Spring and summer are around the corner, and today's podcast starts a series of days where my wife and I take you on our epic 19 day road trip from last summer.
Road trips are fun, adventurous, and inspiring, and on our journey, we made friends, mistakes, and laughed a lot along the way.
Our road trip took us through 16 states, 4 national parks, and 2 states parks. We stayed in gorgeous Airbnbs, a hotel 75 feet from the south rim of the Grand Canyon, camped in a National Park, and glamped in a luxury yurt.
We want to show you all the magnificent sites we visited, the most important items that we chose to take, all the while tasting some great coffee on our journey.
This episode is day 1 of our road trip visiting the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC.
Have you ever wondered what living in a French Chateau would be like? Well let your mind wonder as Cate and I take you to the largest home in the United States, the Biltmore House. It's as if we stepped into the French Renaissance Era for a few hours.
We hope you enjoy our adventures!
https://www.instagram.com/betterwithacupofcoffee/
https://betterwithacupofcoffee.com/
Spring and summer are around the corner, and today's podcast starts a series of days where my wife and I take you on our epic 19 day road trip from last summer.
Road trips are fun, adventurous, and inspiring, and on our journey, we made friends, mistakes, and laughed a lot along the way.
Our road trip took us through 16 states, 4 national parks, and 2 states parks. We stayed in gorgeous Airbnbs, a hotel 75 feet from the south rim of the Grand Canyon, camped in a National Park, and glamped in a luxury yurt.
We want to show you all the magnificent sites we visited, the most important items that we chose to take, all the while tasting some great coffee on our journey.
This episode is day 1 of our road trip visiting the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC.
Have you ever wondered what living in a French Chateau would be like? Well let your mind wonder as Cate and I take you to the largest home in the United States, the Biltmore House. It's as if we stepped into the French Renaissance Era for a few hours.
We hope you enjoy our adventures!
https://www.instagram.com/betterwithacupofcoffee/
https://betterwithacupofcoffee.com/
Hey guys. Welcome to Cuppa Connections. I'm Portia, and we're here coming to you from our virtual cafe, Better with a Cup of Coffee. We are savoring relationships with coffee lovers around the world and sharing their experiences that have been better with a cup of coffee. Hi guys.
Cate:Hey.
Portia:Here's my better half.. We're going to take you on a journey, and the journey is about our 19 day road trip, which was last year, last summer. I know. She gets all giddy.
Cate:I do. It was just amazing.
Portia:It was amazing. It's the 19 days that you never would think that you could have so much fun, be exhausted, and then wanna do it again. I mean, that's how I was. I know my wife was like, okay, I'm tired. No, I don't wanna do it again, but.
Cate:No, I do.
Portia:Yeah?
Cate:But did you, do but I wanna stay in one area? I don't wanna go here. Spend a little time here. Cause there's, we just didn't get the full feel.
Portia:No, we didn't.
Cate:But it was, it was okay.
Portia:It's okay. But, so this episode is, is just to give you the story to basically give you the journey of what we did, how we did it.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:uh, when we did it, how long it took, how exhausting it can be, how exhilarating it can be. It's, we started from our hometown, uh, Greensboro, North Carolina. And this was in the summer of JU in July, right?
Cate:Yeah july.
Portia:Lemme tell you what our, our trip consisted of. It was 19 Days of bliss driving from Asheville, North Carolina to Memphis, Tennessee, Santa Fe.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:Visited the Grand Canyon. We stayed in the Grand Canyon, we went to California, Southern California. We stayed there for four days. Then when that was over, we went up to Utah, and we glamped it. We,
Cate:That was pretty awesome.
Portia:We hiked in Zion, we hiked Angels Landing, which
Cate:She did the Angels Landing, not me.
Portia:Did you know that 15 people had fallen off that hike.
Cate:Well, there's like this much of a space
Portia:for real. I didn't
Cate:for people growing up and down all at the same time.
Portia:And she said, Nope, she didn't.
Cate:I said. Forgive me. I said, hell no.
Portia:She said she nope.
Cate:I was fine copping a squat on top of that mountain and looking down and while, while she was hiking, I saw some hawks and whatnot flying around at my level, was amazing. And then,
Portia:She said coppen a squat.
