November 7, 2007: Georgia/North Carolina Trip Day 5
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Touring the Biltmore Mansion

Getting to the Biltmore Estate

Getting to the Biltmore Estate was pretty easy from our hotel in Hendersonville. All we had to do was go up I-26 for about five miles, then take I-40 East and get off at Exit 50. This put us on Henderson Road, and the entrance to the estate and grounds was only about a mile and a half north.

We'd gone about a mile and a half north on Henderson Road, and were in the center of the little suburb of Biltmore when we saw the sign for the Biltmore Estate. We turned left into the main drive and soon found ourselves proceeding right through the gatehouse and onto the tree-shaded estate road.

Although we had purchased our tickets online the night before, we still had to stop at the Visitor Center to pick them up. The Visitor center was about a mile into the estate on the estate road, and we found it to be extremely crowded. While I waited for a parking space, Fred went on in to pick up the tickets. By the time I joined him inside, he had just gotten to the head of the queue and was picking up the tickets.

There was a diorama of the estate for us to look at, and some other interesting stuff about the house and gardens, and we picked up a guide to the tours. Then we piled back into the car, left the visitor center, and passed through the entry proper. From this point, we could go where we wished on the estate, but we chose to drive directly to the mansion. We were pretty early, but not the first visitors by a long shot, and so were directed to a fairly-close in parking area. It was then just a short, 1/8 mile walk to the estate proper.

The Esplanade and Fountains

I am going to divide up this first section of the album devoted to the tour of the mansion itself into a number of sections, the first one of which you have just been through. Trying to put all the pictures related to the mansion in one big section would be overwhelming. For the pictures in this section, you can refer to the annotated aerial view at the right to get an idea of how things were laid out; this may help you orient yourself to the various pictures we took.

As I said, it was only a short walk from our parking area to the mansion proper, and our first introduction to the majesty of the residence came when we walked through the main entry gate and got our first views of the mansion. But before we take a look at those, we found, immediately to our left as we came in through the gate (to Fred's left in the picture) a unique esplanade built into the hillside. You can see the esplanade on the aerial view. It was, essentially, a series of three ramps, duplicated side-to-side, that led up to an upper lawn and which offered excellent views of the entire property.

Since we were here, we went ahead up the ramp to the second level where Fred stopped to take a picture of me on the second level. The ramps continued up to a third level, from which vantage point Fred got another picture of the main entry gate (and a view of the gate detail). Most impressively, though, was the way the entire mall, the esplanade and the lawn behind the esplanade leading up to a mausoleum were all geometrically arranged to be perfectly centered on the mansion itself, as this view taken from the top of the esplanade of Fred and the Biltmore Mansion indicates.

All along the face of the esplanade there were a variety of fountains inset into the wall, and Fred found them very interesting. He took quite a few pictures of them, particularly of the "frog fountain" in the exact center of the esplanade, and I have put thumbnails for these pictures below. To look at full-size pictures of the fountains, just click on the thumbnails:

The Mall and Mansion Views

Having explored the esplanade, we turned to the Mall and the Mansion. From our perch at the far end on top of the esplanade, there were excellent views of the entire mansion and some of the gardens to the left, including the other main gate- a duplicate of the one that we entered through. More from the center of the top of the esplanade, you can see the mall fountain and mansion, pretty much lined up with where I am standing. And from the end of the esplanade near the entry gate, here is Fred and the Biltmore Mansion. I've selected a few of the mansion views that were available from various levels on the esplanade; click on the thumbnails below to view the full-size pictures:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

It was time to head over to the mansion itself, so we came down off the esplanade near the entry gate. From that vantage point, here is a picture of me and the Biltmore Mansion. We walked down the right-hand drive towards the mansion, arriving on the apron in front of the building. Looking back across the mall, Fred got a really great view of the mall, esplanade and mausoleum.

The Biltmore Mansion

In this section, you will find all the pictures that we took of the mansion itself.

