We were so close we had to stop in to visit our cousins, Craig & Larry Leonard in Concord, NC and their families. We were able to park our rig and stay at Craig & Jeanie’s new house. Then our first day together we enjoyed a tour of The Kings Greenhouse! They were already getting poinsettias growing for the coming Christmas season.
And surprise, the nearby family was invited over – so much fun to see and hug everyone! We enjoyed a great time of re-connecting with the family and sharing a delicious home cooked bar-be-que with all the fix’ns! It’s always too long between visits but wonderful to catch up with each other again! This was another highlight of our 50th year anniversary trip!
Thanks Craig & Jeanie, Larry & Jean and family for a great time!
We traveled on to Ashville after our stay in Concord. After learning and hearing some fascinating things about The Biltmore House…we added a tour day to our itinerary!
Here we are at the famous Biltmore Estate, wow – impressive! The Biltmore House is a mansion that 26 year old George Washington Vanderbilt II built between 1889 and 1895 for his wife! The structure is approximately 179,000 sq. ft. (over 4 acres of floor space!) It is the largest privately owned house in the US. George called this his “little mountain escape”.
Some amazing facts: in order to provide building materials, George first had to create onsite factories including a mill, a woodworking factory and a brick kiln, which produced 32,000 bricks a day. It is estimated that over 11 million bricks were used to build the house! A three-mile railroad spur was constructed to bring special Indiana Limestone to the project. They hand carved the limestone and covered the bricks with a 6 inch thick facing !
The six year construction on the main house required the labor of about 1,000 workers and 60 stonemasons. Biltmore has 250 rooms in the house, including 35 bedrooms for family and guests, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, 3 kitchens and 19th-century novelties such as an electric Otis elevator, pipe organ, libraries, and an indoor swimming pool! The estate was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963.
We traveled by car for miles on the interior roads going from the entrance to the Village, to the House, Gardens, and more. The original property was 125,000 acres, today it is approximately 8,000 acres – whew! Lot’s of trails, paths, and roads to explore!
We explored the village grounds and had fun imagining “being there”.
Our time slot for our house tour arrived. We were fascinated by the history and luxury that was built into this “house” from way back in the 1890’s. It reportedly cost $5 million (today’s equivalent of $150 million) to construct. That’s an amazing amount of money. The Vanderbilt fortune, if measured in today’s dollars, was worth over $6.2 billion – more money than the entire US treasury at the time! All from a startup shipping and railroad empire, the “American Dream”!
Our tour inside was amazing… then we went outside!
Just outside of the Biltmore House are 75 acres of gardens designed by renowned American landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted (the same guy that designed Central Park in New York City!) The gardens, the art, the landscape, the beauty, and the sense of excellence that showed itself in everything that we saw. We were challenged to live and strive for excellence in the things we do as well! Those things stand the test of time!
While we were there, we were also able to experience a special limited exhibition: Leonardo da Vinci – 500 Years of Genius!
We were even photo-bombed by Mona Lisa!
De Vinci was an amazing man with an amazing mind. His ability to use and apply his senses to observe, reflect, contemplate, imagine, record, reveal, and invent from what he saw in creation gave him the label “genius”. For us, his life provided new glimpses into the beauty and mysteries of God’s amazing creation!
Onward to more adventures!
At the end of the week we traveled into the big city of Atlanta, GA. We met up with many friends and partners for the October Juice Plus Live Conference. This was the first live conference since the “pandemic” shut down. It was so good to be together again!
We are SO THANKFUL that God brought this amazing business into our lives over 10 years ago. We have made so many close friendships with people that love the Lord and eagerly promote the God given nutritional benefits of fruits, veggies, and berries. It’s our mission to help people – this gives us the opportunity of helping others with their health and finances. We’ve shared with so many that we couldn’t be traveling like we do serving others in God’s Kingdom without this solution providing for OUR health and finances! We are blessed!
We had a lot of fun and learned so much from the sessions and presenters. Juice Plus continues to be the world leader in whole food nutrition in a capsule! We learned that even more research studies have been completed or are in process. Here’s a fact: Juice Plus+ is the most researched nutritional product in the world!
One of the highlights for us is attending the Prayer Breakfast that starts us out with the right mind set – to glorify God in our lives and in our business! Inspiring healthy living around the world!
Just a quick note: maybe you are considering a new career or even adding another stream of income – we highly recommend the Juice Plus Company (only $52/year and no inventory!) Or maybe your health needs a boost from whole food – fruits and veggies. We’d love to have you on our team! Text Lorree 269-753-4124 or Dennis 269-753-4125
Wow – another adventure filled week! We love our life of travel, exploring and interacting with friends and family. So many places to see and do with lots of miles in between.
We decided that for our next adventure, we are going to stay put, rest, and reflect on where we’ve been and things we’ve done and to just enjoy the past 50 years with each other.
Do I hear the waves crashing on the beach?? See our next blog!