If This Isn't Nice, I Don't Know What Is
May 10-13 — Asheville, NC
Your soundtrack to this blog post:
Looking back at our travels with the benefit of hindsight, it’s cute how much gusto we had, trying to fit as much as we could into 3 days.
Asheville was on our original list of places that we might want to live. For reference, here is the original list:
Asheville, NC
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
Denver, CO
Atlanta, GA
Boston, MA
New York, NY
Portland, OR
Chicago, IL
Toronto, Canada
Fort Collins, CO
Raleigh, NC
Philadelphia, PA
Savannah, GA
Des Moines, IA
Eugene, OR
Providence, RI
And here is the current list:
Seattle, WA
Portland, OR
Raleigh/Durham, NC
Kansas City, MO
San Francisco Bay Area
Montreál and Phoenix are in the unabridged version of the list and there are still a few cities on the east coast we haven’t seen that shouldn’t be ruled out yet.
As you can see, Asheville did not make the cut. And it’s not because we didn’t like Asheville, really we did! It just didn’t feel like a place we would live.
The first thing I noticed about Asheville was how close it was to the mountains. You can see mountains from downtown, which is pretty fricken sweet. I can only imagine the day hikes at the Smoky Mountains. The second thing I noticed about Asheville was that it wasn’t very walkable. In a small city with limited options for public transportation, that makes it less appealing to live in. We stayed at an Airbnb that was pretty close to downtown but in order to get there you’d have to climb a HUGE hill. Regardless, we loved our little Airbnb and had fun wandering around the city after catching our breath.
On day 1, we went to New Belgium Brewing Co (of Fat Tire fame) and did a brewery tour. What can I say? You can take the girl out of Milwaukee but you can’t take Milwaukee out of the girl. We had so much fun on the tour and trying out all their specialty beers. Plus there was a slide. We got to Asheville before we could check into our Airbnb and before New Belgium opened, so we did a classic meal on the ground in the parking lot while we waited for the brewery to open (shout out to my BFF Emily, tbt to when we ate spaghetti on the ground outside of Yellowstone. I only brought it up 3 times: before, during and after). James and I would later buy small folding chairs for situations like this and for the beach. But I’m getting ahead of myself. That doesn’t happen until the end of May.
After that excursion and checking into our Airbnb, we went to the co-op to get some groceries and had the most serendipitous moment afterwards. It’s still one of my favorite moments of the trip so far. We saw an interesting building across the street and decided to go check it out. Turns out it was The Orange Peel, a music venue. Later that week one of our favorite musicians, Still Woozy, was playing there. We went up to the box office and asked if they had any tickets and they said YES! So we bought them and then realized that their sign actually said that the show was sold out. Moral of this story is that my mom was right: it always pays to ask!
Day 2 was a work day so we didn’t do a ton of touristy things. I trekked the hill and walked around downtown during a lull/lunch break—I get a little antsy cooped up in one place, especially if we’re in a new city, and I usually need a change of scenery during the work day. We made dinner at “home” and then went to some (you guessed it!) breweries. Man, we’re participating in Dry January this year and all this is making me miss beer.
Day 3 was another work day and then the concert. James found a lovely vegetarian restaurant called The Laughing Seed Cafe. It was on a cute street with string lights all around and a cobblestone street. It felt almost like a street in Italy. Almost. We had pakoras, spinach pesto manicotti, and buffalo tacos. It was amazing. If you know me, you know that food is a big part of travel—and life—for me. This was a great experience. 👌 Then we went to the Still Woozy show, which was also amazing. Although, we were probably the oldest people at the concert. 🤷♀️ We stayed happily masked in the back! More room for dancing back there.
The next morning, we checked out and then found a coffee shop to work from until we could drive to our next destination. Even looking back and writing about it now, the short amount of time we spent seems ridiculous but we were just SO EXCITED to fit so many destinations into our travels! All in all, we had a good time in Asheville. I’d definitely recommend it as a place to visit. It’s a smaller city with plenty of art, beer and outdoor activities. Maybe someday we’ll go back and spend a little more than 3 days there.
Still Woozy singing Get By