Cate:Well, yeah, I was happy doing that.
Portia:Oh my God. So anyway,
Cate:And then I got to put a squirrel, a wild,
Portia:Do not touch the wild animals. See, don't nobody don't, you don't. Don't go off of her example. Please don't. This one, she loves to touch the donkeys. They're wild. One, almost in Aruba. One was in heat after this girl. Okay, I'm gonna tell you about that later. But that's another, another day in another podcast. Yes. You weren't there, you weren't paying attention. I was in the car. And next thing I know I see(sound of donkey's penis rising), You didn't?
Cate:I didn't see that.
Portia:Yeah, see, so don't touch the wild animals, because that's what she does. She just, oh my god. Love the animals. And the animals love her too ok. Anyway. Going back to our trip, babe.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:So after Angels Landing, we go back, this was all in one day we drove to Bryce Canyon, which was an hour and a half away. We camped there. Then from there, the next day it was called that night. It was called that night.
Cate:Oh my God.
Portia:The next day we drove to, starting from Bryce Canyon, we went through Moab. I wanted to show her that. And we drove along the Colorado River.
Cate:That was awesome.
Portia:That was awesome. And then we went to Colorado. There were some hiccups in Colorado. We'll tell you all about that. We We went to Breckenridge Ridge, Colorado. Breckenridge, Colorado. Then we went to, Denver for three nights, and then from Denver we went to Amarillo, Texas just for overnight stay, and we stayed in Austin, Texas for two nights. Then across from Austin, we went to New Orleans and we stayed there for one night and we were back in Greensboro and that took 19 days. It was crazy. We saw four national parks. We went into hiked four national parks, two state parks. We just had a ball. But today is about the day one part of our trip. Our first mission was to get rid of our dog.
Cate:That sounds awful.
Portia:Not like you. Not like that.
Cate:Oh my goodness.
Portia:But the dog had to go on a vacation just like I did. Just like, and I say I, cuz she, you know, she works and you know, this is my wife. She takes care of all of us, but
Cate:I do my best.
Portia:Yes. But we had to put the dog in the doggy daycare, so we took the dog to the daycare the day before and we were all set. So we start from Greensboro, we drive all the way to Ash Ashburg, Asheville. Thank you Asheville. because we wanted to see the Biltmore.
Cate:Mm-hmm. never been.
Portia:Never been. But we want it to. The Biltmore is, uh, an estate. It's on 8,000 acres.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:It's in Asheville, North Carolina.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:in the Great s Smokies.
Cate:Great Smoky Mountains.
Portia:Right. And they have their own little community, right?
Cate:They do. They're, they really do.
Portia:It's like even outside of the Biltmore when you're driving up, you see this, uh, shopping area and the restaurants there. This like this, uh, Swiss Chalets and. And even the McDonald's looks like a Swiss Chalet. It's so adorable. And you don't have to go anywhere in Asheville if you don't want to because it's all there in around the Biltmore or inside the Biltmore.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:So we both wanted to visit the house. We didn't stay in a hotel there. Uh, we wanted to spend our monies elsewhere. So we, I got tickets to the house and that was$89 for that time. And it's different, um, it depends on this time of the year. Mm-hmm. like during Christmas they have the, the world famous lights there. So it's a little bit more, sometimes even in the summertime they have art exhibits that you can pay more to see. Um, in the hotels, I think they have four hotel. Um, there, and they're different tiers, you know, uh, four stars and some that are, um, a little bit less than they have, uh, a vineyard on the property and, and so forth. Um, but we wanted to see the house, so we're driving on up to the house. Well, first of all, when we get up to the gate, right, it's this archway. It's like this, this building, and. Archway, it's so beautiful. And then you go through it and you eat. We go to the left and we meander around the park, the, the paved way and next to the river, and then we're out at the parking lot. Now you have a choice to either walk to the house, which is like a quarter of a mile, right?
Cate:No, it's not long.
Portia:Not long at all. Or you can, uh, take a shuttle. We hoofed it.
Cate:Yeah, we did.
Portia:It wasn't bad.
