the biltmore estate

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last week I had the opportunity to spend some quality time with my parents.  We visited family in Dublin, GA, then travelled to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC for a couple of days.  I’ve always wanted to visit the Biltmore and finally got to last week.  It is an amazing estate of 125,000 acres of forests, farmland, gardens and the captivating four story stone French Renaissance style chateaux home.  The 250-room house consisted of 33 family and guest bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, three kitchens, an exercise room and indoor swimming pool.  It included a priceless collection of art, first edition books and all the latest amenities including elevators and refrigerators.  Remember, this was finished in 1895!  All of it the vision of George Washington Vanderbilt III, 33-year-old bachelor and part of one of America’s most well-known families. The estate was planned and developed by Mr. Vanderbilt along with architect Richard Morris Hunt and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

Hunt was the architect behind the main facade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty among other great structures.  Olmsted was known as the founding father of American landscape architecture and designed New York’s Central Park, the U.S. Capitol grounds and many other famous American landscapes.

Biltmore was officially opened on Christmas Eve in 1895 after six years of construction by hundreds of laborers and would rival many of Europe’s great mansions.  It’s impossible to even scratch the surface of all that Biltmore is here.  All I can say is it is an amazingly beautiful place and I’m so glad I was able to visit.  I’ll be going back!

jazz gig

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recently had the opportunity to do something I really love, which is playing jazz.  Some friends here in Athens, Tracy Reynolds (keyboard), Justin Reynolds (guitar), and Art Grider (tenor sax) and I (drums) have played several gigs together over the last year and we were invited to play a wedding reception last Saturday.  As always, it was a blast.  We played mostly standards and threw in a few fun ones such as, Affirmation, Isn’t She Lovely?, and Chameleon.  Can’t wait to do it again!

vive le tour!

 

 

 

The 95th Tour de France got underway this past Saturday and I’m excited about watching it.  However, I’m not sure if watching it inspires me to ride or makes me not want to.  The reason is, those guys are machines.  Performance enhancing drugs or not, it takes a lot of training to get to the point they are.  (The sport has really cracked down on doping.  It’s a new day for cycling.) 

After wanting to for a long time, I finally got a bike this spring and have been riding fairly consistently ever since.  But, being a novice, the farthest I’d gone until a couple of weeks ago was around 12 miles.  I know, I know…that’s just barely a warm-up for all of you serious riders out there.  I’m working on it!

Well, a couple of weeks ago a buddy that I went to college with, Eric Duncan, called me up and asked me to go riding with him.  We loaded up the bikes, left his house in Kennesaw, GA and drove to the Silver Comet Trail in Smyrna. The Silver Comet Trail is a series of old railway lines converted to pedestrian traffic that goes all the way to the Georgia/Alabama state line.  It will eventually go all the way to Anniston, AL.  Very cool and very safe for cyclists, runners, rollerbladers, etc.

We put in a little over 30 miles that day.  Friends, after only putting around the house for 10 miles or so 4-5 times a week, I had no idea I could go that far.  Well, I did.  When I rolled back up to Eric’s truck I felt like I was riding into Paris at the end of the Tour de France!

So, get out there and go for it and thanks to Eric for the challenge!

cookies and milk

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love ‘em.  Just wanted you all to know.  A friend pointed out to me today that I “NEVER” blog.  My response was, “I haven’t really done a lot to write about lately.”  Their response was, “You could at least write about all those cookies you eat!”  (Based on a recent conversation.)  So, here it is.  I absolutely love cookies and milk.  Particularly Oreos.  I love to dunk them in ice cold milk.  Whole milk. And, you have to hold the cookie in the milk for just the right amount of time in order to get optimum milk saturation, but not too much. Lately I’ve been on a Chips Ahoy binge.  I follow the same milk dunking procedure with these.