When in Roam

November 21–25, 2020: Asheville

Congrats to Gerry McConkey, my Passaic NJ chapter of Moms Demand Action colleague and RV enthusiast, for being the first to correctly identify Mackinac National Park as our country’s second national park. This was confirmed by both the National Park Service, and the question’s author, Thomas Arthur Afflerbach. Shout-out to our friend, Andy Lieb, for his engagement on this follow-up question as well!

Here’s one of those posts from back in the day (two-and-a-half months ago) that I didn’t have a chance to edit till now. Back then we were still getting our feet wet and figuring out our day-to-day life on the road, let alone me trying to write and edit this stuff. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did Asheville!

We drove from Charlotte to Asheville by way of the Starbucks on Catawba Rd. in Cornelius, ‘bout 20 minutes north of the Queen City, where we hung with my middle sista, Allison, you can call her Al, our niece, Sydney, and Lady, one of their two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels (CKCS). The humans had some coffee, and we passed the pooch around while we caught up. Syd and I shared notes on what it’s like to concentrate while sharing common space with others. In her sitch, it’s the challenge of a grad student working at home with parents on dueling conference calls. She’ll be clerking for a judge in DC whose focus is on law related to medical malpractice for upcoming COVID cases. As we spoke, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were being approved and will most certainly relate to her future work. We’re living in history as it's being made.

Al savored every deet of the trip to date. It’s so rare that I’ve gotten to see either of my sibs due to geography. Just being able to look at one of them in the flesh put a smile on my face and filled me with emotion. Syd asked me how I pronounced certain words — radiator, and peninsula. It turns out Al and I shared the same pronunciation. Score one for our side!

Two hours later, we were in Asheville. A quaint little city, 2,000 ft. above sea level, with a population of about 90,000 nestled between mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway. It grew during the industrial revolution, then became the place became the land that time forgot, until artists started to settle here in the ’70s. What’s it look like now? Eclectic, including equal parts of:

• bohemian art deco buildings
• kitsch-turned-hip motels, like The Mountaineer
• gorgeous homes near the legendary Biltmore Estate

We started downtown at the Grove Arcade section of town and, considering COVID, the place was hoppin’. We couldn’t get onto the outdoor rooftop bar for sunset (watchin’ the sunset behind these art deco buildings and the Blue Ridge mountains was a thing there), and the recommended outdoor dining in the area was booked, so we sashayed to Haywood Common, which had a slew of outdoor picnic tables, and an incredible beer menu that I couldn’t partake of (except for a taste of a sour fluffernutter — which tasted as it sounds, not for me). It also had enough of a wine selection to placate us, as our palates were not refined enough to cause a stir. Couple that with:

- everyone around us had dawgs

- we nabbed a space heater and situated it as close to us as humanly possible

- a great burger for Carol, and quinoa bowl/brussel sprouts for me

and it turned into the perfect welcome night to the town.

Our sweet tooths made us forage for a dessert place to no avail near the packed Wicked Weed restaurant and the local concert nightspot, The Orange Peel, whose lights were dim due to COVID. We punted, opted for some Skinny Pop, a Kit Kat bar, and peanut M&Ms, and we fell out to The Crown’s season 4/episode 8 catfight between the Queen and Prime Minister Thatcher. Olivia Coleman was great but sadly I felt Gillian Anderson overacted. Who’s with me?

Inspired by everyone checking out on a Sunday, I chatted up Valerio, the manager at our Fairfield Inn and Suites regarding our complimentary upgrade as Marriott Reward members, and he was able to move us to the other side of the hall into a king suite at no additional charge. Sweet!

We did some homework on what to do in Asheville, as we’ve done at all our stops, which includes recs from friends/family, searching on local sites, 36 Hours in the New York Times, U.S. News, etc. Early afternoon we drove northeast up the Blue Ridge Parkway with detours at the town of Black Mountain and at Mt. Mitchell. Would have loved to have continued up to Blowing Rock, but sometimes there just weren’t enough hours in the day.

Black Mountain was a cute little town. That’s how I define any municipality that doesn’t have big-box stores and has a smattering of masked people in the streets going in and out of purposely distressed mom-and-pop storefronts.