Organization of the Pictures

We knew that photography was not permitted on the tour of the inside of the Biltmore Mansion, so before we queued up for the tour, we spent quite a bit of time outside on the apron in front of the mansion taking lots and lots of pictures of the building itself. I am going to exclude, of course, any pictures that didn't turn out well, and also those that are pretty much duplicates of each other, but, still, I will be left with lots of pictures that Fred and I took (Fred more than me as he was extremely interested in the architecture).

What I am going to do is try to separate the pictures into categories, select the best five or six pictures in each category, and then provide you thumbnails for those pictures. That way, you can look at as many as you want, and you will know ahead of time how many pictures there are of essentially the same thing.

Each category will have a heading, a short description, and then the thumbnails for that category. Links to the few movies that we took of the mansion itself will be provided within the appropriate category. And, if I need to specify a direction, it will be relative to someone standing in front of the mansion looking at the main entry.

Building Front and Apron

These pictures were all taken as we approached the front of the mansion. I did take one movie of the entire front of the Biltmore Mansion, and you can watch that movie with the player at left.

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Main Entry and Grand Stairway

These pictures are all of the main entry (oddly not as imposing as I might have thought, particularly since it is missing any kind of porte de'cochere) and the main circular stairway that is situated to the left of the entry. Some of the pictures show the whole entry tier or the whole stairway tier while others show various items of detail.

Main Entry

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Roof Detail

One of the most striking things about the mansion is the copper roof. It is a steep roof, with numerous pinnacles and a great deal of adornment. All of these pictures concentrate on the roof and that detailed adornment. You will see some overlap with other sections, though. For example, there are gargoyles all over the roof and while most of the gargoyle pictures are elsewhere, you will see some of them here.

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Gargoyles

Having been to Europe and seen many of the very old churches there, I am used to seeing gargoyles on them. On churches, they have a significance, but one rarely saw them on houses or even castles. So it was a bit odd to see so many of them on the Biltmore Mansion, although we assumed that they were there for the significance of "protecting" the mansion from whatever evils might lurk in the minds of men. I haven't toured very many private homes in this country, but I don't remember ever seeing gargoyles on them or on other homes I've seen in pictures. Fred was quite interested in them, and took a great many pictures of them. While some of these might be repetitive, at least click on a few of the thumbnails below to take a look at some of the excellent pictures Fred took of the gargoyles:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Statuary on Main Stairway Exterior

Most of the exterior of the mansion was replete with gargoyles, but the exterior of the main stairway was different. At each of the angled turns there was a pedestal statue affixed to the outside of the structure. These statues were incredibly complex, and creating them is one of the many things that it would probably not be possible to do today at almost any cost and given almost any amount of time. Click on the thumbnails below to examine these statues:

Third-Floor Window Border Supports

If you will take a look at the exterior shot at the left, you'll see that I have circled a few of the bottoms of the stone window borders that frame the third-floor gable windows. Windows on the first and second floors did not have these massive stone borders around them, but on the third-floor they were necessary to carry the window frame up above the roof line, as the roof angled backwards from the windows themselves. We frame gable windows the same way in modern houses, but not with so much ornamentation.

Look closely at the circled areas and you will see that each one is a quasi-human figure; these creatures are "supporting" the stone window frames. Here is an excellent example. I suppose it would have looked odd to simply have the frame end abruptly, and they could not be carried all the way to the ground. So, borrowing a theme from medieval buildings, the figures are "holding up" the frames, and they serve to soften the transition from flat wall to protruding window frame.

Below are thumbnails for a few of these figures; click on some of them and you will see how ornate even these relatively minor decorative touches are:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Exterior Ornamentation Detail

In this last section of pictures of the main house, I want to include some of the many pictures that Fred took of interesting stonework details. In the last section, you saw some of the supporting figurines at the base of the third-floor window frames. The same kind of thing was done with all the semi-circular ornamentation above the windows on the first and second floors. To show this, take a look at the picture below and notice that there are some figures right at the base of the arc above the window- just at the upper left and right corners. Then, look at the pictures below that, and you will see closeups of these figures (although not from this same window):

Finally, here are some miscellaneous views that really show the extent to which the outside of Biltmore Mansion was ornamented. It is this kind of work that would be almost impossible to duplicate today. This stonework, taken together with the woodwork and stonework inside the mansion, is what makes the current replacement cost of the mansion so hard to figure; work like we saw here might not be available at any price, but if it were, it would certainly be high.

