Biltmore -Last pictures from our trip

On Tuesday from our trip, we decided to go to Biltmore in Ashville, North Carolina about 90 miles away from Gatlinburg, TN. It is not cheap to go in, but the experience is worth it. It is a huge castle that belonged to Vanderbilt (still in his family) and has 250 rooms, 43 bathrooms, swimming pool, pantries, kitchens, winter garden, huge library, observatory, and much much more...

That is the view from the balcony from the castle. You cannot take pictures in the inside, but they let you in the outside.

After the tour in the Castle, we went to the Conservatory or Huge Green House. It hosts lots of different plants, flowers, trees, etc.... and some lovely orchids as well. The picture below us, looking like a chinese lantern, love it. Don't know what it is, but love it.

This picture was taken in the Gardens, a huge area with many paths and flowers. There are at least 2000 roses, many hydrangeas, daffodils, hycinths, and so much more. I can not put all the pictures of the flowers that we took (many of the plants mentioned were just blooming too), but the one below caught my attention because of the bee... and we did not go the winery tour or the farm, this place is huge!


And while I was taking pictures outside, I saw these girls (that were in my way of the flowers) and thought wow, one day Arianna is going to be that age... Plus, they were having a blast!

Talking about my sweet baby, here she is with her love of any letters in anything...here, yep, the garbage... Heck, it is an elegant garbage disposal, mind you. :)


And I will end with my two love ones, Arianna reading to her daddy. Like I said, all about letters. Aren't they cute together?

Until later...

Smokies III

I took too many pictures to post all of them, but I hope you get the idea of how beautiful the Smoky Mountains are... The next three pictures are landscapes of the mountains, they can look so different (specially by seasons)...




I saw this bird at the Oconaluftee Farm, but I have no idea what it is. Love the golden/yellow/brown combination.

Ari having a great time walking and running with daddy... Yes, we used the "leash". I never understood why parents used them, but after Arianna started running I got it.

One thing about the Smokies is that there are lots of waterfalls to see of many forms. Here is the Mingo Falls, a 180 foot drop and the biggest (I think). It is not too bad to get to it, about a .8 mile round trip, but you have to walk up the wooden stairs and there are a lot of steps... I took a picture of that, but could not find it right now. It is very impressive. I will try to find it later. (First two pictures are with us, and the last one is for you to see Mingo Falls)

Once you go up the stairs, this is the path that you walk to get to the waterfall and back... It is a bit narrow, but not bad at all.

Here is another fall called Socca Falls. It is smaller to the Mingo Falls in height, but it is much wider. I took some pictures from really high ground, so you cannot appreciate how wide it is, and how beautiful. The nice thing about Socca, you can actually get closer. Mike did, but I was up the path and I did not see so he could have captured the two different currents merging into the falls. Trust me, this fall is awesome.

This is the deck where I took the pictures, there was a small path that you could follow if you like to hang like monkeys from trees and get really dirty, but it is worth it. Too bad it was raining and had Arianna so mommy had to stay clean for that reason :)

I loved how those golden leaves looked through the green foliage. In person, it looks even magical. Lots of light. It is really hard to capture that with the lense and a moving car, but I think you will get the idea.