Next, it was off to Route 80 by Mt. Mitchell. It’s the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi at 6,684 ft. — kicking Mt. Washington’s butt by 404 ft. It’s 12 miles of winding roads. I felt like I was filming a Subaru commercial, though they’d have to speed it up on replay and CGI a helmet on me to get that sense of adventure. Picture eight minutes of continuous S-turns, with intermittent breaks for small grassy valleys with a church, or a nine-hole golf course, or a trout farm, or a few old double-wides, nestled between jutting small mountains, not hills. Small mountain sounds like an oxymoron, right? But they were pointy and didn’t look like hills?!

It reminded me of what used to be called the Interborough Parkway, now the Jackie Robinson Parkway, connecting Brooklyn and Queens. It’s a two-lane highway that back in the day had a 12-inch-high concrete divider and included the ever-popular six curves of skill and danger which were flanked by cemeteries. Seemed like an appropriate background, considering said divider.

Definitely got a taste of the topography. And on the highway to and from, we were surrounded by three-to-six rows of blue-grey mountaintops fading into the horizon — a great Sunday drive.

We headed to the River Arts District. Think funky warehouses converted into bistros, wine bars, and art galleries, surrounded by grassy areas with Adirondack chairs and road construction. It’s as if Urban Outfitters did the town planning.

We hung with Alex, Katie, and Ru. He’s the oldest son of our wonderful friends and neighbors from Whitestone NY, the Novicks. Picture us pre-children, doing what we’re doing, and they’re it! It felt like that bizarro Seinfeld episode, only they’re the cool ones 😉. I closed my eyes and pictured him as a five-year-old drawing Transformer cartoons, and now it’s 30 years later. Felt like the blink of an eye. It was one of those afternoons where three-and-a-half hours felt a lot shorter. We had drinks outside by a smoldering wood fire pit till the sun went down, then ordered great Hawaiian takeout and ate it at Pleb, an open-air wine bistro. All within two miles of each other. Gave us a great feel for this bohemian little jewel of a city.

The next day, with the temperature peaking at 48 degrees, the first stop was another GPSMYCITY self-guided walking tour. We started at City Hall, surveyed Pack Square, and the Thomas Wolfe House of Look Homeward, Angel fame, all within half-a-mile of each other. If like me, you never read his classic in high school, you may want to digest it before coming to town, as it was based on his childhood here, and it’s often cited.

We checked the box on the reformed schul, Temple HaTephila (which does not have negative feelings towards the City of Brotherly Love) and drove by the historic, now “Omni” Grove Park Inn where F. Scott Fitzgerald spent a couple of summers trying unsuccessfully to reclaim his Great Gatsby jazz-age-mojo, while wife Zelda was attempting the same at nearby Highland Hospital.

We were not to be denied a rooftop sunset at the Grove Arcade section of town. It was filled with all those Art Deco buildings from the ’20s and ’30s that thankfully weren’t torn down as the post WWII boon bypassed Asheville. We took a quick COVID-friendly tour of Woolworth Walk, a former five-and-dime store that’s been turned into a quite impressive gallery of local artists and artisans. Then hit the Cambria Hotel’s rooftop bar for sunset drinks and dinner. Interestingly, my soup turned into gazpacho due to the cold.

Closed the night with two episodes of The Crown season 4/8–9 followed by Carol introducing me to Golden Retriever videos to wash away the mood that came over us after watching those royals whine.

The next day consisted of snapshots of three parts of town. Montford, River Arts (yes again, couldn’t get enough of it), and Biltmore.

River Arts was the most satisfying and engaging. We chatted up an AMAZING artist, Richard Christian Nelson — which is I guess how you have to brand yourself when your name is Ricky Nelson. He painted both portraiture and landscapes. Grew up in Dey-twa (official pronunciation for that city ;). He reminded me of a couple of artists/guitar players that I went to art school with, know, and love. If you want a painting for someone in your life created in a Norman Rockwell-esque manner, check Rich out. If you’re lucky enough to get to Asheville, as great as his stuff is online, it’s exponentially more beautiful in person! He won’t recall us by name, but if you refer to “that couple that popped in while traveling the country for six months, where the wife is an art director and the husband went to art school and did some illustrations”, he’ll say, “Sure”, whether he remembers us or not 😉.

