Asheville, North Carolina: A Marriage of Baseball & Tourism

Asheville, North Carolina was "the vacation destination for northerners and southerners alike". Tourism wasn't the only attraction the city held.  The nation's national pastime was about to be revived in the city with the arrival of the Asheville Skylanders in 1924.  Tourism and baseball joined together when the team was renamed the Asheville Tourists.  The city also brought in those afflicted with disease when tubercular installations were added.  The grandson of hotel owner Edwin Grove said that in 1905, Asheville was almost like a "leper colony".  As Grove began construction on his inn in 1913, he bought several tubercular sanitariums and burned them down.  However, others remained open, the last closing in 1930.

City planner Nolen believed that Nature should lead the way.  In 1922, he proposed a circle of parks around Asheville, including a park on Beaucatcher Mountain overlooking to the city.  Nolen's forward thinking plan also suggested a subway between Park Square and West Asheville.  He pointed out a practical site for the city's.  He sketched out major transportation routes keeping in mind that the plan could take decades to implement.  The Great Depression did put a thorn in the side of Nolen's plans.

Today, the Asheville Tourists still play at McCormick Field, built in 1924.  two of Nolen's lasting legacies are  Lakeview Park and Beaucatcher Park, two sites where modern day tourists can stroll just as their counterparts did a century ago.

Lakeview Park, Asheville, North Carolina courtesy http://www.greatamericancountry.com/places/local-life/great-neighborhoods-in-asheville.

Frozen Facts

After seeing the Frozen production at Hollywood Studios in Disney World, Rob and I decided it was high time we watched the movie.  We loved the story and the music, especially the song "Let it Go", which was written in only one day.  Here are ten facts you may not know about the runaway hit from last Christmas.

1.  Elsa, the queen of Arondale, was originally supposed to be a villain.

2.  The names Hans, Kristoff, Anna and Sven are a tribute to The Snow Queen author Hans Christian Andersen.

3.  Walt Disney wanted to make a movie based on the short  The Snow Queen, which inspired Frozen, since the 1940's.

4.  Since the movie frozen was released, Elsa and Anna have become popular baby names for girls.

5.  Fifty different animators worked on the scene in which the ice palace is built.  The production team visited a hotel made of ice for inspiration.

6.  In March of 2014, two Boston firemen sang "Let it Go" to a little girl trapped in an elevator to calm her down.

7.  The painting in the palace gallery is a representation of Jean Honore Fragonard's The Swing.

8.  Limited edition Frozen Anna and Elsa dolls have been selling for $10,000 on eBay.

9.  Olaf references Bert's penguin dance from Mary Poppins when he performs "The Summer Song".

10.  Online searches for flights to Norway have increased by 153% and tourism in Norway has drastically increased since Frozen premiered.

11.  Frozen is the highest grossing animated film of all time.

12.  Because of her braid, Elsa has 420,000 CGI strands of hair, 10 times the amount of Rapunzel.

13.  An actual reindeer visited the studio to serve as inspiration for the character of Sven.

14.  The longest single frame in the movie took 132 hours to complete.

15.  The animation team created a snowflake generator program to build 2,000 different snowflake designs.

Source:  "54 Things You Never Knew About Frozen"
at http://www.buzzfeed.com/javiermoreno/frozen-is-awesome#.xpKQDjJqw.

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