Do We Have Everything?

The plan was for us to leave the house at 10:00AM to head to Biltmore for our vacation.

After the car was all packed with luggage and cooler and books, Lou suggested we sit for a minute and do a mental inventory. I ran through everything that I had packed and felt pretty complete.

Then Lou suggested we give Samantha the bone leftover from Lou's 22 ounce "cowboy" ribeye steak from Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, so I went into the fridge to get the meaty bone. Lou lured Sam outside, leaving me standing in front of the open fridge, fretting about whether I ought to throw away the leftover rice, chicken, and beans in there. Then I glanced one shelf up and saw my stack of clinical trial drug folders -- and realized with a start that I had not packed my drugs for the week!

That would have been awful, to have gotten all the way to Biltmore only to have to turn around and come home again. (I would have come home, too. I wouldn't want to miss even one dose.)

So I threw a folder of drugs (each week's supply of pills comes in its own folder) into the cooler.  Soon after that, we hit the road for a lovely four-hour drive.

We're listening to Dean Koontz's The Good Guy on Lou's MP3 player and really enjoying it. This one is particuly funny (and scary). We laughed out loud a bunch of times.

We got to the Inn on Biltmore Estate just after 3:00PM. Our high tea reservation was for 3:30PM.  Gosh I love high tea. Lou was a good sport and drank a freaky strong tea blended with chilies and chocolate, followed by a couple of cocktails ;^)  I stuck with a black tea, with hints of fruit.  Everything was wonderful, especially our waitress.  The scones were cherry and chocolate.

Just when we were contemplating our last few pastries, the fire alarm went off and we were gently herded outside. Luckily, we got a good spot under the portico because it was drizzling and windy.

Aferward we walked down the hill to see the Antler Hill Village (winery, shops, pub, farm). Here I am with the inn behind me.

Tomorrow we're supposed to have a thunderstorm and rain all day. We plan to tour the Biltmore House tomorrow. We have an audio tour. We saw that there is also a Behind the Scenes tour as well as a Rooftop tour!  If it is raining, we'll save the gardens for later in the week (Wednesday and Thursday are 'sposed to be sunny.)

I am feeling great, not tired at all.  My only complaint would be that my ankles and feet are swollen, itchy, and numb all at the same time. How can they be both itchy and numb?! It's just wrong.