Keeping Up with The Joneses

By Mike Jones

Loving the Appalachian Mountains like I do I decided the family needed to make one more trip to the mountains this year.  This time it was going to be a little different.  For one thing Barbara and I were not going alone.  The other part was we were going to try out our fifth wheel camper.

The Jones family recently purchased a fifth wheel camper to pull behind an F-250 that we already had.  Since my wife has fully retired from teaching, we have put our heart into traveling. Maybe not far but at least traveling.  We have decided that there are plenty of places near home that we should check out first.

On this adventure we decided to relive a trip that Barbara and her family had embarked on some 50 years earlier.

We have on numerous occasions pulled out the old 8mm movie film that her Dad, Ed Rudisill had shot of his family as they were growing up.  The dance recitals he had his children re-enact on the front steps, the trips to the beach and the family reunions all had a place in our hearts.   All these events were special and some very funny, but one always caught my attention for a special reason.  Let’s say it had the Scarlett O’Hara effect.

Picture this, a family-  father, mother, two daughters, and one son all dressed exactly alike.   My mother-in-law Bobbie Rudisill had gone to the Dora cloth shop and found some material for 25 cent a yard and proceeded to make outfits for her entire family that was still living at home.  The two older daughters were spared because they were in college.  Then as fate would have it they were able to display their outfits on a family vacation.  They were able to go see Rock City which is located near Chattanooga, TN.

Being the nostalgic person that I am, I suggested that we too embark on such an adventure and to make it complete we should invite others of the family to go along.  Sister-in-law Alice Rudisill Dellinger  said she loved the idea but was going to be very busy at work, and brother-in-law Eddie Rudisill had some surgery thing-a-ma-jig he was doing  to a patient.  Neither could spare a few days to relive an adventure from the past.  One member of the family said she would love to go and even travel with us in our camper.  Yes I’m talking about my mother-in-law.  She’s almost 81 but in her mind she’s still 35. Being an experienced camper from years past, maybe her expertise would come in handy since Barbara and I were actually novice campers.

One experience I was not going  to agree to ,I was not going  to wear an outfit that looked like the curtains from Tara.  Although  their outfits were quite fetching  for 1959 I didn’t feel that in 2009 that  they  would garner the same applause.  I did agree to matching  jeans and sweatshirts, a little more on the conservative side.

Rock City and Ruby Falls have long been a roadside attraction in mountains of the southeast.  Anyone who is at least 50 years of age can remember the brightly painted barn roofs that dotted the landscape of the early roads we use to travel before interstates.  It seemed every farmer that had a barn near a major highway advertised the attraction you had to see. “ SEE ROCK CITY” brought curiosity from anyone  who saw these signs so frequently.

Rock City itself is an unusual site to see.  It shows how the Appalachian Mountains were indeed shaped after a glacier from the Ice Age trimmed the tops of the mountains.  It also shows that large mountains can crack and leave beautiful formations for all to see.  The history and beauty that Rock City does have to offer is something to behold.  Like Chimney Rock and Grandfather Mountain, Rock City is not man made.  That in itself makes what you see pretty remarkable.

If you enjoy exploring  the natural wonders of the world, instead of a theme park,  then you definitely need to visit Rock City and Ruby Falls near Chattanooga, Tennessee.

What’s Up with a Day Trip

By Michael S. Jones

Taking a weekend trip to Asheville over Labor Day was a great mini vacation for my wife Barbara and me.  The trip involved checking out the historic  views of Asheville.  Having gone to Asheville and surrounding areas many times over the past forty years, for business and pleasure, we decided to make this trip a little different.

Living close to Asheville you sometimes think let’s pack the car with the kids and run up there and  back and cram all the excitement we can in one day.  Actually I learned  this great way of experiencing mini vacations from my father, the truck driver,  who took us to a lot of places but never let us slow down enough to catch our breath.  To his defense he did have four sons two years apart in age.

Fast forward  to 2009 with Barbara and me deciding a trip to Asheville would be a nice change of pace if we let ourselves change the pace.  No looking at our watches and making sure that we had to be at a certain location and certain time.  We would just take a leisurely ride up the mountains and check out the sites.

Our first stop was to be the Biltmore House.  Arriving there around 10:00 am Sunday morning I noticed that  there were significant changes from the last time I had visited the Biltmore House 20 years earlier.  No longer was there the simple guard house where they took your tickets and directed you to the front of the Biltmore House to park.  Now they have a very large welcome center with facilities to watch a small movie about the Biltmore House and explain the history and expansions of the Biltmore Estates.

Now the Biltmore experience is a much more involved tour than the tours I remember from the past.  They have gone to great measures to make your experience  more pleasurable.    You have the opportunity to take a self guided audio tour that is well worth the experience especially if you enjoy learning the historical aspects of the Estate.

They also have very good facilities to dine at the estate, and shops that  enhance your stay whether it is extended or just a brief outing.   The one ticket price includes the very extensive tour of the house, gardens and winery.

Be prepared for a much longer tour than tours in the past, because they have opened  up many  rooms and areas that were not accessible in years past.

The gardens at Biltmore are always awe inspiring. It is amazing to see how the rich lived in the past and we owe a great debt to the Vanderbilt family for making it possible for us to experience it in a small way.  The grandeur of this estate is really a world treasure, not just a national treasure.