Category: Asheville

We had big plans for today. We were going to drive up to Linville Falls and do either the Hawksbill or Table Rock hike around the Linville Gorge. It was going to be fantastic. Instead, we woke up to rain. Not the storms that we get in Kansas, but just a light steady rain all day.

So for our last full day, we decided we would just hang out in Asheville for the majority of the day. We headed off toward Biltmore Estate, the largest privately owned home in the U.S.. We didn’t really see the need to tour the house or anything but figured it’d be fun to drive through the grounds and see everything on the outside. To our surprise though, you can’t get further than a short drive down the road before tickets are required. I looked it up to see how much tickets were and whether there were cheaper tickets to be able to just drive through. Nope. $60 per person. Take it or leave it. We left it. So this is the only picture we got on our little journey to Biltmore:

At this point, restaurants were starting to open up for lunch, so we decided on Nine Mile again, since it had been our favorite thus far in the trip. It did not disappoint. We are both apparently big fans of Caribbean food.

Then we had to figure out how we would waste time until dinner. I had heard there was shopping to be had at Grove Arcade. It ended up not really being our thing, but we had a pleasant enough time wandering around the various shops.

Afterward, we parked downtown and walked around and did some more shopping. We walked into Mast General Store and decided it’d be the perfect place to waste some time. I have a weakness for outdoors gear. Anthony also has a weakness for outdoorsy everything. And water bottles apparently. Because he’s lame like that.

Somehow we were able to talk ourselves out of most things for the time being, but we did walk out of there over an hour later with a nice new flannel for me and balloons for Anthony (don’t ask).

We definitely deserved to reward ourselves for our frugality, so on to Wicked Weed for some beers we went. And then more shopping.

For dinner, I was set on doing Curate, which is the #1 recommended restaurant in Asheville, and I had been saving it for our last evening. That was apparently a bad idea since it’s closed on Mondays. Figures.

We crossed the street to White Duck Taco instead, where the guy taking our orders was also a vegetarian and had great recommendations for me. I ordered the Gaucho taco and then also the Thai Chicken taco with gaucho instead of chicken, and both were delicious. It was also by far our cheapest meal of the trip, so I’ll go ahead and consider it a win even though we missed out on Curate.

On our way back to the car, we stopped in at Double D’s coffee shop. The name makes sense when you see it since it’s a coffee shop inside of an old double-decker bus. Cute idea, and I thoroughly enjoyed my chai latte there, although there was a loud couple next to us talking about their drug selling history which was very difficult to not eavesdrop on.

We went out for a glass of wine on our deck when we got home, and ooh’d and ahh’d looking at the clouds below us. The rest of the evening we’ve got big plans of chilling next to our cozy fireplace.

We head home tomorrow, but I have a feeling this won’t be the last we see of Asheville and its surrounding areas.

After finally getting a good night’s rest, we ventured into Asheville for brunch at Limones. Asheville was our jumping point for our drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Since we had already gone a little bit north on it, we decided to take it south to Brevard this time. The road climbed higher and higher the further south we got, and the views got prettier and prettier.

Even the parts of the drive without fantastic mountain and valley views were pretty since we were surrounded by the most colorful trees or passing through scenic tunnels.

But the scenic overlooks, oh goodness. We had to share them with dozens of other people, but they were worth it.

Eventually, we turned onto US-64  to head into Brevard. This road is also scenic with several picnic areas, creeks, waterfalls, and nature paths.

After about half an hour driving down this road, we decided we wanted to go for a hike instead, so we drove back up to the Blue Ridge Parkway to go just a bit further and hike Sam’s Knob.

We were in very high elevations, so the leaves were past peak color, but it was a pleasant hike nonetheless.

We started downhill toward the base of Sam’s Knob itself.

And then we climbed, and climbed. I was afraid it was going to rain on us at any second, so we climbed quickly. There were some interesting views where one side of a hill would be pretty well barren and then the other half was covered in evergreen trees.

We finally arrived at the top, where we stopped for a bit to catch our breath and appreciate the results of our hike.

