Visiting Downton Abbey

Remember last year when we surprised the ChickieNob on her floating birthday with a trip to see the costumes from The Crown? We did it again over winter break, this time with the set of Downton Abbey.

We told the kids we were finally seeing Foamhenge––an inexplicable, long-running desire––which isn’t even open in January. It took them about an hour past Centreville to comment that Centreville certainly was huge, at which point we queued up the opening music from Downton Abbey and announced we were going to Asheville to see the exhibit at the Biltmore.

This sounded like a fantastic idea when we first made the plans. Sure, Asheville is a little far from DC (about eight hours), but I was so pumped to see Mrs. Patmore’s kitchen that I thought the hours would just fly by.

That isn’t what happened.

It wasn’t that the ride was too long. I mean, it was too long, but that wasn’t my real problem. It was that we were going through the mountains, and I thought I was going to have a heart attack as we twisted up and down the Blue Ridge hills. By the time we got to Asheville, I was completely wrung out from holding my body in the same rigid position for six hours.

It was like that time when I freaked out on the mail boat to Smith Island because I realized I was stuck on the bumpy ride for 40 minutes. Once I realized I couldn’t drive the mountain roads, we were deep in the heart of the mountain roads. Which meant more mountain roads, even if we turned around. Which we didn’t want to do because we had Biltmore tickets.

The end of the story is that we made it to Asheville, we made it to the Biltmore, and we made it to the Downton Abbey exhibit, which made me cry at least five times. Especially the moment when I turned a corner and was facing the back stairs with the servants’ hall to the right.

After the exhibit, we toured the rest of the Biltmore, which is an obscene display of wealth…

…but also very pretty.

And then we had the trip back; a different route up the coast so we could avoid a bulk (but not all) of the mountains. The Wolvog already knows the date and activity for his special day because we needed his help to purchase tickets correctly. (“Surely, son, it doesn’t mean that we’re stuck in this e-sports arena for twelve hours. Oh wait, it does?”) So one floating birthday down and another floating birthday to go.