Friday, October 24th

The Blue Ridge Mountains from the Blue Ridge Parkway

So, if you were really paying attention to yesterday's entry, then you should be asking yourself, "what about Kathi's luggage??  Did it every arrive?"  The answer, dear readers is NO!!  What the heck??  There was supposed to be a flight arriving in Asheville sometime last night with her luggage on it, but apparently that never happened.  Fortunately, Kathi did have SOME essentials in her carry on, but others she was sadly lacking.  For instance, she had contact lens case and solution and a toothbrush, but she did NOT have clean undies and socks or a change of clothes!  This is Girls Weekend, however, and we never let anything make us grumpy or set us back in any way, so Kathi sucked it up and made the best of it, bless her heart.

We woke up this morning feeling pretty rested and knowing that Kathi's four sister-in-laws ( would be joining us today for a couple of days because they leave here in the great state of North Carolina and we all thought it would be fun to spend some time together while we were here.  Kathi had been in contact with them a bit yesterday, but we weren't really sure what time they would be arriving as they would be coming from the Raleigh area which is about 4 hours away from Asheville.  We also realized that we had not "tossed the states" last night and decided that we would do it this morning.  Kathi did the honors and we were left with:

That piece in between Texas and Florida has 3  of the little Eastern seaboard states on it that are too small to be a puzzle piece all their own.  It includes New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware.  Kathi and I are rooting for Arizona with Sedona in mind as our destination there.  We'll see what happens!!

Kathi had some studying to do (she is back in school working on her master's degree) so I offered to go do the grocery shopping and grab us each a Starbucks while she did some homework.  We were thinking that we would have a leisurely breakfast and relax a bit while waiting for the sisters' arrival.  This was not to be, however, because about 5 minutes after I left to go to the store, the sisters called to say that they should be with us in about an hour!!  So Kathi skipped out on the studying and hopped in the shower instead so that she could be clean under those same clothes she had on yesterday. (I did buy her some new undies and socks at the store)  By the time I arrived back at the cabin, the sisters were there and the party was on!  Kathi and I made breakfast for everyone while the sisters checked into their cabin which is conveniently located just across the driveway from ours.  Once they got checked in and we realized that their cabin was much larger than ours we took breakfast over to their place and enjoyed.  We made a plan for the remainder of the day which included a drive on the nearby Blue Ridge Parkway, then a drive into Asheville for dinner once we got back.

Now, the Blue Ridge Parkway is a very scenic drive but not a road that all people enjoy.  It is a two lane road with many serpentine twists and turns and pretty much no guard rails.  It didn't take long to find out that there were some amongst the six of us piled into Ingrid's car that, while enjoying the spectacularly beautiful views from the parkway, they were not enjoying the ride at all.  After making a few stops at the turn outs provided at view points and taking some pictures, we decided to turn around an make our way back down the mountain before it got dark.

Down the mountain we came with more twists and turns and anxiety, but we finally arrived at the valley floor and headed into town.  We decided to eat at the Lobster Trap in downtown Asheville.  We put our name on the waiting list then wandered around at some of the nearby shops.  Kathi, unfortunately, was not able to enjoy this activity as much as the rest of us because she was on the phone with the airport trying to figure out if her bag had been located yet and when she would be receiving it.  We did, however, wander into a guitar store that was just a couple of doors down from the restaurant because my husband has taught me enough about vintage guitars that I am drawn to looking at them whenever I see them.  This place, Axis Guitars, has some beauties.

  We got paged to the restaurant and gathered everyone to sit down for dinner and drinks.  I ordered a very interesting drink off the cocktail menu that was made with bourbon, pumpkin liqueur and smoked ice.  Wait, what was that?  Smoked ice?  How does one smoke ice?  Of course I had to ask our waitress, who explained the process to me.  They take a block of ice, melt it over a wood fire so that the smoke infuses into the water, then refreeze.  Voila, smoked ice.  Clever, huh?  And made a tasty drink!!  Between the 6 of us we had a variety of dishes and we all seemed to be quite happy with our choices which included french bread, homemade corn bread, bisque, a lobster roll, grilled salmon, stuffed mushrooms, cioppino, mussels, pasta alfredo (for me, the non seafood eater) and brussels sprouts with bacon and a light mustard glaze.  Everything was quite delicious and we headed back to the cabins thoroughly full and satisfied.  AND, KATHI'S BAG WAS ON OUR PORCH WHEN WE ARRIVED!!!  Hooray!!

