Asheville

Sarah and I both had the day off today- a truly rare occasion- so we headed up to Asheville, NC for a walk around the city. Asheville is the home of the Biltmore Estate and is known for its art galleries and crafts. I was looking forward to the bookstores I had been hearing all about and the furniture stores that sell hand made furniture from the area.

After a brief visit to the Chamber of Commerce, we parked and hiked around the city. We visited the Grove Arcade, a large building constructed to hold several stories of shops and services. It is essentially an elegant version of a modern day mall. My favorite store was "The Big Cheese" which, surprisingly, sold a variety of cheeses. We sampled several and bought some yogurt cultured jalapeno pepper cheese and some cranberry stilton. The stilton was, by far, my favorite; Sarah prefers the spicier cheeses.

We visited two of the three major bookstores in town and we made a few purchases. I hesitated to buy too much since I didn't feel like lugging a ton of books around town. I was somewhat disappointed with the furniture shops in town; the quality wasn't quite what I expected. Maybe it's because I visited a Thos. Moser showroom two weeks ago.

It seemed Asheville also had an antique shop on each corner. One shop was almost exclusively antique, hand carved imports from Southeast Asia. Some of those were quite impressive.

The rain held off and our legs held up well into the afternoon. Actually, the rain never came but our legs gave out eventually. We came home and finished off our day with some steaks and asparagus on the grill. Not bad for a day off.

I will try to update more . . .

GO PATRIOTS!!!!!