One city: Five Breweries, 30 Roller Girls, One Drum Circle

There are a few points along our trip that we really look forward to. Asheville, NC is one of those stops. It's a funky, bohemian city of 70,000 tucked into the western hills of North Carolina. In the 20's, Asheville was the summer spot for the Carnegies, the Mellons, and the Vanderbilts. George Vanderbilt had his Biltmore Estates constructed in the 1890s - was and is now still the largest private home in America - 4 acres of floor space, 250 rooms, 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces all nestled on a meager 125,000 acres.

So six days of wonderful togetherness beckons an afternoon break. We rolled into Asheville, got our bearings at the RV campground, and headed to town. SM dropped CP off at the visitors center and headed out of town to play a round of golf.

CP- I had sent away for a "Visit Asheville" guide before we left for the trip so I stopped in just to see if they had any new information. We'd noticed a bike bath that ran through our RV park and were hopeful it led downtown. No such luck, but they did have a map showing where it did lead. With that in hand, I headed off to downtown. I spent most of the afternoon trying to walk on every street in downtown. It is a great city- Nowhere in downtown did I see any sort of national chain. All independent shops and restaurants. Imagine a city with no starbucks, no CVS, no McDonalds. These places do exist in Asheville but seem to be relegated to the stripmalls on the outskirts of the city. "Local" is a big deal here. In almost every shop I saw signs advising people to patronize local and independent shops. I had a plan to find a place for us to have dinner that night so after doing a bit of online research and a bit of on foot research I narrowed it down to three places and made a reservation at one. I stumbled across a few signs for the "Thomas Wolfe Historic Site" while walking. I decided to head on over. For $1.00 I got to tour the childhood home and watch a 20 minute movie on the life of Thomas Wolf. If, like me, you have no idea who Thomas Wolfe was: He was a very successful and well traveled early 20th century novelist who spent the first 16 years of his life in Asheville. In a little Boston connection- he also attended Harvard University for Graduate School.

SM - It was a hill course. Enough said. There were no flat holes - uphill, downhill, and sidehill lies all day long. The only saving grace to my game (and score) was that the course had seen some rain the two days prior and the greens were slow. After adjusting my puts for speed, I was able to tun at the holes and finished with a 91. Not too bad for a course I'd never played and where more than half the holes dog-legged so I had no idea where to hit the ball. Thank goodness for my playing partner, and local, Jeff who helped me out quite a bit. One birdie, five pars, 7 bogeys, 2 doubles, and 3 dreaded triples.

After reconnecting, we stopped by the RV site to freshen up and get ready for a night on the town. Dinner was at "Table" where we ordered a 4 course tasting menu- chef's whim. The great part being you never know what you're gonna get. The awful part, you never know what you're gonna get. The meal started with a deviled egg with shrimp amuse bouche (ahhhhhh - the angels sang), followed by the most incredible steak tartar - SM's first venture into raw beef. The next course knocked us for a loop: Sweetbreads with Beets. We hate beets. And let's be honest- sweetbreads can be awfully tough to stomach. Scott managed to clean his plate (he wasn't quite sure and still isn't what the heck it was), but CP had a bit of a struggle once Scott started, mid course, asking her what sweetbreads are. Sometimes it's just not pretty to be reminded of these things while chewing them. She managed to eat about half the plate. And since the meal had gone from raw beef, to the thymus gland, we were both awfully nervous what the next course would be...

But we needn't have worried! Next was a fantastic soft shelled crab with pattipan squash, followed by a wonderful pork chop with white beans and lavender puree. We finished the meal with cheese (CP) and chocolate budino (SM). Yum! (Thanks, JP)

During CPs travels earlier in the day she had found a local bluegrass band that was playing at a nearby bar. We headed out. Dum, rtackattack, dum. While making our way to the "Jack in the Wood" to watch Sons of Ralph we heard some drum music coming from small brick park in the center of the street. We wandered over to see the park packed with people of all ages involved in a drum circle. Maybe 200 people of all shapoes and sizes. "Retired" hippies pushing 70, 18month olds skaing their hips to the beat, and 20-somethings enjoying being outside and dancing the night away. The music was great, the crowd was happily having some good clean fun. It pretty much defined Asheville for us...

Saturday morning SM took murph for a nice walk and then CP took him for a short 2 mile run. He needed the exercise after being cooped up the previous day. CP stumbled across some info that highlighted the local art studios in town - there are a ton of them in Asheville! Again, we got lucky and the city was having the twice yearly open studios where anyone can swing in and check out the local art. We spent several hours taking full advantage. Lots of really cool and unique stuff. The last (and largest) of the buildings housing the studios, also houses a small brewery - Wedge Brewery. We stopped in and had two beers. It was a cool space. Truly the tiniest brewery either of us have ever seen and some of the best beer we've had on the trip so far. While sipping our beers at a small outdoor table, a couple of Asheville transplants (they've been here 38 years and still don't think they are locals) struck up a conversatiuon with us. We'd been planning to hike on Sunday before heading out of town and they happily advised us on some of their favorite places to hike and even went so far as to draw us two maps in excrutiating, yet illegible detail (we didn't have the heart to explain that we have GPS).

We went back to the RV and made some lunch- trying to use up a lot of the odds and ends we had in the fridge. We then hopped on our bikes and rode uphill (SM - it totaly sucked, CP- It wasn't that bad- you should ride home from work with me some time) into Asheville to check out their "Art in the Park" festival (SM - unlike the art earlier in the day, it totaly sucked) and try to find some free wifi. Again, we got lucky and the Asheville Brewery not only had free wifi, it also had the Red Sox on TV and, get this, a local women's roller derby team was having a fundraiser on site involving yard games, hula hoop contests, a live band and a lot of hot pink glitter. (SM- It was a spiritual experience, CP- It was weird, the fundrasier and SMs so called spiritual experience)

We updated our blog and shared a small pesto, spinach, mushroom, walnut and gorgonzola pizza and headed out to Lexington Avenue Brewing Co. We were running out of energy and planning to head home soon so we each ordered a half a pint of beer- It is a great option and something we have seen often in North Carolina... sometimes all you want is a little taste of a beer or just a little more beer... we wished bars in Boston had this option...

So we hopped back on our bikes and headed down the hill to the RV. All of a sudden we heard some bluegrass music coming out of what looked like a converted gas station. We stopped at the open garage doors and peered inside to find Craggie Brewery! A tiny brewery- even smaller than Wedge. Such a cool scene of twenty or so people, staning around listening to bluegrass and drinking some beers. We were VERY torn. We listened for a couple minutes and headed home to rest up for our morning hike.

We said good bye to Asheville, stopping on our way out of town at the State Sponsored Farmers Market. (It was awful and a huge disapointment after our amazing experience at the one in Raleigh).

We had decided to hike "Graveyard Fields", but a rockslide had closed to Blue Ridge Parkway in that direction. Undeterred, we followed the 25 mile detour through small towns and Pisgah National Forest. We eventually arrived at the trailhead and headed out for a two hour hike. It was beautiful. We hiked both to lower falls and upper falls. Once at the upper falls, another hiker asked "Have you hiked here before?" We admitted we had not. "Be sure to hike up those rocks over there to see the 60 foot waterfall. It's down rocks, but it's still pretty cool." We took his advice. Cool indeed.

We finished the hike and jumped in the RV. Destination: Tennessee!