Asheville Recap: Part I

Happy Halloween, everyone! I'm back from Asheville and ready to chat about our awesome getaway. We packed a lot of fun into this trip so I am going to split the recap into 2 parts so that these posts aren't too obnoxiously long (they'll still be long).

We landed in Charlotte mid-day on Wednesday, picked up our car and started to head towards Asheville, which is about 2 hours from Charlotte. We stopped along the way for some BBQ at Peace N Hominy in Belmont. We could definitely tell we were in the south as the daily menu included a bible verse (this is something you would never seen in the Midwest, despite the fact that we have a large Christian population!). Our lunch was delicious and inexpensive. I like NC BBQ because the sauces are vinegar-based and I LOVE vinegar. :) I had pulled pork and fries and Phil had a pulled pork sandwich.

After that pit-stop, we got back on the road and got to Asheville in the late afternoon. We checked into our airbnb. As I mentioned in my travel post, we much prefer airbnb's to hotels as we like having access to a kitchen. The airbnb we rented was a loft and it was located in a great location. It was downtown, but not in the loudest area of downtown. And it was huge! Phil said it was like sleeping on a basketball court.

There were 2 beds - 1 king and 1 queen - so this unit could have been shared with another couple, which would cut down on the cost. I still thought it was a reasonable expense and really appreciated that parking was included because parking in Asheville is really difficult - especially on the weekends.

After getting settled in, we walked to Trader Joe's and got some eggs and hash browns to make for breakfast each day as well as some snacks for our hikes. We ended up only eating out one meal a day while we were in Asheville as we'd make a bigger breakfast, snack during the afternoon, and then go out for dinner at the end of the day. As a result, we spent very little on food which was nice!

Our first dinner out was at my favorite Asheville restaurant - Chai Pani. If you find yourself in Asheville and like Indian, you have to check this place out! We shared an appetizer, but I forgot to take a picture of it, and we each got our own entrees. Phil got a Chicken Tikka roll which was an Indian-style burrito with naan as the burrito wrapper and I got a 'thali' which included butter chicken, rice, daal, pickled cabbage, pappadams (crispy bread-like things made from chickpeas) and raita. It was delicious!

On Thursday morning we slept in. And I mean really slept in as we didn't get up until 9:30 am (which felt like 8:30 to us with the time change)! I slept for 11 hours which felt amazing! I can't remember the last time I slept more than 7-8 hours. My body really needed the extra sleep. We made breakfast and headed out for some hikes along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Phil jokes that all of our trips involve windy, curvy roads.

There were definitely lots of sharp curves but at least there weren't any one-lane bridges like there were in Maui!  :)

Our first hike was a short 2 mile (round trip) hike called Craggy Pinnacle. The fall colors were absolutely beautiful. It was a little bit cool, but not too cold for us hearty Midwesterners.

Most of the people we saw were wearing winter jackets. Phil, on the other hand, wore shorts! It was in the upper 40s/low 50s. Notice the icicles in the picture below!

For our next hike we decided to hike to the summit of Mount Mitchell, which is the higher point east of the Mississippi. The full hike is 10+ miles one way, but we just did the last 1.5 miles to the top, so 3 miles round trip. It was a pretty difficult trail in some parts as you had to scramble over rocks and tree roots and such, but it was a fun trail. You could also drive to the top of Mount Mitchell but as Phil said, 'where's the fun in that?'

The views from the observation deck were beautiful. Pictures don't do it justice but the fall colors were spectacular.

After that hike we headed back to Asheville and went straight to New Belgium Brewery. This is one of Phil's favorite beer makers so I am glad we had time to tour their site.

We've done a lot of brewery tours but this one was definitely the best we've been on. You can tell the brewery was designed with the tour in mind. They had lots of beautiful artwork throughout the brewery, much of which was circus-themed. New Belgium holds fundraisers each year and they tend to be circus-themed so that is the reason why the art is circus-themed.

At one point we needed to go from the 2nd level to the ground level and there was a slide to get to the lower level.

Phil coming out of the slide

Phil enjoyed trying 4 different beers (I obviously stuck with water since I don't drink beer and I'm pregnant).

By the time we finished the tour it was after 6 pm so we headed back to our loft, showered, and headed out for some tacos at White Duck Taco. They had lots of different tacos, many of which were GF. I had a Korean Beef, a jerk chicken and a grilled fish taco. My favorite of the 3 was definitely the fish taco.

After a full day of activity we were in bed early! All that fresh air definitely wore us out and I ended up sleeping for 10 hours that night! If only I could sleep that soundly and for that many hours at home!

Have you been on a brewery tour? Even though I don't drink beer, I enjoy going on brewery tours as you learn so much about the company and their brewing process. And Phil enjoys the free beer!