Cate:Being on a bus with a bunch of strangers.
Portia:She doesn't like strangers.
Cate:It's not my cup of tea. I'm just gonna leave it at that.
Portia:Okay. We'll leave it at that. Well, you walk through the forest a little bit.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:It's a paved trail, right?
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:And then you see like there's a light at the end of the tunnel. I remember going up there and, and to the left, there is, like this wall, and then to the right, that's when you see the big yard and then you see
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:the house in the back.
Cate:Mm-hmm. It was, it was, it was beautiful.
Portia:Did you know the house is 175,000 square feet. It's, it's large, y'all. It has,
Cate:It is a big house.
Portia:250 rooms total. Uh, it has 35 bedroom. It has 43 bathrooms. It has 65 fireplaces. It has 75 informal and formal gardens created by the world famous Frederick Olmsted. And, then it has 22 miles where you can hike; plus other stuff, carriage rides, horseback rides. Um, you can even, I was looking at, you can take bicycle rides, you can, um, do a Land Rover. Ride. You can rent a Land Rover and drive. Yeah, I was looking at all that stuff for us to do. So we got our tickets, I got the tickets, and you have to schedule your time.
Cate:Mm-hmm because they, because of COVID, they only allow a certain amount of people in at, at a time.
Portia:Right. But if you are not there, you have to be there 15 minutes in advance.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:And if you don't make that time, They won't let you in. You don't get in. We made it. We were hustling though. We
Cate:God and some people aren't that great with time.
Portia:What are you talking about?
Cate:My, my thing is
Portia:Occasionally.
Cate:You show up on time, you're late.
Portia:Oh.
Cate:Oh. I like to show up 15 minutes early. That's on time to me.
Portia:Look at her. Oh, with her blue, green eyes, whatever. So anyway. We get in and they give us, what is it? It's like a, a radio or, um, a recording.
Cate:Oh, yeah.
Portia:Do you remember that?
Cate:Yeah. Yeah.
Portia:And so you can go through and tour.
Cate:Each section has a number, and then you can hit the number and then it'll talk to you about the history and what that, what each section is about.
Portia:What each section, each room is about.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:I think the first one we started was the billiards room, right? Okay. Yeah. The first one was the billiard. No, yeah. The first one was the billiards room, and you just see every room is different. Some are small, intimate, some are large. The, the living room, the lounge is large. The, the music room, the library room. Oh God. The music room. The library.
Cate:Mm-hmm. Um, the dining room.
Portia:The dining room.
Cate:Like three fireplaces.
Portia:Was it three fires?
Cate:I believe so.
Portia:Oh my God.
Cate:Unless my memory is.
Portia:Girl, your memory is shot like mine, but we're still going to try and recollect for these folks. So the, the table in itself, God, 30 for 50 people at least.
Cate:Something like that,
Portia:right?
Cate:Yeah. Big table, big chairs.
Portia:Oh my gosh. The backs of these chairs, but everything. See, George Vanderbilt loved the Renaissance era, so he wanted the house to be like a, a Renaissance chateau, a French Renaissance chateau. So inside the interior design, the um, architecture was of the French Renaissance era, the furniture, antique furniture. Now it's antique, but back then, um, it's
Cate:High class stuff.
Portia:It was highfalutin as my wife says.
Cate:Highfalutin.
Portia:Highfalutin. So, so each room we go to, it tells a story. But what I love about it is, is that because we each had a, a recording, a device in our hand, we could go on our own way.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:and everyone I know for me, I don't know about how it was for you, but I kind of felt, because I had this in my ear and I was hearing about the history and the people that were there, I felt like I was a part of it.
Cate:Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Portia:And it took me back to that era. It was almost like, wow, this is my house. What? You know, this is so cool. I'm just walking through my house. This is awesome. So we go through that part of the tour, right?
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:And I'll never forget when we come downstairs. And you remember that big chandelier? It's a circular chandelier. The, in the middle of the house.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:It's from the top to almost the floor. And everybody, this is like an Instagramable moment, right?
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:Everybody's underneath it and, and all this stuff, and, and you're like, is this it? Do you remember that?
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:You're like, is this it? I was looking at you like how disrespectful you cow. I mean, yes, it's enough. It was a lot.
