Spring Break

We had our Spring Break last week.  It began as a very, very rainy vacation but ended with warm weather.  I love Spring because the sun arrives after a very long absence.  The gray days of January and February blow on by and we can bask in the sunshine.

Tim and I decided that we would stay close to home this year.  There were lots of places we had yet to take the kids and our time in this area is drawing to a close.  Our first stop was the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC.  

Caroline had been before at the age of 16 months and Brooks was a mere ball in my tummy.  March was not a beautiful time to visit, as the flowers were not yet in bloom, but we were still awed by the mansion.  We took an audio tour which lasted approximately 2 hours.  Our favorite rooms were:  the bedroom of Edith Dresser Vanderbilt, the bowling alley, the winter garden, and the library.  We even got to spend time in the rarely shown personal library of George Vanderbilt.  He had over 23,000 books in his collection.

We also travelled into the Great Smoky Mountain National Park to the Cataloochee area where we could see the Elk.  The Park began re-introducing Elk into the area in February, 2001.  We took an extremely rustic, winding road through the junk yards of North Carolina before we reached our destination.  However, the ride was rewarded by the viewing of over 30 live Elk - some within 50 feet of our car.  The largest rack we found had 11 points!

Sunday we travelled to Sevierville to stay at the Wilderness Lodge Water Park Resort.  We had a good time - especially the boys.  They rode all of the slides over and over, and played in the wave pool.  The 2nd morning, Caroline and I detoured to the outlet mall.  Amazingly enough, I am no longer much of a water park girl.  Guess it's because I am now 40 (gasp)!

Our next stop was Abingdon, VA.  We ate at a local pizzeria - Cole was astonished that you could go to a restaurant where they only made pizza.  It was a relatively long wait, but the pizza was perfect on a chilly, rainy night and we all had a good time. 

 The next morning we got up to ride down the Virginia Creeper Trail.  We travelled to a local bike shop in Damascus, VA to rent our bikes.  The shop then took us by van to the end of the trail and dropped us off. 

 The Creeper is a 17 mile bike trip down a gradual slope.  We coasted most of the trail (descending 1800 ft.) - the last 4 miles are flat.  The scenery was beautiful and the trees were beginning to sprout new leaves.  We crossed 30 bridges and enjoyed the sounds of the river most of the way down.  The last several miles were a laugh a minute as we all lamented our numb bums!  Tim even negotiated a deal with Cole.  If Cole would quit whining and complaining on the trail, Tim guaranteed that we would not have lunch at Subway.  Cole took him up on that (he hates Subway) and didn't utter one more gripe for the last 20 minutes.  Gotta love a creative dad!

We travelled back home Tuesday night for Tim to be back at work on Wednesday.  While cooped up in the hotel rooms, the kids discovered "Jon and Kate Plus 8" - they wanted to watch every single episode!  We even offered to rent a movie, but they all declined and opted to watch that family's craziness!  Craziness indeed - we only have 4 and our life is hectic enough!