Day Twenty-eight - Knoxville to Durham

From Knoxville to Durham doesn't sound like very far.  It's only 337 miles, after all, and we've had legs of this adventure 100, 200 and 250 miles longer.  But these are beautiful states, at least from a New Englander's perspective, with trees, and curves (lots and lots of curves when you get into North Carolina.) And there are no 75 and 80 mph speed limits here.

Into North Carolina and the "Triangle" formed by Durham, Raleigh and Chapel
Hill; an area that holds great hope for the ultimate blueness of North Carolina.

And there are things to see.  One of them is one of the most popular attractions anywhere, The Biltmore Estate in Asheville.  Neither of us had been there, and many friends had raved about it, so we decided to make a stop.  The scenery alone takes one's breath away:

This is the view George Vanderbilt saw each morning from his second-story
veranda.

Mary Frances listening to her audio tour device.  These cost an additional
ten dollars, after a forty-five dollar visitor ticket.

Biltmore doesn't allow pictures inside, so ours are here
on the veranda and the exterior photos below.

Mount Pisgah and the Smokies range.

Three stories, no elevator to the third floor.  Extra albuterol today.  And hot.

Mary Frances and one of the twin Biltmore lions.

Arboretum across the drive from the Biltmore mansion.

The greenhouse and gardens.

More of the same.

And still more.

With all the rooms and stories at the Mansion, hunger set in, so, still on the Biltmore property, we decided to have lunch at The Antler Hill Bistro.  We knew when we walked in and saw seven chefs and two greeters that lunch wasn't going to be cheap.  But it was interesting, and consisted of fare neither of us had experienced before.  For me, a raw trout appetizer and cauliflower soup; and for Mary Frances:

Okay, it's gauche to take pictures of your food, but those orange
things are beets, and the little corpses are bacon.  In the
background, French onion soup and focaccia bread

 Outside the bistro, this lilac-like tree stopped us:

The flowers are white with red spots; I'm sure one of our
readers will provide an identification.

 After Biltmore, it was back on the road.  We had tickets bought in May for a game tonight featuring the Durham Bulls versus the Indianapolis Indians, and now time was a potential issue, as was rain.

The exit sign is for Old Fort, but Mary Frances thought it said Old Fart,
wondering why a town had been named after me.

North Carolina has planted lots of day lilies on its roadways. Lots and lots.

 After checking into the Courtyard in Durham, we had little problem getting to the Durham Bulls Athletic Park in time for the game.  Well, that's not quite true.  Michelle (you know, our GPS voice) tried to screw it up as best she could, and I contributed by making a U-turn on a one-way street.  We saw a huge picture of a bull on the side of a building on the correct street and thought it was the ball park.  So we parked the car in a fifteen-minute parking spot on the street and began to walk, only to learn that the ball park was another three long blocks away.  Somewhere in the back of our minds the possibility of coming back to a ticket, or better yet an empty spot where our car used to be, rose to consciousness occasionally, but we persevered, and saw a pretty good ballgame between two pretty good triple-A teams.

If a batter hits the bull over the left field wall, he gets a free steak.  If he
hits the grass under the bull, he gets free salad.  Damn, I love triple-A.

 

A pretty nice ball park; not quite in a league with the Nashville
Sounds park, but a pleasant downtown venue with great hot dogs.

 

The National Anthem...

Sung by a young lady who'll probably also remain in triple-A.

 

The mascot Wool-E-Bull.

What's not to like about triple-A Baseball.  The between innings activities involving kids or the community; the fans who know these guys from the street, the players who are good enough or almost good enough for the Major Leagues, or the Major Leaguers whose skills have eroded a bit.  Always entertaining.

We have traveled the same roadway, Route I-30 which then morphed into I-40 somewhere east of Nashville, for longer than any other one on this adventure, some 1220 miles starting in Fort Worth. Tomorrow we'll leave this road to turn  northward, and end up only a single leg from home.

It has been a wonderful trip on which we have met family on four occasions, friends on three occasions--two of them unplanned!--three presidential museums, three triple-A baseball games, the Pacific Coast Highway, the Bonneville Salt Flats, beautiful and not so beautiful scenery.  Would we do this again?  Well, let's rest a bit, first.

A long drive to Bethlehem, PA, planned for tomorrow.  For tonight, some sleep.