Asheville...

Asheville, NC View of some of downtown, from the road where our car was parked...quite high above from where the main road was. Quite a hill to hike to get to the parking garage.

(click on the box if the image is not showing up)

We got up really early Friday morning, to head out to Asheville, despite having nearly no sleep the night before, as we had the opportunity to see Hedwig and The Angry Inch performed at the Fringe Festival. So, very tired and weary after 2 hours of sleep for me, and none for Chas, we headed out. Got to Asheville about 5:00pm, so about a 12 hour drive. Hooray for cruise control. And good music. Thanks to dorkbot for pointing out the aux jack for our ipod. :) It was quite a trek up to our friend's house; they live a few miles up the side of a mountain and it took about 10 minutes to get there from the main road. By the time we left, Chas was a pro driving up and down around the twists and turns. We took video footage of the trips up and down...hopefully it will be edited soon for me to post, but I am not expecting any miracles with speed on this, as our Canada footage is still on the camera too. :P Anyhow, we all got together and went out to a fantastic Indian place for dinner. Oh my god it was so good...we need to revisit our Indian places here. Watched some Doctor Who, as our friends don't have cable or watch tv really. They enjoyed it.

Saturday we got up and had breakfast at a nearby diner, and on the way back we passed their street and went up the rest of thr mountain, and then down down down. Whee!!! After that, we headed to downtown Asheville, where the picture above (you can kinda see how hilly and mountainous it was there...I took it from the road where our car was parked in the garage, and there are two more streets at different heights below me). It was great! There were lots of little neat shops and stalls, and we picked up a few prezzies for people. I also had my first frozen custard. Oh my god, I am spoiled now! We had the anniversary flavor which was honey vanilla, using locally grown honey, by one of the street vendors. I picked up Pink Moon, from Nick Drake, to add to my collection. We left downtown, headed to a healthfood store so I could try to find an allergy supplement, and then back home for a bit. We went out a bit later to Enoteca, a Italian tapas style restaurant. [Insert more yum here.]

Sunday we headed over to The Biltmore Estate, though not before having a Huddle House brekkie. Hooray for Huddle House. We spent the bulk of the day at the estate. It took a few hours for us to be able to get in the house, so we spent it outside in the Walled Garden, and eating pastries in the old stable area. The tour inside the house was quite tiring, as this is the largest house in the United States. We were only allowed through certain parts of the house, but the four floors we traveled through were enough. Our legs were so sore after all the walking and stair-climbing. We picked up some sushi at the Fresh Market, and heated up the rest of our Indian food from Friday. Nothing fancy, but nice and relaxing. Watched a few more Doctor Who episodes, and then packed, as we had to leave after breakfast the next morning.

Monday, I could hardly walk. Luckily, I did not need to do that much, as we had another 12 hour drive ahead of us. I stayed in my jammies for the whole trip...though my jammies consisted of fleece pants my 2005 Florida Film Festival t-shirt. Got home around 9ish, and was ready to collapse.

So, a short, but very enjoyable weekend with friends.