Day 18

 Tuesday  5/19

Woke up to another sunny morning.  It was hovering around 90° when we went to bed, but the temp dropped into the 60°s overnight and I was forced to get into my sleeping bag to stay comfortable.  

We had breakfast at our campsite:  OJ, fresh drip coffee from Polcari’s, cereal with milk, and some brioche that we picked up at Whole Foods in Chattanooga yesterday.

We needed to do laundry so we asked the campground manager “where’s the closest laundromat?”  His response sounded like a “Bert and I” routine since he didn’t know the name of the laudramat and could only say it was next to a Marathon gas station, but within eyesight of the back of Camping World.  The closest Marathon station did not have a laundromat near it, only a Dunkin Donuts and a half dozen Amazon delivery vans.  None of the Amazon drivers knew where any laundramats were.  We found Camping World and the greeter didn’t know the name of the laundromat either but said it was next to Joey’s bagels.  Fortunately there was only one Joey’s Bagels listed on our GPS.  So it took us 60 minutes to drive less than 10 miles, but our clothes are now clean!

Leaving the laundromat we headed for the Sierra Nevada brewery which has a wonderful tap room and restaurant. Since it was a tap room I ordered a ½ pinto of their sunny summer ale, which I liked, and Joni ordered ice tea.  We weren’t starving so I ordered a pretzel with beer cheese, and Joni order a small plate with pimento cheese and bread sticks.  We shared a delicious rice  pudding, be both agree this was one of our two best desserts on this trip.  

Carolina Gold Rice Pudding:  passion fruit cake, Hazy Little Thing mango compote, jalapeno lime gel, coconut lime

Next we headed into Asheville for some shopping and sight seeing.

We spent the most time in the Grove Arcade where Joni found a number of stocking stuffers for Christmas.  

Constructed in 1928 to be America’s first indoor shopping mall, the Grove Arcade has gone through many phases during its 100 years of history, including a military base, the national weather records center, and the finest place to dine or shop in Downtown Asheville.

We then checked out the Malaprop bookstore.  Joni was looking for Mona's Eyes, which she will be reading for her book club.  Unfortunately it was out of stock.

Just a bit up Haywood Street from the Malaprop is an old Woolworths Five and Ten that has been converted into an art gallery that features over 175 artists, but still has the original food counter.  

Another must see for us in Asheville is the Basilica of St. Lawrence, originally built in 1905, and is now having its copper roof restored.

Our last locale in Asheville that we wanted to check out was the River Arts District  which was very badlly damaged by the floods of Hurricane Helene in October 2024. 

October 2024

Today

Almost all the small studios, galleries, and restaurants were destroyed by that storm. Sadly many artists most likely cannot afford insurance, and many work in shops and restaurants that were closed for quite a while, but they are slowly rebuilding the area with only a few signs of the damage remaining. 

It was now dinner time, so after several false starts with our GPS we found the Italian restaurant where we had dined the last time we were in Asheville in 2023.  We weren’t starving, so we skipped appetizers and desserts and just enjoyed simple pasta dishes.  They were very good.

Chicken Parmesan for Joni

Fettucine Alfredo for me

We were back at our campsite around 8:00 pm, definitely tired, but nowhere as whipped as last night.  I guess we’re getting used to the heat.