North Carolina - July 2016 - Day 3

July 2, 2016 (Saturday)

Goat at Carl Sandburg National Historical Site

The day started with a stop by the Carl Sandburg National Historical Site.  The site is a bit of a hike from the parking lot.  Carl Sandburg was most famous for his writings about Abraham Lincoln and poetry. Sandburg won the Pulitzer Prize for History for his Lincoln writings.  The home, known as Connemara, is currently in the middle of major renovations, but home tours were available for $5. There are also two videos available – we watched both, but honestly they were not really that great. The fun part of the site are the dairy goats! Carl’s wife Lilian was quite famous for her prize-winning goats. We spent about two hours at the site.

Cowpens National Battlefield

Next stop was the Cowpens National Battlefield.  There were a lot of extra activities going on due to the 4^th of July holiday. There were weapons firing demonstrations, ranger-guided battlefield walks, and the reading of the Declaration of Independence. At the visitor center, we watched the fiber optic presentation (shown on demand). The other video available is played on the hour and it did not really work well with our timing.  After the video, we hiking the American Revolution War Battlefield.

We stopped at Strawberry Hill for some tasty homemade ice cream – I tried the strawberry and peach flavors. Yum! The portions are quite large.

Biltmore Estate

Biltmore Estate

We  were lucky to nab the last tour (4:30) of the day at Biltmore Estate. We arrive around 3:30 so we could check out some of the gardens before our tour.  The place is very pretty! Biltmore Estate was completed in 1895 and was a family home built for George W. Vanderbilt.  The home took six years to build – the footings are 26 feet deep!  The estate is the largest privately owned house in the US – 178,926 square feet of floor space! The estate property is very large – 8000 acres! The estate was opened to the public in 1930 in response to requests to increase tourism during the Depression and to generate income to preserve the massive estate. The tours are self-guided – you are given a booklet when you get your tickets that has a descriptions of the rooms, or for $11 you can rent a hand held unit that tells you about the rooms. We just followed along with the guide book.  Photography is not allowed in the home – but a ton of people were snapping away without being scolded. Being the rule follower that I am I did not take photos. It took us about an hour to make it thru the home. Often there are special displays – during our visit it was “Fashionable Romance – Wedding Gowns in Film”. After the tour, we headed back out to check out the gardens some more – Mike really wanted to go to the pond. We spent about three hours at the Biltmore Estate.