One of the docents explained to us that, oddly enough, Cornelius Vanderbilt did not keep any accurate records of what he was spending on the mansion (perhaps for fear of becoming an envious target of his relatively impoverished countrymen or, on the other hand, flaunting his extreme wealth in his own exalted social class). The best estimates are that the mansion buildings cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $25,000,000 in 1895. Fred and I have run the numbers using inflation data from the BLS all the way back to that year, and, ONLY accounting for inflation and not for the scarcity of available artisans who could duplicate what was done back then, the current replacement cost of the mansion buildings would be over SIX HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS! Compare this to the fact that Bill Gates' Seattle mansion, one of the largest and most technologically advanced homes in the nation, was built in the mid-1990s for a reported cost of $44 million. You get the idea.

I hope you will take a look at each of the four excellent pictures we've chosen to illustrate the exterior ornamentation of Biltmore Mansion; just click on each of the thumbnails below to do so.

The Tour of the Biltmore Mansion

We'd taken about all the pictures we could, and so we went inside the main entry for the tour of the mansion itself. We thought about renting a couple of the audio headsets, but the brochure detailing the rooms that we would see along the tour route seemed adequate. To tour the mansion, one simply joins the queue of people that are moving snakelike through the huge house. I must say that the route laid out was ingeniously designed so that the line of people never had to cross itself or even double back on itself. This was made possible by the numerous hallways, doors and stairways (I think I counted five stairwells not counting the grand staircase).

My only problem with tours like this one is that when a line of people is moving slowly, as they were here in order to drink in all that they could or listen to their audio devices, and I have to walk very slowly as a result, my hips start to hurt. It's odd- I can hike up and down mountains all day without the slightest problem, but walking slowly in situations like this gives me fits. So, while Fred didn't like it, I took every opportunity to move quickly, even if that meant passing people in front of me. I didn't race through the rooms, mind you, but when I was moving, I moved as quickly as I could to get to the next place where I could stand and read the information in the guidebook.

The tour was amazing. It would be impossible to recount all that we saw; I would have to duplicate the contents of the guidebook to do that. Very unfortunately, photography was not permitted inside the mansion, and so we have no visual record of what the inside of the mansion looked like. If you are really curious, I would suggest that you go to the Biltmore Estate website; there are lots of pictures and a great deal of information there. I might also suggest that if you want a better idea of what the inside of the mansion looks like, rent and watch the Peter Sellers movie "Being There," much of which was filmed in and around the mansion.

We took the standard tour, although there were specialty tours available. One stop on our tour was the observatory on the third floor. It had a spiral staircase that led up to a platform on the roof where Vanderbilt or his guests could view the stars and the entire estate. One of the specialty tours involves a trip up on the roof, as the people in the picture are doing.

We covered four living floors and a basement. The basement held kitchens, stockrooms, a swimming pool, a fully-equipped gymnasium, ornate changing rooms and saunas, heating and plumbing systems and rooms for the staff that manned these areas. We discovered that the heating systems were primarily for water; almost every room in the mansion had a fireplace.

The main floor was occupied by the main library, the conservatory, three extremely large living areas, two small dining rooms and one positively cavernous main dining hall, a large ballroom and numerous sitting areas. On the second floor, there were mostly bedrooms, including the master suites for Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt and a large living room/sitting area between them. In addition, there were large bedroom suites for family members in the south wing, and a very large living area devoted solely to family. This living area included a library, game tables and the usual accoutrements of a typical living room. In the opposite wing bedrooms for guests and another entire living area. Both of the living areas looked down on the conservatory and music room on the first floor.