Cate:I just wanted more. I wanted to play on the pianos.
Portia:Mm. Well, you know what? We got more so from that chandelier. You remember I saw these people walking by and going around the corner.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:And I was like, well, what the hell's going on? And then we followed them and the next thing you know, we're going to another part of the house. But it's like you're going to the basement.
Cate:Oh, yes.
Portia:You remember that?
Cate:Yes.
Portia:And you go down these narrow steps, and I tell you, I was touching from one hand to the other. I could touch the walls.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:And so you go down the steps and then you go around and did you notice that the temperature changed?
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:We were in the cellar. So we go around and it was the, the coolest tunnel. It was, it was like a, um, it was a tunnel. It was made out of stone It was almost like a wine cellar or something, I don't know. And so you go around and then you come to this room. And it was called the Halloween Room. You remember that?
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:Yes. The halloween. She's like, uhm,
Cate:Oops.
Portia:Well, I'm gonna tell you, the Halloween room is not about Halloween. And so in the middle of it, then you saw it had various, um, boards of. How the house was built and it's talked about the construction and, and and so it was really nice to get that detail. Now, you know, we can Google everything.
Cate:Oh yeah.
Portia:But at least it was there for us to read and to, to all be in one same room. Mm-hmm. So when we finished doing our Instagramable moments and reading all of the history, then we go out and I can't remember which was first, but I think we started going into sort of like the play areas. Like do you remember the bowling alley? There was a bowling alley. Mm-hmm. God,
Cate:I remember the pool.
Portia:God, the pool. So you go to,
Cate:It was ginormous.
Portia:It was ginormous and, and there was no windows.
Cate:None.
Portia:None. So you go to the bowling alley and that was long. And then you go into another room and I believe, and it was like a coridor.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:Do you remember where they had those? Um, the changing rooms?
Cate:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Portia:And there was glass there. And I think that was just for show cause I can't imagine anybody changing it and just, you know, showing everybody the world, uh, their goods.
Cate:People do it.
Portia:So it had People do it. It was like an old fashioned, changing room, but what our modern changing rooms are today. And then they had the gym. It's like they had every piece of equipment there. Um, and then they had the pool and the pool was nothing but white tiles. Yeah, I remember that. And it was deep. Of course, it didn't have any water in it.
Cate:Wish it did.
Portia:But it was, oh, I think everybody wish it did.
Cate:Mm-hmm. because that would be a fun pool to swim in.
Portia:It looked deep too.
Cate:Mm-hmm. It was.
Portia:Was it?
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:I'm not the swimmer. She is. I'm almost drown three times. And I'm just like, no. Mm-hmm. It's not happening again. Yeah. But anyway. And she hasn't taught me, but this, you know, I digress.
Cate:I tried.
Portia:No you didn't.
Cate:I have tried.
Portia:We don't have a pool for me to.
Cate:But you sink.
Portia:Well, yeah.
Cate:You're too dense.
Portia:It's the hips and the bootey okay. Anyway, so we go, we're almost finished, but then we go through the service quarters and we go through the staff and uh, staff quarters. We see these tiny rooms and then we see the kitchen. Mm-hmm. Um, we see
Cate:It's all very interesting.
Portia:It is. You know what was interesting to me though?
Cate:What's that?
Portia:How the food got to the people. Do you remember the shoot? And how it was by the China cabinet cuz you know you love China Cabinets. Old.
Cate:I do.
Portia:Old stuff. She's the antique one. I'm the modern one.
Cate:I love antiques.
Portia:Yes. You should see our house. Bless us.
Cate:I've gotten rid of a lot of stuff. Anyways.
Portia:Yeah. So the food, the, the staff, they make the food and then they put in the chutes and they send it to the big room where it has what, 30, 50 seats in it. And then that's how they get down. That's how they eat, that's how they party, you know, all that stuff. So we walk around, we see the dry storage, we see the cool storage. But one room that was interesting to me, and I don't know if you remember, it was at the very end. Do you know which room this is?
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:I don't know why you have one and you want two or three. It was the gun room. I know, but that, that was interesting.
