Let’s start with the Airbnb, located in North Asheville, steps away from the famous Grove Park Inn and a large sprawling golf course, I stayed in a large cabin. A legitimate log cabin called The Cabin in Grove Park, and it even came with it’s own postcards! The cabin was in the backyard of some wealthy family that also rented out their basement apartment to another lovely couple that handled the mowing and gardening on the property. It had a large overgrown garden right behind my cabin and I was welcome to the plentiful cherry tomatoes who’s vines had taken over.
The family was extremely welcoming. One of the hosts, greeted me as soon as I pulled in and was quite talented at giving Nova these little head massages (he became her favorite person very quickly). The host couple also had two young daughter who they regularly strapedp to the back of their bicycles on sunny days and a young black pup named Clover who was a spitting image to Nova and could have been Nova’s Yin to her Yang.
The full story of the Cabin was it belonged to a previous owner of the property, he had this cabin on land in Tennessee that was going to be swallowed up by a new river that was going to form in the release of an old Damn. Instead of losing the cabin, the property owner moved it, log-by-log, to the backyard of his house in Asheville. The host explained to me that when he and his wife came to see the house they originally had NO IDEA that the property just also happened to include a cabin, which seems like quite an oversight by the real estate agents.
You could tell that the cabin was sort of randomly dropped there. The driveway led up to an enclosed deck area that connected to the bedroom, what I would personally consider the “back of the house.” The main doorway of the cabin looked up into the main house and there was another side door just off the bathroom that opened up onto this unused little plot of land where there was the gate and the neighbors property enclosed by brush and trees.
Ignoring the awkwardness of the layout, the cabin was incredible, mainly do to the incredible care the hosts put into the place. There was a gas fireplace, an outdoor hammock and, finally, a DESK. I have been setting up at kitchen tables in uncomfortable chairs for the past three months but this was the FIRST time I had a legitimate DESK to work from and I was extremely excited about it.
A lot of Airbnb hosts have really underestimated the power of a quality-padded chair. I’ve gotten really sick in planting my big butt into all of these cheap, narrow and uncomfortable metal chairs. A good desk with a decent chair was so very welcomed.
Behind the cabin there was a rope hammock places strategically next to the little creek the ran along the property. The creek separated the garden from the cabin, the garden’s sprawling tomato plant nestled itself along the rock walls that ran along the creek. One afternoon I woke from my dozing on the hammock to find Nova ankle deep (do dog’s have ankles?) in the creek happily chomping away at the tomato plant. Nova had long had a hatred for water but she also was always very food driven. I guess if I ever want to try to get her into a kayak I can try stringing tomatoes along the kayaks brim.
The city of Asheville was absolutely incredible. Every city stop I’ve had so far in the trip has been completely different, even if the people felt very much the same. Harpers Ferry, like Asheville, was an outdoor enthusiast’s haven but while Harpers Ferry was really quiet and low key with a local population in the hundreds, with small historical B&B’s and restaurants that closed at the beginning of the week, Asheville could not have been more different.
I described Asheville to a friend as seemingly like “The Catskills and Brooklyn had a baby.” Which is perhaps an analogy only a New Yorker could quite understand.
While in Asheville I was minutes away from countless hikes along cliff edges, up to the top of mountains and alongside flowing lakes and also I was steps away from ice cream shops, local breweries and local fare. Downtown Asheville had a line of shops where you could find such places as Asheville Bee Charmer, that sold an arrangement of honey products including a vast array of honeys infused with such flavors as Orange, Vanilla bean and Chocolate or The Gourmet Chip Company, a small place that specialized in gourmet potato chips and offered a full menu of potato chip based meals. You could also pick up loads of flavored chips.
I arrived in Asheville on Memorial Day Weekend and downtown was packed with typical holiday weekend traffic. Nothing on the level of New York City but finding parking did require a little bit of searching but there are so many pay-per-hour parking lots all over downtown Asheville and I’m still used to having to walk 5-10 blocks to get anywhere, so it really wasn’t much of a hassle for me. After spending so much time in the woods and away from people I was actually seeking out the busy areas and being around other humans, even if it was just navigating a somewhat busy street on a holiday.
I was actually really presently surprised to see how serious NC has been taking the pandemic. Masks were required indoors in every county I’ve visited and almost every shop or restaurant I entered had masks available at the entrance with a friendly reminder to mask up. Everyone was pretty on top of it, it was really the tourists who seemed to grumble when they were reminded pf the mask policies by friendly employees.
I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things to do in Asheville. The mountains were mere minutes away, the Blue Ridge Parkway , an over 400 mile parkway that stretches from Shenandoah National Park (which I hiked before entering NC) and ends at Great Smoky Mountains National Park (which I visited early in this trip, more on that later). There were so many quality breweries. AND there was a lot of tubing and kayaking available along the rivers that ran through Asheville.