We went over to the sisters' cabin for a little while for a bit of end of day conversation, then headed back to our own cabin for the tossing of the states before climbing into bed.  After tonight's toss we are left with:  Nebraska, Arizona, Virginia and Florida.

Tomorrow we plan to explore the Biltmore Mansion, the largest home in the United States.

Thursday, Oct 23, 2014

Girls Weekend Seventeen!!!  At long last, the magical week has once again arrived.  Girls Weekend.  Where Kathi and I both escape our everyday (though lovely) lives and go explore and learn about some place new to us here in the good old USA.  This year, we are exploring Asheville, North Carolina.

Girls weekend started for me after work yesterday because I flew out of Portland at 10:15pm so that Kathi and I would arrive at the same time and have most of Thursday to begin our adventure.  On the way to Portland I got a phone call from the airline telling me that my flight out of Charlotte to Greenville, SC has been rescheduled to a later time due to bad weather at the point of origin of that flight.  The delay was only a half hour or so, so I didn't think that much about it, but once I got to the Portland airport I texted Kathi to let her know that I would probably be arriving in Greenville a little later than originally scheduled due to this delay.  Once I arrived in Charlotte and was sitting at the gate for the Greenville flight, I received another call from the airline to tell me that the flight had been CANCELLED.  Well, damn.  So I texted Kathi to let her know while I made my way to the customer service desk to see what I could do about getting on another flight.  The next flight to Greenville was schedule for 10:15 PM.  What??  NO!!!  I did not want to lose a whole day!!  Then, when I told the nice lady at the customer service desk that my ultimate destination was actually Asheville, NC, she booked me on a flight that left in one hour!!  Hooray!!  While this was happening, I received a text from Kathi saying she was at the Charlotte airport, too, where was I?  Turns out we were actually both booked on that cancelled flight to Greenville and we hadn't even realized it!!!  So Kathi and I met up at the customer service counter and we got her booked on standby on the flight to Asheville, and made our way to the gate.  Along the way we called the car rental place to change our car rental from pick up from Greenville to Asheville.  Smooth as silk.

Kathi, fortunately, was able to get a seat on the flight and after 45 minutes in the air, we landed in Asheville.  Hooray!!  The day was saved!  Oh, wait a minute, there's my bag on the baggage carousel, but where is Kathi's??  Oh no......it's not there.  Bummer.  So, while I take care of the car rental business, Kathi makes her way to the customer service desk to track down her bag.  Hmmmm, it went to Columbia, South Carolina for some reason.  Well, they promise to deliver it once it arrives in Asheville and we head out to the parking lot to find our rental car.  After a little bit of confusion about where to find our rental car, during which time Kathi got stung by a bee that I believe she brought with her in her sweatshirt from Indiana, we piled our stuff, well, mostly MY stuff into the car and set out for The Pines Cottages, our home away from home in Asheville.

It was only 10 am when we arrived at The Pines Cottages and check in time wasn't until 3pm, but we thought we would go ahead and ask if our cabin might be ready...just in case!!  Wonder of wonders, it was!  (God is good!) So we loaded our stuff, well, mostly my stuff, into the cabin, chatted for a while and decided to go into town for breakfast and then do some grocery shopping.  We chose Tupelo Honey to have breakfast because I had read many good things about the place when researching Asheville and I would say that it lived up to all of its reviews.  I just had bacon and eggs, but Kathi ordered a sweet potato pancake that was GIGANTIC and delicious.  She was only able to eat about 1/3 of it, it was so big.  Upon leaving the restaurant, we both decided that we were far too tired to go grocery shopping and chose to go back to our cabin for our nap since we were booked on a "Brews Cruise" at 4pm and we felt we needed to get rested up for that.