Cate:I forgot about that.
Portia:Because I've never seen something so elegant before, that was a gun room. The walls were dark green.
Cate:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Portia:And it is like the wood was a dark wood, but then the trimming was, was black. And they had the um, antique furniture, but they were like these plush looking leather seats, these big seats. So, I was thinking to myself.
Cate:Oh oh.
Portia:I was thinking, it's so strange cuz that was the last room of the tour, right? That's when you finished that room and then you hand your recorder off to the people and you go outside. So I was thinking to myself, that doesn't make any sense. Why would they have a room right there? But you know what? This is when I had to have my coffee. Don't look at me like there was a.
Cate:I'm waiting for you to tell me what.
Portia:So this is when I had to have my coffee cuz I hadn't had my coffee all day. Right. Oh, I know. It's like the bear comes out of me.
Cate:Boy does it.
Portia:Okay babe. But I realized where we got our coffee from, that was the carriage house where mm-hmm. the horses would go.
Cate:Mmm,
Portia:the outdoor seating area?
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:and where the restaurant is, I think there were like two restaurants, one indoors, and then they had like a little cafe. There was the, the Biltmore Dairy Bar. That's where we got our ice cream milkshakes and our coffee.
Cate:That was a good milkshake too.
Portia:Yeah. We're gonna get to that, but that's where they had the horse and carriage. That's where the stables were. So it makes perfect sense because at that point, the Biltmore estate was on 125,000 acres back in 1895. You know, and they went hunting a lot. So it made sense to me, and I thought about it. I was like, I was like, yeah. So what they would do, um, they would pick up the guns, go get the horses. and then they would do their hunting, come back, and then they would drop off the guns right there at their room. Mm-hmm. So it was so convenient.
Cate:That is convenient.
Portia:Why don't you lemme know that? Mm-hmm. Okay. Anyway, so, you know I gotta talk about coffee, right? Absolutely. And I needed some, so I said it. I don't care what we have to do, but mama needs some caw caw. Found a coffee shop and it's called a Biltmore Dairy Bar. Mm-hmm. Now there's significance to the Biltmore Dairy. I don't think you know that. Do you? I'm gonna tell you. So, the Biltmore Dairy back in the day was this prize entity that George Vanderbilt, he created and it was the breadwinner for the whole estate. Hmm. They had these prize cows, New Jersey cows. The New Jersey Cow produced some of the best butter. The best butter, apparently. The best cream, the best milk, and they, the Biltmore Dairy, they were known for their ice cream, so they created these fleets of trucks and they dropped, they, you know, dropped off their products. But then what happened was is that the markets, like the supermarkets back in the day, they started, um, growing and that's what ended that business, and so PET bought them out, but mm-hmm. I actually contacted the Biltmore Estate, and I wanted to know about the coffee. I wanted to know a little bit more, so She was the manager of the food and beverage departments in, on the, the estate grounds, and she told me that they have their coffee specifically made for them. It's a blend that she wouldn't tell me what it is,
Cate:Of course not.
Portia:Of course not. But anyway, so it was devine.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:I went up in there, it was hot as hate. Well, no, it wasn't hot. It was actually cool. So I,
Cate:it was chilly.
Portia:It was chilly. I wanted some coffee and next thing I know I'm looking over at her and she's like, she's got this Oreo milkshake in her hand. And she's like a, a, a cow just sucking it down. Yeah, I said it
Cate:Oh my god. So divine.
Portia:That's your thing. Your thing is Oreo anything and all. I didn't even, I didn't even hear. I, all I heard was, oh my God, I i.
Cate:Yes.
Portia:Oh god. So at that time, I had already ordered my coffee and I was like, I'm fine with it. I want a drip coffee and I want it strong, and that's all you need to do. But then I see you and then I hear you. No, I hear you first, and then I see you, and I'm like, all right, fine. I'll just, whatever. I'll just do what the Romans do. What is that saying? When did Rome do what the Romans do. All right, so I get my ice cream. This milkshake is a, um, it was a Coffee Caramel Crunch.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:Oh my God. And I was like, I was like, oh my God. It was divine. But what I like about it is when I got that. We were able to sit down in the courtyard mm-hmm., and it was so beautiful because we were right by the house and you get to see the outside of the house and how, you know, I saw the what the gargoyles at the top, you know,
Cate:Those are cool.