And then back down we went.  On our way back to the house, we only made one stop, and that was to stuff our faces at a Mexican restaurant called Papas y Beer in Hendersonville. We now have a full evening to spend enjoying our fantastic house we are renting.

I would absolutely recommend driving the Blue Ridge Parkway. There are so many incredible sites along the way, as well as countless stops to stretch your legs or have a little picnic with a gorgeous backdrop. Do it.

After staying up way too late last night watching the Royals clinch a spot in the World Series (#ForeverRoyal #TaketheCrown), we decided not to set an alarm this morning, but I woke up just at sunrise anyway and caught some pictures of the morning fog blanketing the valleys below.

After enjoying some coffee on the deck, we decided to leave for Dupont State Forest to try and beat the crowds. We arrived around 8:30am, and there were two other cars in the parking lot. I had a whole itinerary planned out for Dupont, and it started off with small, but pretty, Hooker Falls.

The water was clear and reflected the colors of the trees around it.

No one else was in the area, so we took our time playing around and exploring.

Afterward, we backtracked a bit to a bridge that would take us to Triple Falls,

On the way to Triple Falls, we maneuvered our way through the trees to get to the stony river, which was super peaceful. We climbed rocks and waded through shallow water.

Triple Falls came soon after, offering views of, as the name implies, three waterfalls flowing together.

We walked down to the base of one of them, since I always like to get as close as possible to waterfalls. The views weren’t as pretty down there, but it was very meditative just being next to them, listening to the water falling.

We made our way back up to the top and continued our hike up to High Falls. At one point the trail split, one way going to the base, and the other to the top. This time we decided to visit the base of the waterfall first. The view from the start was phenomenal, but we decided to climb over the slippery rocks to get closer, and there, it was perfect.

The waterfall was tall and wide and powerful, and I was able to get right up next to it and feel its spray on my face.

We spent quite a bit of time there, but then ventured on up to the trail to the top of it. Still beautiful, but not as impressive as up close.

Our next stop was the covered bridge over the river, but we didn’t spend much time there before moving on.

We hiked another .8 miles in the forest to get to Grassy Creek Falls, where we sat on a rock to eat a few snacks.

At this point, there were two more stops we had planned on making, but I had a headache and was ready for a full lunch, so we turned back.

On the way back to the car, we were amazed at how many people had shown up. When we had arrived, there were maybe a few other people there beside us, but now, we could barely walk at our own pace due to the vast numbers of people milling around.

When we finally got back to the parking lot, we were shocked to see that both parking lots were completely packed full and overflowing. Cars were parked along the main road for as long as we could see.

Long story short: If you are doing Dupont, especially on a weekend day, get there as early as you can!

We drove on to the town of Brevard after this, enjoying the scenery along the way. The trees seem to be getting even prettier the longer we stay here. We had lunch in a cute little restaurant called The Phoenix in Brevard, and then decided to explore the downtown area, stopping and buying some bread from the bakery, and shopping at a few little stores on the main street through downtown.

That evening we went back into Asheville, which was so lively on a Saturday night. We got a few more groceries at Trader Joe’s and then headed downtown where we had quite the time finding anywhere to park. We met up with another of Anthony’s cousins and his girlfriend for dinner at Mela, a nice Indian restaurant that was delicious. We ate until we were full, had a couple drinks, talked about travel and afterward, ventured on to the Chocolate Lounge where we met up with a few more people.

I seemed to have forgotten I had a camera with me, which was unfortunate seeing as we were surrounded by interesting people and sights while waiting to get inside, and the Chocolate Lounge itself was cute as can be.

They had a million different chocolate options, be it various ice cream floats, or cold drinks, or cakes, or brownies, or even liquid truffles which is what Anthony and I got to share. We had a small mug-shaped cup filled with salted caramel melted chocolate, and a tiny spoon to eat it with. The decor was charming, and it was obviously a popular place.

At this point it was 9pm, and I was exhausted after a long, busy day, so we ended our evening driving back to our house in the mountains.