Catching Up

Well, I warned you that the Festival looked as though it would be a busy time! It was a wonderful experience. The rest of the addresses by the keynote speaker were every bit as good as the first one. Good enough to move me to want to purchase his books about the Gospels (also titled 'Provoking') .... 3 pretty heavy books that had me debating how I'd get them home. But in trying to find a link for you, I discovered that a Canadian publisher (Wood Lake Books), not only had his books, but that they were considerably cheaper, and in Canadian dollars! When I also learned that they would ship them for no additional cost, I placed my order, and my books should be there ( I hope) when I get home. Well, if not this trip, then after the next one.

The rest of my workshops were excellent! I've learned lots, had the chance to use what I learned, and am wondering how this will play out when my sabbatical is over. Next year's Festival will also be at Ridgecrest, and you'll know how much I learned and enjoyed it when I tell you that I'm already thinking that I will be back!

Friday night I went to "Lighting the Fire", where for the first time we gathered around a fire pit instead of doing it in a circle inside. We needed the fire more for light than for heat, but it was fun.

Saturday's worship service was wonderful -- but then, all of the worship experiences were. Of course, on Sunday my novice group also had our first experience of actually 'telling' a Biblical story, so now I'm not actually a complete 'novice' any longer!

The Saturday worship was actually the grand finale of the Festival, and many headed out immediately afterward, going either to Charlotte or Asheville for their flights. My friend from Tennessee had arranged to meet me at Ridgecrest and picked me up and we headed into Asheville, home of Biltmore House and the estate attached to it. I just checked -- it covers some 8,000 acres!

We'd arranged a package that includes accommodation plus unlimited access to Biltmore House and the estate for the next five days. Wonderful!

I know it sounds excessive, but we've been to the estate twice and will be heading back a little later today. Included in our package was an audio tour, so we got to walk through the house with headsets, listening to a narration, not only about the rooms were were seeing (we visited some 51 of those!), but also with additional background stories. The tour of the house alone, with the help of the audio tour, took us around two hours -- and a lot of walking!

Also included was a buffet lunch at Deer Park Lodge which we enjoyed following our house tour. The estate is large enough to have shuttle buses that take visitors to the various sites on the estate, so after the tour we hopped on one of the buses and rode past the stop at A Gardener's Place (that's for today!) to Deer Park Lodge where we enjoyed a wonderful lunch.

While we were waiting for the shuttle to take us back to the parking lot (it takes the buses half an hour to circle the estate), we were treated to a very noisy thunderstorm passing overhead. Fortunately for us, there wasn't a lot of rain with this storm, and it was well over before the shuttle arrived to take us to our car.

We rounded off our day with a visit to a yarn shop (everything in moderation!), and then headed back to our hotel.

Today's agenda includes the gardens ....

I'm sure that you could visit everything at Biltmore House in one day, but you'd need to start early and just keep on going ... we've been enjoying the opportunity to visit a section, enjoy it, and then go off to do something else (or as on our first day, visit something else in Asheville and then visit the Biltmore). If you visit their site you'll have a better idea of what I mean -- the Estate is absolutely huge, and I cannot imagine trying to visit everything: house, farm, garden, winery, etc., all on one day.

And now I'm off to get ready for our visit to the gardens!