July 20-22, 2018
My dad turned 50 last week, and in celebration of half a century of life -- I'm hoping he reads this and feels old -- my mom planned a weekend trip to Asheville. Due to the somewhat last minute planning of the weekend my siblings weren't able to join, but I took some PTO and a rare on-time flight to NC to join in on the birthday shenanigans.
Though I'd normally go into the details of everything we did, we had been to Asheville before and had already done the majority of the sights to see, so we spent most of our time cycling in and out of bars and breweries and restaurants, all listed at the bottom of this post.
Summer is peak tourism season in Asheville, and yet despite the crowds and traffic we still had a close encounter with a bear outside our hotel, and we frequently dipped back into nature. We drove down to Chimney Rock for hiking and waterfall chasing and view-seeking, and our final stop before leaving was the state arboretum.
On Friday night we drove into the heart of downtown for tacos and sangria, and as we walked out we came across a local celebrity, Abby the Spoon Lady, and her musical partner, and we stayed outside watching her for a while as she clacked her spoons together with perfectly precise timing to her partner's banjo playing.
On Saturday evening we made last minute plans with an old high school friend of mine who moved to Asheville after college, and we had a chilled out, crowd-free time catching up over pizza and local brews at a nearby pizza joint before continuing on the conversations under shelter from the rain at her favorite local bar.
I don't often join in on family trips anymore, so it was an unexpected but welcome break to go back to my home state for a weekend and spend some time relaxing with my family.
Food recs:
Burial Brew Co.
Vortex Doughnuts
Green Man Brewery
White Duck Taco Shop (the crispy pork belly taco with watermelon shavings was life changing)
Sunshine Sammies
Hole Doughnuts
Farm Burger
Funkatorium
Wicked Weed
Asheville Pizza & Brewing
Creekside Taphouse
Biscuit Head
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