Asheville, NC fall 2020

Blue Ridge Parkway view of the Blue Ridge Mountains

Summer of 2020 we had planned on going to Asheville, NC and then north on the Blue Ridge Parkway up to DC.  When we were about to leave, the covid metrics were bad for NC so we changed our plans and went to NY instead.  So where do you go when you suddenly need a temporary home?  Where you thought about going earlier in the year, since now it has lower/better covid metrics!  Asheville by way of Atlanta.  Thanks to Jeff's niece and her husband who car sat my convertible for us for a week.  Spent the night in north Atlanta and then onto Asheville.  We stayed at a Doubletree Hotel which was very empty and basically no food options.  We tried to order a takeout pizza and could not so Jeff went to pick it up - no food service at all at the hotel in the morning so we picked up egg McMuffins from McDonalds and started our drive.

We decided to stay in a Bed and Breakfast in Asheville - the Lion and The Rose.  It is a 5 bedroom inn so we figured that alone would help minimize our interactions with others.  It is pretty much in town - not downtown. There was a restaurant half way down the block and another one a block and a half away so food was in sight.  We stayed in the Marion Hall room which had a queen sized bed and a daybed so we had lots of room for our 4 night stay.  The first 2 mornings it was us and another couple.  The B&B did a good job of socially distancing us for breakfast when we had more guests later in the week.  Breakfast was nice each morning and kept us going for much of the day.  So what did we do while we were there?

We went on a hike, played some golf, went to the Abortorium, a winery, and just plain explored.  Jeff's niece and her husband really like Asheville so they gave us some advice on places to go and things to do. By chance, one of their favorite restaurants (Nine Mile) was the one practically across the street.  We could not eat outside there, so we enjoyed take-out on the nice big Victorian porch of the inn, which was quite nice.  It is kind of a Jamaican restaurant so the food was a little different than our normal but quite good.  The next night we went to the other nearby restaurant, Chisei.  It considers itself to be a neighborhood Italian restaurant. Jeff and I will tell you it is a very good Italian restaurant.  We really enjoyed our meal.

 

Enough about food!  On our innkeeper's recommendation, we set out one morning to do the John’s Horse hike in the Pisgah Forest. We did not do the whole hike.  It is not a set path in the forest as there are no signs turn left here or go straight.  So we followed the orange trail blaze for awhile and then were unsure which way to go so we turned back.  Having said that, we did have a nice hike and we saw a couple waterfalls, crossed a few wood log bridges and it was just relaxing.  Also on our innkeeper's recommendation, we went to the Etowah Golf Course.  We played 9 holes which is our normal amount.  It was challenging for us.  We had a good time and it was a nice course with some pretty views. Jeff's niece spoke highly of the North Carolina Abortorium.  While I am only now learning about abortorium's, sorry raised on botanical gardens, I am learning to like them!  This one was nice and educational at times. We walked through an area where the trees were marked as to what they were which is a great way to learn the names of trees other than oh that is an oak.  Like many museums, etc they had an area for changing exhibits and while we were there it was one on bonsai.  I really liked the plants they had and the exhibit on one of the bonsai was formed from regular plant to bonsai.  Additionally, there was a Lego exhibit - sculptures slipped in around the gardens closed to the visitor center.

Pictures from our hike in Pisgah Forest

One of several Lego exhibits at the Arboratorium.  The Gardeners' look so real.

One cannot only eat and explore, one must also drink.  Asheville is big on craft beer and small on wine. We did visit a winery - Burnt Shirt. Their Covid tasting was to have you pick 5 two ounce wine tastes or a glass.  We chose to share a tasting - hey who needs 10 ounces of wine in the middle of the afternoon?  We liked 4 of the 5 wines we ordered.  Surprisingly we did not like their port wine it was too sweet for us. We bought a bottle of one of the other 4 and headed out the door.  Oh, the tasting was on a patio with views of their vineyards which was nice to look at.  Another day we explored downtown Asheville a little bit. We ended up at Wicked Weed brewery another recommendation from Jeff's niece.  We tried a couple of their beers and ended up eating there too, each having a bison burger.  From there we walked around some and ended up at a European bakery; so we had to pick up a dessert which was quite good.

Burnt Shirt Winery

There are probably 2 things that come to most people's minds when they think of Asheville - the Biltmore House and the Blue Ridge Parkway/mountains.  We both thought we had been to Asheville about 30 years ago and only remembered the Biltmore House so we decided to skip that this time.  We did enjoy a drive along the parkway and stopped to enjoy the scenery.  The clouds/skyline really does pick up a blue tinge in the evenings. We really enjoyed Asheville for its scenery and for the atmosphere there so much that we may have to consider it down the road when we look for a permanent home.

Our fellow guests at the B&B encouraged us to go visit the Grove Park Inn.   It's a majestic old hotel that has some very tasteful additions to it.  We greatly enjoyed the grounds as well as the huge fireplaces throughout the hotel.  We hope to stay there sometime in the future.

Grove Park Inn opened in 1913.  Click here for its history 

One of many grand fireplaces, that was perfect for a cold and damp day.

Much to our surprise, Jeff's brother informed us he had a contract on a house nearby so we stopped to check it out on our way back to Atlanta. We really liked the house's setting.  We were surprised/shocked at how much the area has grown over the years.  When we lived in Atlanta, we would go up to that part of north Georgia (Rabun Gap, Dillard) and we would be in the middle of nothing.  Not now!  There were resorts and all sorts of stores.

Waterfall at my brother and his wife's new vacation home.

