Biltmore House and Gardens

Biltmore House and Gardens - visiting information
Biltmore House Facts and Information

Since we were so close to Asheville (about 70 miles from Gaffney, SC), Rick decided to take the opportunity to visit Biltmore House and Gardens. WOW - what a house! Built by George Vanderbilt and completed in 1895, the house features over 175,000 sq. feet and 43 bathrooms, this is unbelievable. The grounds originally were over 125,000 acres and apparently took over 5 days on horseback to ride around the perimeter.

One of the great features of the home are the wonderful gardens. These ponds are part of the Italian gardens and feature a number of beautiful ponds. In addition, there are many other gardens and greenhouses.

One of the many amazing features of the house are the stone carvings throughout the outside of the home. The carvers were very skilled and were the highest paid construction workers on the home site while it was being built.

There were many different carvings around the house -- there must have been hundreds of them. These really added a special character to the house.

Rick liked the greenhouses as well. Apparently, there were many gardeners employed while Vanderbilt lived here. Each greenhouse was full of remarkable flowers:

Rick really enjoyed the beautiful flowers like this one.

The greenhouses featured different climate settings for different flowers, including this tropical flower (missed the name).

The old home site in lower South Carolina

We visited Orinda's mother and had a chance to see the old homestead where she was born. We stayed at a local state park in Cheraw which is a very nice, smaller park with about 15 RV sites. This works great for exploring the area.

This is the old house where Orinda's parents lived when she was first born. This old house is a lesson in history and shows how small farms were set up in the 50's. There was no indoor plumbing in the house and very minimal insulation -- a far cry from even a basic house today. Fortunately, right after Orinda was born, the family moved into their new, much nicer home.

These old places have a charm all to their own, although I am certainly happy that houses have advanced . Our Tour motorhome looks pretty good in comparison.

The farm where Orinda grew up was focused on growing tobacco, which was a really labor intensive operation. Orinda has lots of memories pruning the tobacco, harvesting the leaves and curing the final product. I suspect that is why she never was interested in smoking!

Visiting Freightliner in Gaffney, SC

Cody and I went to the Freightliner Service Center in Gaffney, SC. We had last visited there a couple years ago and were very pleased with the service we received. This service center is located just a couple miles from the Freightliner Chassis factory, so they have the knowledge to do anything that is needed.

There are some 6 service bays available and a great waiting area (and yes, Cody could come in as well). We had an M3 service which is very comprehensive and is needed every 30,000 miles. After this, we should be ready to go for many, many miles.

One of the nice features of the Service Center is the RV parking area, complete with 50 amp service and a dump station. The Service rep comes to get the coach at 8:00am and takes it in for the service. When it is done, they deliver it right back to your spot. Here is our trusty Tour, right after our service was completed.

Of course, Cody wanted to do some exploring. Parked near us in the RV area is this demonstration chassis that Cody wanted to check out.

This is the Freightliner XC chassis with the Cummins ISB 350hp engine. While our coach has the larger Cummins ISL 400hp engine, this chassis is very similar to the one under our Tour and was very interesting to look at.

Cody was duly impressed with the strength and engineering of the chassis. It was fun to see a motorhome underneath the coach!

We will be heading toward Asheville, NC after this and look forward to getting into the Smoky Mountains.

Hilton Head and Harbor Town

We drove down to the Sea Pines Plantation area of Hilton Head which is just a few miles from our RV park. There is a $5 fee to enter the Plantation which is one of the earliest, large developments, dating from the late 50's. Well worth the price of admission. Of course, the famous lighthouse overlooks the entire area.

Harbor Town Marina is a bustling area with many beautiful yachts berthed in the well protected marina. Additionally, there are many shops and restaurants overlooking the port, which made for a great visit.


Naturally, Orinda thought this was a great time for seafood and the Crazy Crab accommodated us well. We had a great lunch and were able to watch as some nice boats entered the harbor.

There is a very nice walkway around the harbor that offers a view from all sides. This is truely a wonderful place to spend an afternoon.

Here, Rick is trying to pick out his new yacht! Dream on, says Orinda, who is very content to stay high and dry in the coach.

Hilton Head RV Park and Marina -- a Beautiful Place

We drove from Lady Lake, FL to Hilton Head, SC which was a nice day's run and even though the traffic was a bit heavy on I-95, proved to be a relaxing ride. I was really pleased with the performance of the Tru-Center (see the earlier post on that) which made driving in a crosswind much more enjoyable.

We have stayed at the Hilton Head RV Resort and Marina several times and really enjoy it. We usually try to get a waterfront site (well worth the extra $10 a night) and we were successful in getting a great site this time.

Located right on the inland waterway, we got to see all kinds of boats both in the Marina and running through the waterway as shown by this beautiful sailboat.

Indeed, from this angle of the marina (on the waterway side), you can see our coach located in the upper left corner.

Yeah, that was a little small to really see, so this zoomed shot gives a little better idea. Rick and Cody really enjoyed sitting outside and watching the boats come and go.

One thing we really liked about the RV park is that it is great to walk around in the evening on the walkways right next to the water. Here is a shot of the Orinda and the waterway -- beautiful evening, too!

They even have a number of swings to enjoy while you watch the water and the boats. A very relaxing way to spend a couple hours after driving into the park.

This shot of our site and the marina shows why we enjoyed it. While not inexpensive ($69 a night), it was well worth a couple of nights to enjoy this great setting while exploring the island of Hilton Head.

BikeFest in Leesburg, FL

Leesburg hosts a large motorcycle rally called the BikeFest during the end of April and features about 200,000 bikers who attend. We were at the Recreation Plantation RV Park in Lady Lake, FL which is located about 8 miles north of Leesburg, so we wondered if any motorcycles would appear near us. Well, we soon found the answer:

We were amazed at the wonderful RVs that showed up towing trailers filled with motorcycles. This 40' class C coach was beautiful and featured a Freightliner chassis.

There were several trailers like this one -- called a "stacker". As you can see, this is actually a two level trailer that contained about 8 motorcycles as well as a living area in the front. The door doubled as a electrically driven lift the moved up and down to load the bikes. Amazing! The trailer was pulled by a full-sized Freightliner tractor.

Finally, we were very impressed with these two H3 45' Prevost coaches. Both of these pulled a triple axle stacker trailer like the one above and were beautiful (so were the motorcycles they unloaded). This motorcycle hobby is a serious business!

We had a great time talking with the folks as we walked Cody, our dog and found they were from all over the country (and Canada). Several riders were really interested in our fulltime lifestyle and I suspect we were really kindred souls at heart.

Visiting the Villages in Florida

We are staying at the Recreation Plantation RV park in Lady Lake, FL, which is just outside The Villages, an amazing retirement community. Our rv site is about 1 mile away from a main town center called Spanish Springs, which offers many different shopping areas as well as great restaurants. We were able to easily walk around in the area and go explore.

We really enjoyed the many fountains located in the town square. These really make for a cool feeling, even when the temps are in the upper 80's (which we did not mind after a cool winter).

Apparently, there is entertainment offered outside each evening here in the town square. Sounds like it might be a fun place to go for a visit while we are here.

We stopped for lunch and then had to try the local ice cream parlor. It was wonderful and enjoyed eating it by one of the fountains. This place looks like a place we might enjoy staying for a while.