The third floor had yet more bedrooms (there are 37 altogether) and living areas, including a number of special-purpose rooms. These bedrooms were not nearly so ornate as those on the second floor, and most of them shared bathrooms (the mansion contains 43 of them). Finally, the fourth floor was devoted mainly to bedrooms for the staff- not only the Vanderbilt's staff but also the staff that guests might have brought with them. (You DO travel with your staff, don't you?) These bedrooms were very simple, and chamberpots were widely used. There were special rooms for sewing and repair work, as well as some simple living rooms. All this was under the roof, and the drawback was that there were relatively few windows.

It took us over two hours to tour the mansion and, at that, we probably saw only a bit more than half of all the rooms. I must say that touring America's largest private home was certainly an experience, and by the time we were done, we'd worked up quite an appetite for a late lunch.

The South Wing Arbor

When we came off the tour, we went over to the stables (more about them later) to have lunch in the most reasonably-priced of the restaurants there- the Stable Cafe. We found ourselves facing a 45-minute wait, so we collected our little notification device and went to take a look at the other end of the mansion.

We walked down to the south end of the mansion and, just before we came upon the patio and arbor, we saw a walled garden off to our left- which would be the front left of the mansion as you face it, parallel to the mall. It looks as if this part of the garden was designed for parties and other functions, and it also appeared as if one were being set up for in the near future. As we came around the south end of the mansion, we found ourselves underneath a trellised arbor which was attached to the mansion just above the first floor. All along the south side of the mansion there were French doors that could all be opened out onto the patio and underneath the arbor. The arbor was shady, but not completely covered, and there were benches and such arrayed under it.

Walking through the arbor and away from the building to the edge of the patio, a broad, raised, gravel and grass covered athletic area extended southward about 200 feet. I don't recall the guidebook talking about it, but I could imagine badminton or a game like that being played here (although why the entire area wasn't grass covered was a mystery). Once you emerged from underneath the arbor, you could look back and see the south wing and the many windows that looked out onto this area. If I remember the tour route correctly, there were living areas at the end of the building on the third and fourth floors that looked out this way, but very nice bedrooms on the second that had views to the south.

To the west of this athletic area, and down a few steps was another raised, gravel-covered area that offered expansive views out across the estate. Looking back east from this area, you can see once again the arbor and south wall of the mansion.

As you can see, the views from Biltmore Mansion out across the estate to the west are really incredible. After all, the estate covers almost 10,000 acres in what is now southwest Asheville, and contains working farms and forests, a winery and vineyards, numerous lakes and ponds, a lot of simple open land and, of course, the Mansion itself. A guest would be really fortunate to have a room on the west side of the mansion that would look off in this direction.

And the reason why the views would be so good for those guests and family can be seen clearly in this view along the west side of the mansion. The property begins to slope fairly steeply away from the "back" of the mansion, continuing to trend downward for more than a mile until it levels out, and there are no trees or other obstructions anywhere near the house itself that would hide that amazing view. Actually, in this picture you can see more clearly that anywhere else the five stories of the house itself, beginning with the daylight basement and working your way up to the staff quarters. And in the next picture, you can see the daylight basement more clearly. Arrayed along this side of the mansion in the basement were the kitchens (they were on this side to provide a much ventilation as possible, since if they were in the front of the building they would be totally underground), with the main kitchen being in the rounded area under the "turret," where were located a living area on the first floor, Mr. Vanderbilt's suite on the second, two large guest rooms on the third, and a staff living area on the fourth.

This was a beautiful area back here, and we stayed for most of our restaurant wait just admiring the view. Here at the west side of the mansion is a picture Fred and a closeup that he took of me. When we had about ten minutes left on our promised wait, we left the arbor area and walked back around the front of the mansion towards the stables and lunch.

Lunch in the Stable Cafe

As we passed back in front of the mansion on our way to lunch, Fred had me stop by one of the sculpted lions that guard the main entry. The stables (they were actually stables when they were built) are straight ahead through the porte de cochere. The stables now house three or four shops and two or three restaurants plus facilities for people visiting the mansion (43 bathrooms in the mansion and none for public use). In the courtyard in front of the stables (this area was originally for walking horses after use and making them ready beforehand, and then became a motor court for the many vehicles the estate maintained later on) there are tables and chairs for the folks who either bring a lunch or choose not to eat in one of the restaurants but at one of the take-away shops off the courtyard. It was a busy place, and although the lighting was very difficult, Fred took a picture of me and I took a picture of him.