Then on to Atlanta for the weekend.  We stayed at Le Meridian in Dunwoody.  It is another business hotel that is hurting some.  It is a hotel we have stayed at before for Christmas.  We like to upgrade our room there to a large two room suite with 2 king beds in one room and the other room has a large sectional and a couple of tables. We once again ran into issues getting food.  I think a lot of restaurants are closing early these days.  Jeff watched a Georgia football game and then we tried to order pizza delivery - no luck so off he went to pick it up. We also had a socially distant outdoor brunch at Jeff's niece's home with her and Jeff's brother and their spouses.  I think it was a good get together since it lasted 5 hours!  While in Atlanta, we also explored the Vinings area for future home potential.  Enjoyed driving around but not many residences that will meet our future needs at least not now.  We did enjoy a glass of wine along the Chattahoochee river before a pop-up storm cut it short.  On Monday, it was time to go see what our condo looked like now 13 days since Sally's visit.

Move Sally Move!

 

As in the hurricane.  A friend posted on Facebook that she kept thinking of the lyrics ride Sally ride.  I wanted to scream Move Sally Move!!!

If you remember the ending of our last post we headed down to the beach after Labor Day with dreams of beach walks and floating in the warm ocean.  Yeah well thanks to Sally we got to do that for a couple of days and then she crashed the party big time.  First she teased us - the weather men said we are on the outer edge of the cone today but we will know more in a day or 2 when the cone width shrinks.  Okay we stocked up on water and batteries and started trying to figure out what to do with my convertible but no biggie.  The update came out with us no longer in the cone - phew - back to the beach for a walk.  Next thing we know darn Sally had moved east a little and we were back at the edge of the cone but she was also dropping down to a tropical storm.  Okay unpack my sewing machine and things to do for a couple of really rainy days.

Then we had a cleaning crew in working on our upholstery and the lead asks if we are staying there thru the storm to which I replied yes.  He said he wouldn't.  Huh???  He said yeah she is coming for Mobile Bay now and the way she is just sitting there I think she'll grow to a 3.  Gulp.  (We are located very close to the opening of the bay and in fact you can see the bay from our front door.)  Knowing me he saw a panicked look on my face and then said yeah on second thought it probably won't grow.  This by the way is Monday afternoon at about 3 o'clock or so.  Locally there is a 4 o'clock news so we start preparing to leave and say we will decide based on the news.  Lets just say we were out of there by 5 pm.  Yeah not a lot of forethought was put into what we took with us.  We grabbed clothes for 4 days in hindsight more would have been good, our computers, some of the charging blocks for phones we had charged, reading material, a quilt I am working on and a little food from the freezer since we knew we had a microwave and refrigerator in the room.  Trust me when I say there were still a fair number of people at the Beach Club and a lot heading out to the end of the peninsula as we were leaving.  At that moment, I felt a little wimpish, but I also kept reminding myself of what a former co-worker who now has a place on an island by St Pete told me was their hurricane plan - we leave when they say the word hurricane.  People asked how the rain was - light for most of the drive, but the wind was strong as we crossed over bodies of water.  Due to Sally's expected turn after landfall, we headed towards Tallahassee.  But, Tallahassee itself has bad covid rates so we stopped a half hour out of it in the small town of Quincy, FL where the rates were much better - hey I don't want to die by hurricane or covid!

So Sally did visit the Beach Club.  I think she is one visitor we wish had never come or at least made it a quicker visit.  A lot of owners have complained how rough and unruly the clientele was this past summer; well I am sure she was our worst visitor EVER.  She took part of the roof off of one building, ruined its penthouse, took a part of a side wall off another, part of an exterior staircase, blew in glass sliding doors, broke trees, threw things everywhere and scared guests to death (yes guests stayed through a hurricane).  From the maps of landfall I have seen, I believe either the eye went over the Beach Club or just missed it a little to our east.  

Avalon and Bristol suffered the worst damage

Bristol's Penthouse 1 lost its roof, which caused significant water damage on multiple floors.

The moment of truth for Jeff and me was when we opened the front door of our unit 3 days after the storm.  If it was dark in there that would be good because I had closed the curtains before we left - crazy mind thought that would help somehow.  The front door was there and when we opened up it was dark.  We hugged each other in relief.  So how did our condo do?  Well pretty good considering everything.  Like a lot of units our front bedroom or north one suffered some water damage.  Seems the one traditional window we had in the unit leaked so the wall got wet as did the carpet along that wall.  We also had some water spots on the ceiling close to our utility closet which makes sense since there is a drainage system from the roof that runs through all the utility closets.  30 inches of rain overwhelmed it - no big surprise there.  

Personal Protective Equipment is required

We spent 2 nights in our condo.  The first night was without power at all and the second night was on a huge generator that was doing all 128 condos in our building- very impressive.  By this time, there were workers everywhere - literally a couple hundred.  We agreed we needed to leave and get out of their way.  So we left for a week to go to Asheville where we had wanted to go earlier this year and chose not to at the time.  We stopped in Atlanta on the way there and back.  Partially to visit Jeff's relatives and  partially to leave my car there for the week.  When we got back to our unit 8 days later, we found huge blowers and dehumidifiers in our unit, the carpeting gone in the front bedroom, even more workers on the resort, and security concerns starting because robbery was becoming a problem in Fort Morgan in general.  After 2 days, we decided to leave for a few days for our safety and sanity.  We headed to the Fort Meyers area of Florida.  And wondering if when we come back to our unit next time if there would be wall board removed from part of our front bedroom.  

Massive Diesel generators for each building powered the AC and industrial dehumidifiers

Run off cut a gorge through the dunes about every quarter mile.

View illustrates the volume of people  and materials.  Note the cranes between each pair of buildings

All 3 Spectrum buildings at front of property had water damage.

Home on east side of Avalon Tower had wall sheared off.

Bristol's garbage room, disappeared.

Note the black triangle, which was part of Bristol's roof.