Biltmore Dreams

Today is the old man's birthday and how do we celebrate? Oh, you know, by touring and wine tasting at America's Largest Home! I'm talking about the Biltmore Estate, of course. I had never been before and I have to say that my mom was right - I love it! The architecture, the opulence, the sheer size of it all! It's spectacular! And even though it was our first gloomy day here in Asheville, it was a great day to tour the Biltmore.
The complimentary audio tour was great because we got our to hear some wonderful history about the house.  As we walked the grounds outside and took the tour inside, we tried to imagine just how awesome it would have been to be a guest here.  Imagine the parties!  Imagine all the fun to be had on the ginormous grounds!  The property used to span 125,000 acres and today, it covers 8,000 acres - the rest is part of Pisgah National Forest.  GINORMOUS!!
I would love to come back when the sun is out and all the flowers are in bloom.  The gardens would be a spectacular sight, I'm sure!



1-The Biltmore House / 2-4-Statues on the property / 5-In the wine cellar / 6-One of 10 in existence, a 1913 Stevens-Duryea / 7-Biltmore architecture / 8-Mrs. Vanderbilt's room, I believe... / 9-Creepy cat doll in one of the gift shops / 10-The Winter Garden ceiling

The Biltmore is a pretty magical place, I'd say.  There are pretty neat things going on there.  Honestly, if I were wealthy, I might try to rent it out for a week for my family or something!  Or I'd rent it out for an entire day for a private tour with their best guides, chefs and sommeliers.  But it'd be in the warmer months, of course!  Or maybe even Christmas!  I'm sure it's crazy beautiful around Christmas time...

Anyways - onto phase three of the old man's birthday: dinner!  Phase two was lunch at Rosetta's Kitchen. Their vegan chili is wonderfully spicy and delicious!  I highly recommend it!

Happy Monday!

Childish Gambino

I had technically waiting for last night's performance since December (when I originally bought my tickets).  There was an injury that postponed the original show date in March to yesterday and let me tell you - IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT.
I'm talking about the Childish Gambino show
Holy crap - I've never had so much fun!  And I'll admit my hopes were a little low when we were standing amongst bratty, teenage white suburbanites in line.  In the rain.
All of that aside, the show was AMAZING - although the opening act was not really my bag.  His beat man was tight but the performer was okay...
ANYWAYS - I felt a tiny bit out of place since *GASP* I don't own Camp just yet and it was the Camp Tour BUT I had my fingers crossed for some Cul-De-Sac stuff and that wish definitely came true.  I admit: I had a bit of a contained crazy moment during I Be On That (since that is my ultimate Gambino track) so that was definitely a highlight.  The other highlight was a short performance of Cashin Out.  I was NOT expecting that.
It's a bit of a joke with J and me since I was playing him Spend It and he said it sounded a bit like Cashin Out so now we'll text each other those tracks randomly.  But I think I win this one with Gambino



The energy was great, the old man and I got great seats, there were lots and lots of strobe lights and THE BAND WAS AMAZING. Don't get me wrong - I love me some Donald Glover but his band was INCREDIBLE. Where on Earth will you see a guy go from playing the keyboards to a violin to a guitar to a floor tom in one show? And on the other side, the guitarist went from guitar to keyboard to floor tom and the bassist went from bass to synth to floor tom and back again. WHAT.  And the drummer hopped off the drums for a minute to hype everybody up.  It was AWESOME. I tried to get video but I was having way too much fun (sorry!). I have a bit of the performance of Freaks and Geeks mainly because I liked how the lyrics were flying in on screen.





But look how energetic this kid is. And this was earlier in the show! So much fun!

My favourite is all the comments I'm getting in the Tumblr-sphere about this photo


Sounds like it's funny that there were lots of white kids there.  And Donald himself was like, "I know the answer to this because I'm in my hometown but, are there any black people here?"

ANYWAYS - all of that aside - it was an amazing show and I had a great time.  I hope he comes back again real soon!