The stables buildings were just as nicely detailed as was the main house, and the peaked gable over the main entry to the stables sported the only clock I saw all day. We went inside and back to the hostess desk outside the Stable Cafe and had only to wait a few more minutes before our notification device started flashing. We were ushered to a nice table right in the middle of what had been the central aisle of the stables; some of the old partitions were still in place, now separating booths of diners. Once we'd ordered and gotten our iced tea and bread, I took a picture of Fred in the Stable Cafe, and then a few minutes later prevailed on a lady at the next table who had her own digital camera with her to take a picture of Fred and I at lunch. Lunch was quite good (if a little pricey)- I had soup and salad (I could have eaten a bucketful of the spicy soup), and Fred had a barbecue platter with all kinds of different meats. And the bread was delicious.

After lunch, we prowled around the gift shops for just a few minutes and then head back south in front of the mansion again for our next major item- the famous Biltmore Gardens. On the way to the gardens entry, we passed once more by the formal walled garden and stopped so I could get a picture of a really nice sculpture and Fred.

Touring the Biltmore Gardens

Our Route Through the Gardens

Before we begin our tour of the gardens, I thought I should orient you as to the route we will be taking. We've had our lunch, and we've crossed in front of the mansion heading south. We'll pass by the walled garden and the statue you saw earlier, descend some steps, and find ourselves below the grade of the athletic area we saw earlier. On this side, we'll find that there is a stone wall, a trellis overhead, and some fountains.

Next, we'll come out from under the trellis, walk through the upper gardens, descend some more steps, cross the estate road (which has crossed in front of the esplanade and made a turn to come across between the upper gardens and the area of the main garden that has flowers and shrubs and then turns south again to pass the greenhouse and continue on through the estate), descend some more steps and then transit the garden in another trellis-enclosed walk.

When we get down to the roses, we'll detour through them so Fred can look at the varieties, then return to the main walk and descend the steps down to the greenhouse. When we are done in the greenhouse, we intend to walk down to the pond, but we'll deal with that in the next section.

Biltmore House through the Upper Garden

To begin our garden tour, we came south in front of the mansion and descended a flight of steps. This put us by the sculpture and walled garden. We came down another set of steps that offered an excellent view west across the estate and then another set of steps brought us to a level about fifteen feet below the level of the athletic area. Here, we could see that the athletic area had been constructed by first building a stone wall on its east, south and west sides, and then filling that in so that the athletic area was perfectly level. We didn't see the south and west sides, but on this side an overhead trellis has been built to offer shade, and there are some water features built into the wall. Here you can see Fred and one of the fountains built into that wall.

We turned eastward and walked through the upper gardens, and, as we got out into that garden, we could look back and see the Biltmore Mansion through the trees. We continued through the upper gardens to the top of a stairway that led down from the upper garden to cross the estate road and enter the main garden and here, too, we could take a look back at Biltmore Mansion.

The Flower and Rose Gardens

We descended the steps and crossed the estate road and found ourselves at the top of the main garden. The view you see at the right looks basically southeast across the upper right corner of the flower and shrub garden, with the gardener's cottage in the background. We could see some of the estate garden staff busily planting fall color, and I couldn't get the image of serfs working a seventeenth-century European estate out of my mind.

We then descended one more flight of steps and were now on the central walkway through both the flower and rose gardens. This walkway was trellis-covered and lined with garden mums, and you could look through both sides of the trellis out into the gardens themselves. Fred took a picture of me on the central walkway with the Biltmore mansion out of view now beyond the upper garden, and you can view that picture here. I returned the favor and took a similar picture of Fred, but this time looking south along the central walkway towards the rose gardens and the greenhouse, and you can view that picture here.

