Tour Guides

We toured Asheville, North Carolina, Wednesday. Asheville is an interesting that a city that size could even exist nested in the mountains of North Carolina, cut off, in a way, from the hustle and bustle of other metros.

At the beginning of the tour the tour guide told us the set up:  There are ten stops on the tour.  At each stop she will tell you over the speaker what is so interesting about the stop, then open the door and you can leave the touring vehicle (what is that thing, a trolly?) and you can hop on the next tour bus, which will be alone in 30 minutes.  They had four buses operating.  She went on to say that that she recommended that you ride a complete ride without getting off, then take the next bus at the visitor's center (you have a little label on your shirt) and by then you will know what is worth your time getting out and looking more at.

Writers Thomas Wolfe and O'Henry were born in Asheville and both are buried in the same cemetary.  Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in Asheville for years because his wife was an inmate in an insane asylum* in town.  Charleston Heston lived there a while before he became an actor.  Their medical center is one of the top ten quality heart care facilites in the nation.  The place is riddled with George Vanderbilt's and Edwin Grove's contribution to the city's growth.

* Fitzeral's wife died in a house fire a the asylum.

We went took a second bus and stopped a the Grover Park Inn and studied its building and grounds.  It is one of the top 20 luxurious stays in America.  Why not see how the 53% of the people live?

After we were finishd with poking around the Grove Park in we dutifully did as we were told and wait for the next bus. 

Since the Grove Park Inn was about the first stop we got to hear the touring lectures of three different tour guides.  We learned, other than the facts we were told, that humans being humans, tell their own version of the facts.  The bottom-line facts are the same but the verbage on each fact differed sharply between each guide.  Each guide ignore some things and dwelled on others.  I think if we have an opportunity to take a tour like that again, it would be more educational to here the same facts from at least two or more guildes.