Jennifer and I took a trip at the end of October to the Blue Ridge Mountains and Asheville, NC. I gave a presentation at a conference, so we turned a business trip into a weekend getaway to celebrate my birthday and our anniversary. Thank you to Nana and Pappy who came to our house and took care of the kids. Here is a recap of our trip.
Wednesday we flew from DFW to Charlotte and rented a car for the 2 hr drive to Asheville. At the advice of the rental car clerk, we stopped in Shelby for some bbq at Bridges. The scene was a blast from the past and the food was pretty good too.
Soon, we were on our way to the mountains. Here they are in the distance
That evening we checked into our hotel and went downtown for some dinner. We did a little shopping while we waited for our table at Tupelo Honey Café. This food was outstanding. We split the meatloaf.
Thursday I had breakfast with a colleague and then attended the first part of the conference and gave my presentation. Later we headed out for some exploring. We split a burger at Juicy Lucy’s. It was good, but not the best meal we had that week. From there, we headed to an apple orchard in Henderson County for some traditional fall recreation.
The weather was beautiful and it was a nice setting with views of the blue ridge mountains
Apple picker extraordinaire
From the orchard, we kept it going at Chimney Rock State Park. It was a nice park, although overpriced and over developed. Here is “Chimney Rock”
We climbed the stairs
And enjoyed the view
After we climbed up chimney rock, we took a short hike to see Hickory Nut Falls.
That evening, we took the scenic route back to Asheville, had some yummy pizza at Marco’s, and then saw a movie to cap off the night.
On Friday, we waited in line all day—I mean we visited Biltmore. It was a very impressive estate, but we were not prepared for all the people. Here are a few pictures from our visit.
We had lunch at the Stable Café and ate in a horse stall. The food was surprisingly good.
After lunch, we took a short visit to the Antler Hill Winery and Village, did the wine tasting and bought some wine to drink in the hotel. After a short rest, we went downtown for dinner. We ate an early dinner at the Early Girl Eatery, a strong competitor for the best meal we had on the trip. We had the local mountain trout with mashed potatoes and greens, which was outstanding. After dinner we did a little shopping, explored downtown, and watched some street performers, .
We had a strange interaction with an elderly gentleman while we were watching this group of drummers. After this, I decided that Asheville was like an eastern, non-adobe, bigger version of Taos.
We had so much fun at the movies the night before that we decided to see another one on Friday night.
On Saturday, we had breakfast at Tupelo Honey Café. Jennifer had the sweet potato pancake, and I had the shoo mercy omelet. It was intense. It had fried green tomatoes, bacon, ham, jalapenos, and pimento cheese. I couldn’t finish it all. We told ourselves we needed a big breakfast to fuel up for a hike, but it wasn’t really true.
Then we hopped on the Blue Ridge Parkway and enjoyed some fall foliage. It was neat because it was mainly green at lower elevations, peak color a little higher, and then beyond peak towards the top.
We hiked Mt. Pisgah. It was a nice trail, but very busy. We chalked it up to a Saturday in the fall during peak foliage and enjoyed the weather.
The view from the top. You can’t see it but there was a huge, imposing tv tower on the peak that really took away any notion of being in the wilderness.
Selfie from the parking lot. That is Cold Mountain in the background.
The drive back was beautiful
That afternoon, we did some shopping in the Biltmore Village Historic District. It was a neat area where the shops were in old homes
Then we went back downtown and did some shopping and browsing in the boutiques. Asheville has a much bigger downtown than you would expect. That evening we ate at Farm Burger, and then headed back to the hotel and watched a football game before calling it a night.
On Sunday, we had breakfast at Louise’s Kitchen in Black Mountain. We ate on the porch of a Victorian style house turned restaurant with a view of the mountains. The food was delicious.
Then we drove back to Charlotte and caught a plane back to DFW. Pappy cooked steaks for my birthday and then we had chocolate cake. The perfect way to end the weekend.
3 comments:
Seems like a very fun trip! Glad y'all had the opportunity to do it.
I LOVE Early Girl. I had the best crab cakes I've ever had when I ate there. I still dream about them and I tried to talk Steve into revisiting Asheville just so I could have them again!
What a fun trip and beautiful location! Y'all don't look a day older than the day you got married. :)
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