There were no pathways we could see allowing you to wander through the flower garden, but it wouldn't have done much for us if there were, because that entire portion of the garden had been emptied out as the estate makes the transition from summer to fall and winter. But when we got down to the rose garden, there were pathways among the roses, and some of them were still blooming, so we left the central walkway and wandered out into the rose garden.

Fred spent some time comparing the roses that they were growing here to those that he grows at home, and he found a number of similarities. While we were wandering through the roses, I got a good view of some of the roses and the greenhouse. We rejoined the central walkway at the top of the stairs down to the greenhouse, and I stopped here to take my one movie of the Biltmore Gardens- a 360-degree pan of the gardens, Biltmore House and the Greenhouse. The movie will give you a good idea of what the area was like, and you can watch that movie with the player at left.

The Greenhouse

We went down the stairs to the greenhouse and went through the main entry doors, decorated here for Christmas.

We found ourselves first in the part of the green house devoted to tropical foliage- lots of palms and trees. Fred took a picture of me in this part of the greenhouse, and you can look at that picture here. Fred was very impressed with the greenhouse (its hard not impress visitors, I guess, when you have millions of dollars to spend), and he found the three‑story windows pretty impressive. From the tropical area, we walked through a set of doors into the smaller, connected greenhouses where the flowering plants could be found.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

Together we took a great many pictures here in the greenhouses- most of them closeups of the various flowers and plants that caught Fred's eye. I am continually amazed at how many plants and flowers he can recognize although, on this trip as on so many others he continues to run across stuff he hasn't seen before, or varieties that don't grow at home. I don't pretend to know what more than just a couple of the plants and flowers are; all I know is that Fred takes excellent pictures of them, and so I would like to include all of his pictures (and the few that I took) here.

There are so many really good pictures that I've made it easy for you to go through them by putting them into a slideshow, rather than having you click on numerous thumbnails.

To view the slideshow, just click on the image at right and I will open the slideshow in a new window. In the slideshow, you can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to the next, and the index numbers in the upper left of each image will tell you where you are in the series. When you are finished looking at the pictures, just close the popup window.

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Walking the Biltmore Estate

After we finished in the greenhouse, we came back out the front doors and headed east towards the gardener's cottage and the pathways that would lead us through a small part of the estate to the pond a quarter-mile away. Here is a view of me looking west past the greenhouse. From the point where I was standing in the previous picture, I could get a good view of the rose garden and mansion. Finally, before we left on our walk down to the pond, I made a movie of this corner of the formal gardens, encompassing the entire garden, mansion and greenhouse. You can watch that movie using the player below:

Our goal on this hike through the estate grounds would be the pond that lay about a quarter mile south of the greenhouse. The tree‑shaded path led through the dappled sunshine and a well-cared-for lawn and forest. There were a couple of little streams (real or artificial, we could not tell), and, after a while, we emerged on the shore of a beautiful pond.

There were ten or twenty Canadian Geese swimming around, and while we were snapping pictures like made, Fred got the definitive shot of one of them, with the afternoon sun giving a golden tone to its actual grey, black and white feathers.

Standing on the shore of the pond, and walking out onto the wooden dock that had been built here was idyllic, and, as has been true of so many place we've been, we could have stayed a long time. But, finally, we had to head back. On the way, we took a slightly different route that had us criss-crossing the small stream. At one point, we heard a rustling in the leaves next to us, and went to investigate. Although the small creature ran and hid in some rocks, Fred was able to get at least a fuzzy picture of the woodchuck.

The pond was really a neat place, and perhaps the four pictures of the pond and us that I've included thumbnails for below will express better the calming nature of this spot. Take a look at the full-size pictures by clicking on the thumbnails.

We returned from the woodland hike about the way we'd come, passing by the gardener's cottage and entering the gardens again at their southeast corner. As we walked up the eastern side of the gardens, we could look back and see the greenhouse in the afternoon light, and we could look ahead and see the arched stairs that lead down from the upper gardens and across the estate road. And, as we went up those same stairs a bit later, we could get really nice views of the mansion above us on the crest of the hill. Each of us took a really good picture of the mansion, and you can view those pictures here and here.