Another option is Aaron Hill. He wasn’t there when we went to his studio, but I LOVED his work too. He has two themes, paintings that are homages to baseball cards, and paintings for people of their favorite photos. I spent much of my adolescence doing the former as I loved sports. But, I could only apply the necessary hand/eye coordination to the page, not the field, which can happen when you’re six feet at 13 yrs. of age. There’s a part of me that wanted to stop the trip right there, rent some space in the River Arts District, and have at it now! The passion I felt being surprised by this work was like when they lit a match and started that great theme song to Mission Impossible. I love being around anything or anyone where there’s passion. It’s magnetic, intoxicating, like a moth drawn to a flame!

Now that my soul was filled, that carried me for the rest of the day, because aside from River Arts, the other excursions did not maintain the same level of wonder. Montford was a cool mix that included homes from the early 1900s in various levels of repair. Some properties were downright stately, others were cool and quirky. Think mid-scale bohemian vibe. Kinda felt like Upper Montclair/Montclair in NJ. And refreshingly, these homes were in the same neighborhood as some lower-income housing. It was heartwarming to see everyone coexisting in one community, instead of being cordoned off into different towns via usurious mortgage lending practices, and slimy municipal laws. A highlight here was checking out the Riverside Cemetery, specifically the grave of William Sydney Porter, whose pen name you’ll be familiar with from his short stories which you read in school.

Special shout-out to our friends the Kreitners, who turned me onto checking out, and paying my respects to, notables at cemeteries. And it’s not only while traveling. I’ve always gotten a lot out of paying respects to my folks and grandparents annually, and the comedian Andy Kauffman is buried in the same cemetery as my paternal grandparents. When selling a recruiting system to Yale University, I had a break in the action and went to the Grove Street Cemetery on that university’s grounds. Had the opportunity to stand in front of the graves of Charles Goodyear (vulcanized rubber), Eli Whitney (cotton gin), and Noah Webster (dictionary) whose plots were next to each other. Three captains of industry who have impacted all of us on a seminal level. Just me and these spirits on a crisp fall afternoon — outstanding!

Speaking of famous, wealthy Americans born in previous centuries, George Washington Vanderbilt III’s picture arguably belongs in a Dictionary of Phrases under, born on third base but thinks he hit a triple. He used part of his inheritance to build the Biltmore Estate. Built on 125,000 acres of woodland, and with 250 rooms, at the time it was the world’s largest privately-owned vacation home. Constructed between 1889 -1895, it was designed and landscaped by Richard Morris Hunt (Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Great Hall) and Frederick Law Olmstead (Central Park NYC), respectively.

About 20 years ago, my Uncle Barry and Aunt Ev gave us a tour of the property and I distinctly remember the hotel having the largest fireplace I’d ever seen. My first thought was, logistically you could conduct human sacrifices here! In those days we roamed the grounds for free. Today, they’re charging $94 for a day pass to enjoy the grounds. You enjoy it!

We drove around Biltmore Village, which used to be a company town for the estate workers known as Best, NC. Now it’s a shopping area for all the brands you know and love in the architecture of a small English village.

Speaking of appropriating other cultural environments, I was a teen-tour counselor for American Trails West one summer while in college. We were at a KOA outside of Rapid City, SD, I think. I had a break and was in the campground's pool chatting up a woman in her mid-late 30s when the topic of traveling internationally came up. She said, “Why would I travel to Europe when I can just go to Epcot in Disneyworld and experience all those countries from here?” This is a judgment-free zone, people.

We ended the afternoon getting some BBQ from 12 Bones, recommended by my aforementioned aunt and uncle, who spent 20 years living in Weaverville, which is next door to Asheville. They came here before it was hip. Consumed the rack of dry-rub ribs which watching the season four finale of The Crown. It didn’t look like Epcot.

Next stop — Lake Norman for a COVID Thanksgiving!