Asheville, NC

We made it back from our whirlwind trip to Asheville, NC. We left Thursday afternoon and came back last night. Overall it was wonderful, for the time spent with Jonah and the change of pace and scenery. Traveling has a way of helping you unwind and grow. Seeing new places, new people, a different way of life does something for the soul. Once your away it's so nice to come back home. So I must write what we thought of Asheville. Being our first (actually mine, and Jonah was there a lonngg time ago) time together was so much fun. We stayed at a lovely little bed and breakfast walking distance from downtown. First time at a B&B, and I was kind of nervous since I would consider myself a pretty private person. But it was so nice. The house was like an old victorian style and I thought of my sister Erinn who loves that era. It was built in the 1800's but the decor and interior was so well done and not overcluttered and clean. It had original wood floors too, a huge front porch with rocking chairs and beautiful maintained flower gardens with ivy and a stone pathway (my sister Laura would have loved). Our room was up a teeny tiny set of stairs and very private and lovely. I was worried about being able to hear other people being in a house, but it was secluded. We had our own jacuzzi tub (with rain shower head) and robes. There were brownies and drinks out in the kitchen and the hostess and her husband were so kind and did not make us feel weird. Of course there was breakfast served the next morning and it was very delicious and gourmet, baked grapefruit with cranberry (baked, yes, and I think I must try making it) and a plate of delicious food with eggs and homeade blueberry bread, and some yummy things I cannot remember but I did take pictures of!! When we came down for breakfast the table was set with candlelight, roses, and beautiful background music. An all around lovely experience. And did I mention there was a cat  outside that was so loving??

The town of Asheville itself was something else... We walked and meandered through downtown and Biltmore Village,  and it was so much fun to eat at the little restaurants and visit all the stores and local work of those that lived there. But the people...wow. I was told before we went that Asheville is a very liberal place with a high percentage of gay people. Which surprised me because I always thought in my head it would be beautiful, and that's all I really thought. The people there were very: earthy, hippie, granola, natural. Which is fine if you want to live like that, but I kept seeing the emphasis of worldly liberal thinking everywhere. Obama supporter stickers, gay supporter stickers and such in book stores, windows ect. I saw it so much it was sickening to say the least. It's one thing to be natural it's another to live your life so blatantly for something that's wrong. My stand against the gay lifestyle has been brought to a new level after seeing so much of it. I have to say I saw more manly looking woman there than I have in a long time....yuck. So it was a bit of a surprise to see all that there. But aside from that the surrounding mountains are beautiful!! 

We decided to take the famous Blue Ridge Pkwy home instead of the interstate, which I was nervous about because of curvy mountain roads (kind of sickening) so we drove the slow 45 mph and it was beautiful!! The highlight was when we saw a black bear come out on the road, and I panicked thinking I should probably put the window up, but the bear went back into the trees and we drove on. It was pretty awesome to see that big huge bear though. Nevermind the fact that we took a different way off of the pkwy and ended up going on the curviest roads in my entire life for well over 3 hours...I shall never forget that, and I think it will always make me laugh. 

Oh, I forgot to mention halfway through Friday our camera battery died, and we didn't have the charger...can you imagine? what a tragedy for us! So on the way home at one of the stops along the Pkwy, Jonah got the idea to use his laptop's 'Photobooth' , on a mac it's the place you can take photos using the built in camera. So we ended up with these fun shots. The timer is 3 seconds hence the running and jumping. I think there were some people up on an overlook that were watching us the whole time too, which makes it even funnier. But as you see here below these are the only ones I can leave with you, until we charge the battery to get the photos we did take off of the camera.

Until I can upload more photos, it was a wonderful anniversary celebration of four years!!