Portia:The copper, you know how it turns that green?
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:and, and the design just, it was a castle. It is the largest home in the, our country.
Cate:I didn't realize that.
Portia:After that we decided to take a, a walk around the grounds. But what was so cool was that it started raining unfortunately, but, and it kind of, I guess, made people not wanna go. And walk the grounds, but, and we were the only ones out on the trail for the longest time.
Cate:It was kinda scary.
Portia:It was kinda scary?
Cate:Yeah. I mean, the only one out there, only ones out there.
Portia:She didn't tell me that. I was in bliss. I was in heaven.
Cate:I mean, it was cool.
Portia:But it was cool because we just, it was, it was true. I mean, we were out there by ourselves for, for a long, long time. And then we get, we go across the street cuz you know, the, the whole estate, you can drive around the estate to the, to the house, to the hotels and all this stuff. So we went across the street and we went through the, the trail and then we find ourselves in the middle of a bamboo
Cate:Oooooooh.
Portia:Circle. It was weird.
Cate:It was weird, but I, I don't know. I just have the strange fascination up for bamboo. I, I love bamboo. Yeah. And it was big. It was like,
Portia:yeah, those, I mean, it was, it was a circle that, it's like somebody designed that, I don't know if Olmsted himself designed. Stop. But do you remember how we could go in? We found different entrances in exits. Mm-hmm. and then it was a huge circle, and all of a sudden you just are right in the middle of this circle and all this bamboo is just like
Cate:all around you. Yeah. How's that again, like. Oh my
Portia:God, it was awesome. Mm-hmm. and then we, we were done. We left, but I wanted to see the gardens. So our very last part of the, our tour was we went to see the greenhouses.
Cate:And they were, they, they had some beautiful flowers.
Portia:God, it was nice. I was like, what, three or four of those greenhouses side by side.
Cate:Mm-hmm. And it had started raining at that time.
Portia:And yes,
Cate:Thank God for the greenhouses.
Portia:Yes. And then,
Cate:it was kind of a chilly.
Portia:It was chilly for in the middle of summer. It was mm-hmm. 70 degrees, but it was raining and, and that was the thing about the road trip. I had checked the temperature for the, You know, tried to spread it out 10 days and see what the temperature was gonna be like. And I knew it was gonna be cold, colder, and raining in Asheville. Mm-hmm. But then I also knew that our second day was gonna be in Memphis, Tennessee, and they were hitting record temperatures. It was in the nineties every day. So it went a 30 degree increase. So we had to equate for that. But, we finished up with the greenhouses and the gardens and we really couldn't see the gardens like we wanted to. Yeah, because it started raining like cats and dogs, so we loved honey. He was like, okay, we've seen enough. But it lasted from 10 in the morning to about when we got to the hotel, it was about four o'clock.
Cate:Yeah.
Portia:And then we checked in. But that's the thing, there's so many things to do in Asheville, North Carolina, first of all.
Cate:Of course.
Portia:Right?
Cate:Oh yeah.
Portia:You don't even have to go into the estate. There's so many things on the outskirts.
Cate:Asheville is awesome.
Portia:Asheville is awesome. You know, Asheville is like a miniature, little town from Colorado.
Cate:Hmm.
Portia:I mean, I used to live in Colorado. I went to school in Colorado.
Cate:And, I went to school with the mountains of North Carolina.
Portia:Hello?
Cate:And spent some time in Asheville.
Portia:Okay. This was your stomping grounds. This was before me, y'all.
Cate:It was.
Portia:Oh, okay. That's for another episode, babe. Keep it together. Keep it together.
Cate:I'm trying.
Portia:We go into the hotel, which is the Holiday Inn, but I'm scouting the area because I like to leave on a road trip before the sun rises. Mm-hmm. But I would love to have a, a road trip coffee beforehand to get it started. It was cool. It was a Starbucks, a drive-through Starbucks, and you can also go in, it was right there in the parking lot. It was so convenient. But what, what was so great.
