We were having dinner and spending the night with our daughter-in-law’s sister and her husband and only had a couple of ‘quick’ stops to make on our way back to their house in Charlotte. We left Asheville at 10 and made our first stop at the The Cove – The Billy Graham Conferene and Training Center.

We wanted to stop here and see the Chatlos Memorial Chapel. We had watched a couple of Bill Gaither Homecoming Concert shows that were filmed there.

The property comprises 1100 acres and contains the chapel with a large meeting room suitable for conferences or retreats in the basement and a prayer room upstairs, several clusters of lodgings buildings for those participating in events on site and the large Training Center that has a 400 seat auditorium, dining room and information and collections display in the lower level.

We thought we would check out the chapel and be on our way in about 20 minutes but we were there a couple of hours.

The steeple was supposed to be 65 feet tall but Ruth Graham said it was not tall enough so they made it 87 feet. It was lifted in place with a huge crane.

The pews are over 200 years old and came from England.

All of the chandeliers in the chapel and the training center were made by a local female blacksmith.

The Training Center was a short distance up the road from the Chapel.

The displays in the lower level contained much information about Billy Graham’s life, family and ministry, as well as info about his son Franklin and grandson Will who are both continuing in ministry. There were display cases of many of the small gifts and mementos that Billy Graham had been given on his many, many travels. As a young man his new wife Ruth said, “You have been called to evangelism. I will keep the house, take care of the kids, and support you in any way I can.”

In 185 countries and territories over 210 million people have heard Bill preach in person the love of God.

We drove through a bunch of winding back roads to the Mountain Gateway Museum at Old Fort.

Inside were many information boards and displays about the area, especially the construction of the Western North Carolina Railroad.

On the museum property there were two cabins that had been brought to the site from other locations. The Morgan Cabin was dismantled and then reconstructed. The Stepp Cabin was brought as a whole building on a trailer. The Morgans raised 10 children in their cabin.

By the time we left the museum it was after 3 o’clock and we had a two-hour drive ahead of us to Charlotte. It is Memorial Day weekend in the states and traffic was quite heavy as we approached the city. Thankfully the worst lines were the ones heading out but we were still much later arriving at Anne and Mike’s than we planned. She had made dinner reservations for 6 o’clock, but we were about 15 minutes late. Sorry about that.

We had a lovely dinner and a great visit later at the house. They have two dogs so I was happy. It was a good ‘dog’ day. We met Gus – an Australian Sheepdog – in the Gateway Museum and Peanut – a long-haired dachsund/long-haired Chihuahua mix as we left. And Anne and Mike have two Standard Poodles – Hilo and Kona. Days with dogs are always the best days.