As we came up to the retaining wall by the athletic area, we stopped at the same fountain we'd seen coming down, but this time Fred took the picture of me with the fountain. It was time for us to head on down to Charlotte, so we just walked out in front of the mansion and along the mall. Looking back, we could now see the mansion lit from behind, and, looking ahead, we could see the esplanade lit from the front- both exactly the reverse of what they'd been this morning.

It was a great visit to Biltmore Estate. Oddly, in all the years I lived only a couple of hours away, and in all the visits I've made back to North Carolina over the years, I'd never visited it. It was neat to finally make the trip, and all the more fun with Fred along.

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A Visit to Davidson College

When we left the mansion, we drove down past the greenhouse and then took the estate road all the way around the huge property, crossing by the pond, the winery and the Inn at Biltmore. The half-hour circle brought us back to a point just below the visitor center, and then we retraced our route out of the estate.

We were actually heading down to Charlotte but, since my college was on the way, I thought that I'd stop and show Fred what it was like, as I hope he will take me to College Station sometime. Getting to Davidson was easy. All we had to do was get back on I-40 East, and then, at Statesville, take I-77 South. Davidson has a couple of exits now; when I went there, I-77 wasn't even built!

We came into the campus on Griffith Street, and found a parking place on Main Street right across from the campus, as you can see in this high-level aerial view of the area. It's been almost 40 years since I graduated, and there have been immense changes in that time, both to the college and to the town and to the area. The biggest new buildings on campus are the new gym (east of the track) and the new library (the big building west of the track).

When we parked, we crossed the street and came onto the campus proper. It was about six o'clock when we arrived and it was already dark, so unfortunately I have no pictures from this particular visit. I've marked our walking route on the aerial view. We walked across the quadrangle and tried to get into Chambers Hall- one of the main class and administration buildings, but it was already locked for the night. We walked around the north side of it and headed down to the new Student Union, which used to be the gym.

Only in the Union did we see many people at all, it being the central, social gathering place. I chatted with a student who was manning the information desk while Fred looked around for a bit. There was a cafeteria, a TV area, reading nooks, DVD rentals- all kinds of stuff. I'd not been in this building before.

When we left, we walked past Watts Hall where I lived for my first year at school, and then around and down the lawn to Belk Hall, where I lived for my last three years, sharing a two-man room with Peter Guerrant for the junior and senior years. A student let us inside; everything is card entry now. Finally, we walked back to the car.

It was a quick tour, but enough buildings were lit up so that Fred could get a good impression of the campus.

Rather than go back out to the freeway and down to Charlotte that way, I thought it might be interesting for me to travel the route I used to take before the freeway was built- NC 115. It had entirely changed, and in many places the road had been moved. I had to call Ted to ask his advice on getting back to I-77. Once we did, then getting to his house was relatively easy.

Arriving at Ted's House in Charlotte

To get to Ted's new house, we traveled down I-77 to I-277, which is an inner expressway loop that's been there about fifteen years now. We took this around to Independence Boulevard- now Independence Expressway- heading southeast. Getting off at Wendover, we jogged over to Monroe Road and then zig-zagged into Ted's neighborhood.

Ted lives in an older neighborhood south of Monroe Road and east of Wendover, and this detail map shows you how one gets there.

Finally, this aerial view will show you Ted's house in detail. We arrived about eight to find that Ted had just gotten home from his job as a Charlotte policeman, and had taken his dog, Lucy, for a walk in the park right behind his house. Fred has met Ted before, of course, since both he and Jeffie and my sister have visited Dallas before. But, still, there was a lot to chat about both at Ted's house and when we went to dinner.

We were going to see Ted again tomorrow, so about eleven we headed off to the Super 8 Motel where I'd made a reservation. It was located in the southwest part of town, right off I-77. All we had to do was go around south Charlotte on Wendover/Billy Graham Parkway to I-77, then south to our exit.

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	November 7, 2007: Georgia/North Carolina Trip Day 5
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