Asheville

Leaving comfy Greensboro was tough, but it had to be done. Saturday, we headed out for Asheville. We planned to camp at a pretty cool spot we’d heard of called Curtis Creek up in the Blue Ridge mountains, but we had forgotten that it was Memorial Day weekend and when we got there, it was all full up. Instead, we happened upon a fat, toothless, shirtless, heavily-bearded hillbilly called Hoyle D. Elliott who turned out to be sweet as can be and we camped in his backyard on the side of a nice creek.

The next morning, we drove the Blue Ridge Parkway to Asheville. The Parkway was a gorgeous drive and we took a bazillion pictures of the beautiful Appalachian mountains.

Elevation 5592

Asheville immediately lived up to its reputation of a thriving hippie scene. We drove right into the downtown area and the streets were filled with people out and about on a lovely Sunday afternoon. We parked and walked around for a while marveling at the amount of tie-dye, long skirts, funky shops, and banjo-strumming buskers. We ate lunch at Chorizo where Justin got a fantastic duck and mushroom quesadilla and I enjoyed some kind of delicious pile of pork and beans and plantains. Also, their smoked tomatillo salsa was to die for and they had several samplings of refreshing margaritas. Yum. Post-lunch, we checked into our hotel, showered, came dangerously close to holing up for the whole night when we happened upon a Futurama marathon on Comedy Central, but eventually did buck up, dusted off our favorite old hippie skirts (Justin looked especially beautiful) and walked downtown to find beers. Asheville is positively bursting at the seams with breweries and cool bars. We started at Jack of the Wood – a hip, old Irish pub-style bar with tattooed hipsters, old and young, playing traditional Irish music. After that, we serendipitously ran into one of my old friends from Carbondale, Peter and he showed us around town for the rest of the night. We met up with another buddy, Liz, at a new brewery in town, of which (due to drunkenness) we cannot remember the name. Beers and beers and beers were consumed, stories were traded, laughs were had, updates of all the Kellys were given to my old Makanda cronies. And then we eventually cabbed back to the hotel. Much to Justin’s chagrin, I ended up tipping the cab driver something like two hundred percent because he was a lovely old man who grew up in southern Indiana and he was charming all the way to EconoLodge.

They say this is a vintage clothing store but the name holds a separate meaning for some.

Jamie Kelly happened upon this in Lincoln Park recently.