We met up with our fellow Brews Cruisers, Alissa and AJ, newlyweds from Akron, Ohio (the Brews Cruise was a wedding gift from one of their friends.....how cool is that??), and Sherri and Leon from Knoxville, Tennessee and waited for the bus at the designated location.  Pretty soon, the bus arrived and our driver and tour guide JC, the beer savior, jumped out and welcomed us aboard.

JC the beer savior

JC talked a lot about the beer making process and the many different breweries in Asheville and the surrounding area, but I have to confess, I forgot most of it because we sampled so many beers on this tour that my brain was kind of mushy by the end.  We had a great time, though, and thoroughly enjoyed the beer and the company.  We went to 3 different breweries and sampled 4 beers at each.

First was Altamont Brewery.

Here, the beers had no names other than what kind of beer they were.  Here we tasted:  Red Ale, Seasonal Stout, and a Porter.  Ok, so we either only had 3 beers here or Kathi forgot to write down whatever the 4th one was,  which is entirely possible!!  Oops, in reviewing this with Kathi, she did, indeed write down 4 beers and I missed the first one, which was a Dry Hopped Pale Ale.  Sorry, Kath, for implying that you were not thorough in your job as note taker!!

Aj, Alissa, Sherri, Leon, Kathi, Lori

JC rounded us all back up, got us all back on the bus and headed to the next stop, Catawba Brewery.

Along the way, we learned that AJ and Alissa were newlyweds (like, seriously newlywed, like a week newlywed) and that they were on their honeymoon and this cruise was a wedding gift.  What a great friend to give a gift like that!!

AJ and Alissa

We also learned that Sherry and Leon had recently moved to Knoxville, TN, so that Leon could attend The Professional Brewing Science Certificate course at South College University to pursue his dream of becoming a professional brewer.  Leon's story is a very interesting one and I would recommend that you visit http://www.leonshomebrew.com if you are interested in reading about his path from brewing beer while stationed with the military in Guam to the realization of his dream.

At Catawba we sampled The White Zombie (Belgian wheat ale with coriander and orange peel), The Brown Bear Brown Ale (it was brown), the citrusy Red-iculous IPA (it was red), and the Hyper Monkey, which is a coffee stout.  Kathi wrote YUM!!! next to this one in her notes, so apparently she really like this one!

Time to leave Catawba and move on to our next stop.  JC once again gathered us all up to board the bus.  On the way out Kathi stopped at the hot dog vendor set up just outside and bought 7 bags of chips so that we could all put a little something in our stomachs besides beer.  Everyone but JC, who was only drinking water and coffee, jumped on the opportunity to eat something.

Our next and final stop was French Broad Brewery (French Broad being the name of the river that flows through Asheville).  Here we sampled a Kolsch (if it had a name, it didn't get written down), ESB (Extra Special Bitter), French Broad IPA and a Scottish style ale, Wee Heavier.  In the midst of all this sampling, we ordered some sandwiches and ribs from Moe's BBQ upon the advice of our wonderful tour guide, JC who said he would be happy to swing by there on the way back to our original departure point to allow us to pick up our to go orders.  Before leaving French Broad, Leon pulled a large bottle of his home-brew, Mystic Mermaid, out of the cooler he had been carrying around with him all evening and treated us all to a sample!  What a delightful surprise!!  He even had enough bottles with him to send us all home with one.  I must confess that I am no expert on beer, but I have to say that Leon's brew was just as good as any of the other beers we had tasted throughout the evening.

Back on the bus we all went, then onward to Moe's to pick up our food orders and back to our point of origin.  It was a great evening that ended with wonderful food.  Kathi and I didn't last long after arriving back in the cabin and dropped into bed to get a good nights sleep before beginning day two of Girls Weekend Seventeen.

Cheers!!