asheville

Scott and I had an adventure to Asheville a few weeks back that was in.cre.di.ble.

The drive to NC was mostly beautiful and entertaining. We went through a rediculous tourist city (that appeared to be holding on to its 80s/90s roots) and stopped in another equally touristy, but much more attractive city - Gatlinburg. Our first stop: a brewery! Beer not so bad, food was surely from a box of frozen varieties of fried whatevers. Sort of like frozen mixed veggies, but for processed fried foods! Not hot.

Then the mountains! Oh, the mountains! Super gorgeous, humbling, a perfect scene for my newfound musical crush The Tallest Man on Earth. Scott was easily distracted by his new iPhone's GPS capabilities during the prettiest views. I was sure to call him out on this... :)

We arrived at our cabin after dark. The only surrounding showing itself was a big mysterious oak tree in a big empty field that was somehow lit by something I'm still not sure of. Totally surreal. We ventured to Asheville for a couple two-tree beerskies and our first Hempseed Burger (which was so awesome with their super spicy local mustard) at Jack of the Woods. The place was very comfy and cultured. A random slew of 15 or so musicians showed up to play with each other at their leisure, ranging from a housemidwifey-dad (nerdy walking shoes and a Walk for the Cure sweatshirt from the 90s!) to college aged dudes. So far, Asheville has lots of fun people, good local beers, very very yummy veggie burgers, and very very very very yummy mustard!

I woke the next morning to all the beauty that had been hiding itself from me! The sleepy sun showed me green grasses, porch swings, a creek right in front of our cabin, and a special horse farm across the creek (see pic above). Really? Perfect. Scott giggled when he looked outside and said something along the lines of "this is probably too overwhelming for you!!" And it was. Funny how gorgeous that tree was the night before, and now how this was too. All day is beautiful! That horse farm had a house who's folks had to cross the creek on this rickety wooden bridge with NO RAILINGS! And it was skinny! And they had big cars!

That day we coffee-d, got some shisha, went to Tobacco Barn (an amaaaazing gigantic antique store where everything is actually awesome, and mostly reasonably priced) and drooled over pretty much everything. They have a few big chicken metal sculptures that I had to force myself to not buy. And a creepy old goat head chandelier that was far too expensive for my current salary. But when I'm a millionaire, that thing is SO MINE (if Scott doesn't become a millionaire before me)! Then went to Salsa's for a Habenero Margarita (what?! best drink ever!) and some other tasty whatever else we got (I can remember an Almond Avocado salsa). Then we took an unplanned 1/2 hr detour to this grocery store Amazing Savings we heard was cool but didn't hear why. The exterior made us a little leery as it looked like the grocery store version of a Dollar Store...but it was exactly as the name says. It was organic stuff sold super cheap. Like our favorite Red Hot Blues chips, which are normally in the high $3 range were only $2, and a bag of organic coffee normally $11, $3. Sooo cheap. Sooo awesome. I still can't figure out why it was in the middle of the boonies? We ended the night at The Thirsty Monk with some awesome sour beers, other very-hard-to-find foreign beers and a cute possibly-icelandic bartender. Oh! Also got chocolate somewhere in there at French Broad Chocolate Lounge. Chocolate served with a porter beer! Yessss.

i love asheville