Beer and Ice... How Nice?

Pictured above is my home away from home - Biltmore House!   For over 11 years now I have been working at Biltmore; designed by renowned architect Richard Morris Hunt; he designed the base for the Statue of Liberty.  This big castle is my office.  I spend my day moving from room to room talking to people, who are on vacation, sharing my vast knowledge about the Estate and the Vanderbilt's with our Guests.  Basically I help people enjoy their vacation while keeping the spirit of Biltmore alive. Lately the topic of conversation is the weather.  This week we are setting record temperatures for Western North Carolina and most people are freezing their butts off and cannot stop talking about how miserable it is and posting pictures of the weather forecast on facebook.  The other night it was -4 degrees with a wind chill of -26.  Honestly it wasn't that bad, the only difference was that my face stung in the wind and the heater ran nonstop.  This morning on my way into the office I noticed that the Swannanoa river was frozen over.

The three mile drive up to the House is called the Approach Road.  Designed by the father of landscape architecture in America: Frederick Law Olmstead; I consider it his masterpiece, although he is most known for designing Central Park and the Capital Grounds.  So, I decided to pull of the road and take these pictures of the river frozen over, which does not happen often.  The most amazing part was the crunching sound the river made as water pressure was pushing the ice into itself and the banks of the river.  Several people have asked me whether I rode my bike to work in this cold weather or not... My cutoff is usually in the 25 degree range; although on Thanksgiving it was 21 degrees with a windchill of 14 (when I arrived my water bottle was full of slush).  Today I was punked by Steve who works in I.T.  This older guy is an old school rider; rides in blue jeans with sneakers and a sweatshirt!!  I passed him on Amboy road this morning on his bike.  I have had the opportunity to ride with him once or twice as I was passing by on my way to work too.  At 10 degrees this morning was a little out of my comfort range, but I am all set to go tomorrow morning; hopefully it will be 27 when I leave.

While in the big House I decided that Bryan's picture of Biltmore from yesterday was awesome, so while on my first break of the day I set out to create my own ice photo of Biltmore.  Pictured on the top is Biltmore House through the front fountain iced over.  Bryan's photo is slightly different in that he took it in the afternoon where the house was in shadows.  My co-workers got to witness me literally running around (without a coat; maybe I was cold as well) to take these awesome photos of the House in ice.

For lunch today I had a yummy can of soup.  Some one left a container of Cheezy Poofs on the table and after a couple samples I realized that they made some really tasty crackers for my soup... what fun!

After work I went home and got changed for a run before dark.  Luckily Megan was able to make it home in time so we could both run together.  We had a heat wave of 38 degrees today and were eager to take advantage of the warmer weather for our first run together this year!  We noticed that the days are getting longer since we have passed the darkest day... the winter solstice on December 21st.

After a delicious dinner of London Broil (on sale) and sides we headed out to Lowes to buy the parts needed to redo my Mom's old lamp that Grandma bought her as a gift back in 1980... I remember the shopping experience very well and have fond childhood memories of this lamp on Easter, since it has the perfect cavity to hold an egg; we keep a purple plastic one there year round now.  After Lowes we stopped at the Thirsty Monk for a taste of some of their collection of bourbon barrel aged beers on tap this week.
My favorite was Belgium Imperial Stout (Russian Imperial) from Thirsty Dog Brewing.

Beer is definitely my one of my weaknesses.  I can't wait till I finally have the time to put my Christmas gift to work and brew my own beer.  Megan gave me an Imperial IPA kit for my first beer!  Yeah, I sampled one of those tonight as well!  A triple IPA from Greenflash Brewery called Green Bullet.  Some day I hope my beers taste better than the ones I savor! Still can't decide which I liked better... ahhhh, both!