Cate:Those people, the, the employees.
Portia:Oh, they were nice.
Cate:They were, they were
Portia:awesome.
Cate:They were sweet.
Portia:Yeah. They were awesome. And that makes a trip, right?
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:I mean, you, you don't have to spend good people Wait,
Cate:Good people.
Portia:Wait a minute. Good people.
Cate:Good people.
Portia:You don't have to spend an arm and a leg in order to have a good time. You just wanna be safe. You wanna have, it's where, it's a clean place where you can lay your head and you can recharge and leave.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:I don't know about you, but the one thing that I thought was one satisfying moment was at the very end when we got into the hotel, or before we were checking in, I thought, and you, I think, I don't know if it was me or if it was you, I was like, let's pull out the crate, the cart. We got all of these things before we left. Like we got a cart that you could take on off-roading, uh, places or on the beach on sand. We got a five gallon inflatable, um, water contain water container, which was priceless. We got some two filtered bottles and got them from Walmart, which that saves you a lot of time and money. Those things were so priceless. So you can buy these filtered water bottles from Walmart. I think it was probably like 20 bucks. And it saves you so much money and so much time. And the five gallon. It's wonderful.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:I just filled it up when I at home and it lasted for, for days. And you don't have to buy the expensive water in each state in each gas station. But then this cart was,
Cate:it was the shiznit.
Portia:It was the shiznit.
Cate:It was so helpful.
Portia:It was because, you know, normally you would have to, I don't know, even if an overnight stay, a lot of times people like to take out all of the luggage and, you know, they'll forget an item, so they'll have to go back, well, this, you don't have to. Mm-hmm. it's, you just unfold it. And you pack everything you need. We had a, some big bags, and then you roll it in there and it's, it's not loud. It's, it's a nice looking cart. And you know, normally you'll, if you go to a luxury hotel, you'll have the bell bell people and they'll take your bags up or what have you on their cart, or you'll have to wait for a cart. But in this case.
Cate:We had our own cart.
Portia:We had our own cart. And from that moment, it, it was like a stamp of how things were gonna be done on the road trip. We took our cart into our Airbnbs. We took our cart when we were camping to our camp spot because
Cate:The tint was heavy to carry.
Portia:Oh my God. The tint was huge.
Cate:And so was that big old bed that we.
Portia:See, she had to have an inflatable bed.
Cate:I can't sleep on the ground.
Portia:No. We have to discuss this on about the road trips because there's some things that changed on the road trip really quickly because health reasons, you just gotta go on the fly.
Cate:Yeah.
Portia:Sometimes you gotta go on the fly.
Cate:We're gonna invest in a, in a little camper that we can tow. So we can have our own bed at all times.
Portia:Yes. But until then?
Cate:We gotta make due.
Portia:Still, then we got a camp. We got glamp. We gotta stay hotels and Airbnbs like we did on the road trip. Mm-hmm. So this is the end of day one, but I have to say it was amazing.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:by the way, I forgot to tell you guys. If you ever want to venture out into downtown Asheville, and if, if especially we ha you know, we have coffee lovers that listen to this podcast. I forgot to tell you, there are some other exceptions, or notable mentions. First of all, there is Grind. It's actually the first black owned coffee shop in Asheville. It's in the Art's District. There's a double Decker bus there turned into a coffee shop. Then you've got Malaprops a coffee shop slash bookstore and it's still there. People know about Malaprops because it means it meant so much to Asheville back in the day. Um, and then there's Bebettes. Now I've been to Bebettes. Um, Bebes is a little slice of New Orleans. They, um, serve like sandwiches out of Beignets. That's what we have for the Asheville and the day one trip. But stay tuned for day two because it is a tricky one. That drive honey.
Cate:Hmm.
Portia:The day was spectacular. Have a great day guys.
Cate:Bye guys.
Portia:Bye. I'm Portia White, and I hope you've enjoyed today's conversation. I'd like to give a special thanks to our sponsors betterwithacupofcoffee.com and peeztees.com. If you want to be our guest on our show, email me at cuppaconnections@gmail.com. And if you like what you heard, please rate and review our podcast. And, join us again soon on Cuppa Connections.