North Carolina, Harrah’s Cherokee, was opened on Quell Boundary on November 13, 1997. It is owned by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), a federally recognized Indian tribe located in Western NC, and operated by Caesars. It is a huge facility with 4 towers including 1,833 hotel rooms, 150,000 sq feet of casino and 2 conference centers. The nice part is it’s a non- smoking facility (unlike AC casinos). It’s the largest hotel in NC. We ate at Guy Fieri’s restaurant. The food was delicious
The town of Cherokee had The Bears Project started in 2005 with the intention of showcasing the variety of talented artists within the Qualla Boundary. A committee researched several concepts prior to selecting a bear theme, as they intended to produce something that would be culturally significant. Bears are a large part of the Cherokee culture and appear in many of the stories and legends that the Cherokee people hold sacred. The culture currently recognizes contributions from the clans of Bird, Blue, Deer, Long Hair, Paint, Wild Potato, and Wolf.
Next stop was Asheville where Alex played golf and I did some sightseeing with a few other golf wives, Debbie & Diane. It was really fun to have some other ladies to explore with. We had a great time. The first day we visited the Biltmore Estate.
Biltmore Estate is a 8,000 acres of property in Asheville. The Biltmore House (or Biltmore Mansion), the main residence, which built for between 1889 and 1895 with lots of European influence and is the largest privately owned house in the US with 178,926 sq ft of floor space and 135,280 sq ft of living area. It is still owned by Vanderbilt’s descendants and remains one of the most prominent examples of Gilded age mansions. In the early days the Vanderbilts owned 120,000 acres in this area but the wife, Edith, had to sell most of it after her husband died prematurely so she could pay for the upkeep of the estate.
The estate includes the mansion, gardens, restaurants, shopping and a winery. There have been 12 movies filmed at the estate, the most recent was Biltmore Christmas on the Hallmark Channel. We saw the sunflower field from the Forrest Gump scene as we drove through the grounds
We did a hop on hop off trolley tour and learned about a few other early influences in Asheville. In addition to the Vanderbilt’s there were a few crazy early “fathers” of Asheville. Edwin Wiley Grove, known as the “Father of Modern Asheville” was born in 1850. He put all of his energy into formulating a tasteless quinine to prevent malaria, a life-threatening disease that permeated the South in the 19th century. After experimenting for several years, Grove introduced Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic and experienced immediate success. In the late 1890’s Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic, which had become a household staple, sold more bottles than Coca-Cola. He was a millionaire and built Grove Inn that sits high on the mountain overlooking the Smoky Mountains. Also, The Highland Hospital was built in 1904 and was founded by Dr. Robert S.Carroll. It was a psychiatric hospital where this wealthy but incompetent Dr. did shock treatment and killed many women through unsafe practices.
We had a fun trip to Asheville. It’s a beautiful area with lots of breweries (Sierra Nevada, New Belgium and lots of smaller ones, lots of outdoor activities like hiking, biking, rafting, etc. We will likely come back for another visit so Alex can see the Biltmore. I’d like to bike on the Biltmore property too
Next up in a few weeks we will be heading out on our US road trip. I’ll post some details on our tentative route shortly. Until then….
