My Trip

I was looking through my pictures and realize I didn't take shots of a lot of cool things. There's always next year, right? But what I do have, I just don't know what to post first. I guess I'll start with what I photographed first. This picture is taken at the entrance to the Spa at the Inn. I love the way it looks and the sound for the water rushing over is musical.
It is 10 stories, to walk to the Inn. We walked down in about 3 minutes rushing to lunch. You can't see the wings of the Inn in this picture but they jut out on both sides.
Here's the hallway to get to the elevators you walk down when you leave the cafe. It was taken at 10:30am, so the lights were very dim. These huge rocks have flecks of quartz on them. Also hidden are geodes of amethyst. Don't have any pictures of the geodes.
Here's what's painted on the elevators. A very simple ginko leaf design.
If you have never been to the Grove Park Inn, the lighting is just amazing. Here's 2 shots of the ceiling lamps that are in the lobby.This lamp is huge and notice the stenciling on the ceiling, just like the elevators but this time it's roses.
The glass panels aren't what was originally in the lamp. These are for up lighting and I don't know the reason why they added the panels later. Possibly so they cast light down too? They are made out of copper if you can't tell and are about 6 feet by 6 feet.
Another cool lamp that is huge, is this stained glass ceiling lamp in the Blue Ridge Restaurant. They serve excellent food but take reservations up to 3 months in advance so it's hard to get a table, unless you like to eat at 8pm. I highly recommend their sea food buffet. It's 2 rooms full of food and it's delicious.
Here's a picture from one of the wings and you are looking at Asheville. The GPI is built on sunset mountain so every evening you have the best views of the sky. Unfortunately there is construction going on , so ignore the floating ladder image. You can also see part of the golf course and the spa. This image is of the spa and is not well liked among a lot of purists of the Arts and Crafts movement. Many parts are underground and the light can only be brought in via skylights or inside lighting. I think they don't like the harshness of the pyramids and the sparse vegetation. When we were there, signs were posted that NC was going through a drought. So I can understand why they didn't go crazy with the landscaping.These paths go from the Inn to the Spa. The tents you see were for an Oscar party event for the locals. We were packing up on Sunday night and the people going to this event were all decked out like they were going to the Oscars. Men in tuxs and the women all decked out in fancy dresses. Seemed to be a very big event!