Our family spent spring break visiting Asheville, North Carolina, and it turned out to be somewhat of a literary tour for me. As always, I’m drawn to anything related to books, and so I wanted to share with you my fascination with George Washington Vanderbilt’s astonishing library in his former personal home, Biltmore Estates.

The library contains over 10,000 books, although we learned that Vanderbilt’s original collection contained over 23,000 volumes. He was an avid reader and book collector, and our tour guide said Vanderbilt was once known as “the best read man in America.” Wouldn’t you have loved being one of his guests? Biltmore is known as the largest home in America, with over 250 rooms, including 43 bathrooms. (My children were particularly interested in that detail because we all have to share in our house. No fair.)

I was completely in awe, and my oldest daughter and I had to tour the house two days in a row to make sure we didn’t miss anything. If you have a chance to visit, I highly recommend that you spend the extra $10 to listen to the audio tour. It’s worth every penny if you love stories, and Biltmore is a home full of stories! We especially loved hearing tales about the lavish banquets and house parties. The house originally opened in 1895 for a Christmas Eve party.

Behind the library’s chimney, on the second floor, is a secret door and passageway which Vanderbilt designed for the use of his guests. This allowed them to slip downstairs, perhaps in their nightcaps, and select a bedtime book to read without having to descend the grand spiral staircase in the center of the home. How thoughtful!

Many of Vanderbilt’s guests were writers, including Henry James and Edith Wharton. On the ceiling is a painting by Venetian artist Pellegrini, entitled, “The Chariot of Aurora.” I really could have spent a week in that one room alone, though of course visitors aren’t allowed to touch any of the books. Still, what a place to dream.

Our second literary stop came as a bit of a surprise because I got so caught up in the glory of Biltmore and the Blue Ridge mountains, I didn’t do enough research before the trip.

While there, we discovered that Asheville is the homeplace of author Thomas Wolfe, whose famous novels include Look Homeward Angel, Of Time and the River, The Web and the Rock, and You Can’t Go Home Again. I haven’t read any of these books, but I’ve now got Look Homeward Angel on reserve at the library because I’m so curious as to what caused such a stir in Asheville when it was first published in 1929. It was autobiographical, based on his life in a boarding house called “Old Kentucky Home,” where he lived with his mom and their boarders (pictured below).

We visited the Thomas Wolfe Memorial, which showed a wonderful short movie about his life, as well as exhibits that included Wolfe’s desk and typewriter from his apartment in New York. I was struck by how uncomfortable his chair looked, imagining him sitting there for hours a day, composing his novels and short stories. His editor, Max Perkins at Scribner, also worked with Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

We were sad to learn that Wolfe died 18 days short of his 38th birthday — so he got all his life’s work done by age 37. Amazing. I found it interesting to note that Thomas Wolfe was born in 1900, the same year Cornelia Vanderbilt was born at Biltmore, only daughter of George and Edith Vanderbilt. (She had quite a big house to ramble around in.)

Having fun yet? OK, our last stop on this brief literary tour of Asheville is only a temporary one. We visited the CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG exhibit at the Health Adventure Museum at Pack Place. If you have kids, you must visit this museum, especially on a rainy day (like we did). We spent about four hours in that place, all thoroughly entertained. My older kids and husband spent the entire time upstairs in the Mindbender Mansion doing all sorts of brainy exercises, while my 5-year-old daughter and I hung out with Clifford.

What fascinated me most about Clifford is that I never thought much about Clifford as a character in literature. Yet there was a small exhibit about the book’s author, Norman Bridwell, and I’ll never look at those books the same again. His first Clifford book was published in 1962, and there are now over 160 titles in the series, with over 100 million copies in print. I think I’d consider him a successful author!

My kids, at various times, have all loved the Clifford books, and his big red dogness has helped me many times keep my eyelids propped open during late night story reading. We enjoyed watching a little movie about Norman Bridwell, who is an older man now, talking about how his drawings came to life. The setting for the Clifford books is the island of Birdwell, based on the author’s home at Martha’s Vineyard. PBS created the television series based on the books in 2000. Any parent of a preschooler will be able to recognize the sound of Clifford’s theme song coming on TV. (That’s when we all jump in the shower, right?)

I entered the world of Clifford and spent a happy time playing with my daughter, who will one day tell me she’s too old for Clifford books. I know this because it’s already happened with my four older kids.

Traveling with five children is an experience itself. My husband and I like to use the term “educational field trip” because the vacation really begins once the trip is over. But it was worth it.

I hope you enjoyed my little tour. I think I’m out of breath now.