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Wednesday November 17, 1999

We went to Asheville, NC last weekend. We decided to go on Wednesday, made reservations, and then left on Friday, which was fun. Our main reason for the visit was to see the Christmas decorations at the Biltmore Estate. We had gone there about a year ago (there are pictures here from that visit) and really enjoyed the visit so we decided to go again now that they're decorated for Christmas. We had a great time again and I'll eventually get some pictures from that trip posted here after I finish that roll of film.

When we got to our hotel on Friday evening we watched a little television and I eventually decided to go to bed. Ronda sounded a little surprised but she was tired too. It was 10:30. The next morning I heard Rachel stirring and she asked if it was morning. I looked at the clock and said no, not quite yet. That wasn't entirely true, but I was hoping to buy another half hour of sleep. Well, that worked, and 30 or 40 minutes later Rachel and I got up. Ronda asked what time it was, and I looked at the clock and said that it was 7:15. She asked if I was going by the hotel clock and I said that I was. Only then did I learn that the clock was still off by an hour from daylight savings time and that I had actually gone to bed at the early hour of 9:30 pm. I am apparently such a slave to clocks that I'll go by anything they say no matter what my body tells me.

Our other funny thing that occurred last weekend was that we lost our van for a short time. After we arrived on the grounds of the Biltmore Estate we were guided to a distant parking lot and took a shuttle bus to the actual mansion from parking lot C. The bus driver clearly told us where to get on the bus when we wanted to return to the lot and I made sure that I remembered that we were in lot C since we had never parked there before. So we spent our time in the house, ate, walked around the newly restored greenhouse, looked at the mountains, and had a great time. Then we found the bus pickup area, rode to lot C, and got out. No problems so far, the lot looks familiar, and we both agree that yes, our van is over here. Unfortunately it wasn't. So we walk up and down the side of the lot that we expect our van to be in and can't find it. Rachel is exhausted at this time. I'm gamely pushing the lock button on our remote key chain thing hoping to make the van honk, but the remote has a limited range and I don't hear our van at all. By this time Ronda and I are extremely perplexed when I finally grasp that the shuttle bus probably entered the parking lot from the opposite direction that we did in the morning and that our van is therefore on the opposite side of the parking lot. So we dragged Rachel to the other side and voila, there's the van. We felt bad for Rachel that she was saddled with such dimwitted parents that day.

At some urging of a couple of people, I've been entering my name for "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" but have had no luck getting my name randomly drawn for stage two of the entering process. Stage one of the process involves getting past the busy signals and then correctly answering three questions where you place things in the correct order. I've had some luck doing that on four occasions but haven't moved on to the next step. Come on Regis, give me a call!

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