An Indulgent Day

Indulgence is all relative. To some, our day yesterday was a mere walk in the park, to others it may have been extravagant. Call it what you will, but to us it was deliciously indulgent, and slightly extravagant.

Backing up a day before our indulgent day, I think I mentioned that I had taken Friday off since I had already worked 60 hours by Thursday and really wanted to have an extra day off with Paul before he starts work. On Friday, we headed out in the rain to go just to the post office to see if they had the Yoda stamps that Paul wanted for his Star Wars collection, but by the end of the day we had gone to 2 consignment stores that sold antiques, a garden shop, hardware store (to look for parts to construct a traveling spinning wheel), McAllister's for lunch and the bike store to check on the status of my bike. Other than lunch, we didn't buy a thing, which was good. My bike's getting serviced because as of Monday I'm riding my bike to work. Paul gets to take the car since his job is faaaarr away compared to mine. It was a great day and we love the rain.

I had to include this picture of Paul dressed for the rain on Friday, complete with his plastic hat cover made for cowboy hats (I've never seen one, though, have you?).

When we got back we quickly dressed and went out to the apartment complex Halloween party to see if we could meet some neighbors. We met a few, but it was mostly kids and parents playing with their kids. We watched the kids, ate pizza, chatted a bit and came home.

In case you couldn't tell, I dressed as Wednesday from the Addam's Family and Paul went as "The Crow."

Ok so back to our indulgent day. Our plan for yesterday was heading to Asheville for the Southeastern Fiber Fair (Paul was kind enough to come along for this) and to the Biltmore Estate to spend the rest of the afternoon there. I was planning on taking Paul to a nice dinner to celebrate his new job and so thought the Biltmore Estate would be a great place especially since we got annual passes last time.

We packed a picnic lunch, hot chocolate in our travel mugs and we were off. The kitchen was a disaster, but we didn't care because the day was for us and not our kitchen! Asheville is about 2.5 hours away and we got lost since I was the navigator, and the driver I might add.

We finally got to the fair and it was fabulous! It was sensory overload seeing all the booths set up and the folks spinning, weaving and all the things for sale- oh my! We met the gentleman who designed the Fricke drum carder, saw the "Fricke Finest" in action, and met many angora rabbits and llamas too.

The rabbits... I feel like one of the rabbits here in my pink and with my bunny face on.

The booths... always plenty for sale!

The spin-in where you can plop down with your wheel and meet other spinners while you spin...

The fleece judging of fiber from alpacas, llamas, sheep, rabbit...

In case you think that this looks like a pelt (skin and fur), a fleece is merely the hair from an animal getting a "hair cut". The animal still has it's skin and is fine and healthy after the ordeal.

The stars of the show!

As we were winding down and about to leave, we saw a traveling spinning wheel that a lady was selling. She has 6 wheels and is trying to downsize and so was selling off some of her fiber stash, wheels and miscellaneous spinning trinkets. This wheel is the infamous Hat Box wheel by Louet which was made years ago and has not been made for years. It's now a collector's item I think, as I had heard about them quite a bit when I was a part of the Greater Los Angeles Spinning Guild. Now, I have to admit that it isn't the prettiest wheel out there, but it is small enough to take on a plane as a carry-on and it will be much easier to bring with me in the car with all my field gear when I travel for work. Plus, it is such an ingenious design with simplicity at the heart, that it is just dang cool! Anyway, we spent most of the rest of the afternoon giving it a test-spin and deciding whether we could afford it or not. Pleased to say, we came home with it.

All buttoned up in it's hat box case

2 seconds later, it's ready for spinning!

After we left the Fiber Fair, we had some tense moments trying to get to the Biltmore Estate. The map we got from the internet led us to the wrong location and after a phone call to the estate we finally found our way. The traffic was really bad in Asheville, and it was not fun at all driving through there. Two separate people shouted out the window at me that I can't drive, or "Is that what they do in California?" since we still have our California license plates on. I guess people in Asheville don't like U-turns because that's what I was doing both times when I got shouted at. Anyway, we got there slightly ruffled and nearly late for High Tea that we were scheduled for at 4:30. They said they'd wait for us until 4:45 and so we were running up the steps to the Inn and we made it there by 4:40. We were treated like royalty once we got there, though, and so we were relaxed in no time at all.

Paul was really looking forward to this since last time he had High Tea was at the Empress Hotel in Canada, coincidentally the last place where I had High Tea! Grandma and Grandpa took me there when I was about 10 and Paul went to the same place with Mum when he was in his 20's. This was just like how it was served at the Empress, complete with the British traditional English cucumber sandwiches, scones, clotted cream, lemon curd and all that good stuff.

I had a mint herbal blend and Paul had some fancy black tea concoction called Assam Goldleaf.

After tea we went for a walk down to the Biltmore Winery for a tour and for Paul to do some tasting. Along our walk we saw a wedding taking place at sunset.

After the wine tasting event, we had our dinner at the Bistro, also on the estate. It was good food, but I think the ambiance of being on the estate is what you pay for.

What a day! We began our drive home at 10:30 and had to swap drivers a half hour into it because I was really fighting to keep my eyes open. Luckily Paul was wide away and so I nodded in and out of sleep the whole way home. This was a day to remember.