July 14, 2016

Serendipity 3 and Carl Sandburg Home

Heading down the freeway south of Asheville, NC we saw a Point of Interest sign (Used to be that brown signs indicated National Parks and such.  Now it can be almost anything.) that intrigued us.  Parked the carbus, did some shopping, and then drove back a few miles.  At the end of a wide, curved, brick paved entry road we came to a large brick paved parking lot sitting next to this:

You can see why we were intrigued.  Facility is less than two years old.  Very clean, upscale feel.  Much like classy, expensive wineries but they make beer instead of wine and there are no vineyards.  The name?  Brewery started in Chico, CA and home base is still there.  Never know what you’ll find.

South a few miles to Flat Rock, NC and home of Carl Sandburg.  Did not know what to expect but found it very educational and enjoyable.  Many sites like this are presented a ‘The house where so and so grew up / lived / etc.’  The name of this NPS site is Carl Sandburg Home and visiting here is very easy to feel like home instead of house.  250 acre farm in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.   Grassy hillsides separated by stands of trees with ponds at the base of the hills.  Beautiful view.  Mrs. Sandburg used to say they bought 250 acres of land and a million acres of sky.  The main house was built in 1838 and upgraded to ‘modern’ standards when the Sandburgs bought it in 1945.  Mrs. Sandburg raised goats.  Not just any goats.  Prize winning, world champion class goats that produced milk in record amounts.  About 100 yards from the main house is a still functioning goat farm populated by descendants of her herd.  The dairy function is gone however.  Visitors are free and encouraged to walk amongst the very people friendly goats.

We got there a bit late in the day so had to hustle through much of the docent staffed spots.  It would be very interesting to spend a day there learning about both the Sandburgs and exploring and studying the whole farm.   Have to mention how impressed I was with the very esthetic but very effective methods of erosion prevention used throughout the farm.  Ask me some time.

House from base of open hillside.

This beautiful pond is created by a flagstone dam across a creek.