Many of the hikes I found around Asheville looked a little different than what I was familiar with, they were either relatively short, running about 1-2 miles to an overlook or extremely long at about a dozen or so miles running along the Appalachian Trail or other less well-known lengthy hikes such as the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. Personally speaking, I like a good 4-5 mile moderate hike that runs up a mountain or leads to a waterfall but it had been kind of tricky to find those, many of the more popular hikes were barely 2 miles and led up to narrow passage to an overlook, which were tricky to navigate on busy days with a leashed dog.
My first weekend I took Nova on an early morning hike up to Lane Pinnacle, a little bit longer of a hike that went up a few steep ladders and along the edge of a cliff. I keep Nova tethered at all times since I’m just not comfortable letting her off-leash yet but on our way back we were on a particularly narrow part of the cliff when a pack of 5 unleashed dogs approached us on the trail. The dogs ranged in size from a very large German Shepherd and a very small Dalmatian puppy. Nova and I were stopped on the cliff edge as the dogs surrounded us and the owners still hadn’t caught up to the pack, though I could hear them in the distance.
Nova gets along really well with dogs and she wasn’t nearly as overwhelmed by the dogs as I was but then just the owner’s caught up to their dogs, Nova started trying to play and almost slipped on the cliff edge as she bounced around. I grabbed Nova, asked the owners to move their dogs along and we moved on with our hike. We were lucky and they were lucky since that could have ended really badly. It’s made me really nervous for what other types of dog owners we could come across on the trail during this adventure. But ultimately, everyone was okay and we all made it out of the hike.
One thing I’ve noticed about Asheville was the pure abundance of dogs everywhere. Asheville is known to be very dog friendly, it came up in a lot of my “Dog-friendly city” google searches. There are plenty of bars and shops in Asheville’s downtown area that not only allow dogs but gladly welcome them.
On my way to a hike one morning I got very lost. For some reason, the directions to a trailhead just took me to a random road in the middle of nowhere. I tried to go to a second hike and that also led me no where. It was a weekday and I didn’t have much free time left before I had to get home to work and I was getting extremely frustrated, I was at my wits end but still attempted to drive to one last hike. Then I happened to drive by what looked like a sort of dog run that had a large rusted colored bone with the words “Wagbar” painted in large seafoam letters. I’ve heard of a few dog park beer garden places before but I’ve never been to one. I’ve been hoping to catch one along the way but I had NO IDEA there was one just minutes from my place. I gave up on the hike and immediately went home to look it up, I joined as a monthly member that afternoon for just $25 for UNLIMITED monthly visits with proof of vaccinations (for the dog), and went immediately after work.
Minus the mulch ground that turns my white dog BROWN by the end of the visit, the place is an absolute dream. Rolling taps of about 8 draft beers, coolers full of more beer and a plethora of random local snacks. It was incredible. All dogs are vetted for their shots and I can just grab a beer, sit and watch my dog be an idiot. We also happened to stop by Wagbar for one last treat on our last night in Asheville and it happened to be an open mic night which was amazing.
Early in the trip I decided to take the almost two hour drive over to Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee. This is the first park I’ve been to that doesn’t allow dogs on most of the trails and this visit was a little tricky to navigate since it would mean leaving Nova at home for quite some time and it was nearly impossible to find a daycare with availability. I woke up at 4 am to complete darkness to take Nova for a long walk before leaving for the park. She was walked and fed long before sunrise and I hit the curving roads of the Blue Ridge Parkway in pitch black. About a half hour into my trip I checked my rearview mirror and found the most beautiful sunrise. The colors were intense orange and pinks across the horizon and I had to stop at the next overlook to take it all in. I pulled over and watched the mountains for a few minutes as sky began to lighten as the sun started to peak its head. It was breathtaking. I’m not sure photos really do it justice.
As I pulled into Great Smoky Mountains National Park was welcomed with another incredible sight. I came across a herd of elk grazing in the early morning fog along the roadway. Some elk where just standing in the road and I had to weave around them, holding my breath as I pictured the points of an elk antler piercing my car.
In the park, I picked a rather short but moderate hike, I didn’t want to keep Nova waiting in her crate all day but I still wanted something that would get the blood flowing. The unfortunate thing about the hike I choose was that it normally led all the way up a narrow path to a gorgeous summit but part of the area was destroyed by a wildfire a couple of years ago and about 1/4 of the trail was closed for safety reasons. There still was a nice area to see the mountains and the original summit so all wasn’t lost and the hike was quite a workout so I didn’t regret it for a second.
Another morning I hiked Catawba falls, a very popular short hike that leads to a massive cascading waterfall, see me in the picture below for scale. I managed to hike this one early on a weekday to avoid all of the crowds it attracts. I think the tallest plunge waterfall I have seen was Taughannock Falls during my Ithaca/Lodi Stop and Buttermilk Falls, also during Ithaca/Lodi stop, was probably the largest cascading waterfall I’ve seen so far. Check out this great article on types of waterfalls. But Catawba Falls absolutely took my breath away.
As my time in Asheville drew to a close I found myself scrambling to get the last of the touristy hikes out of the way. I hiked Craggy Gardens and Craggy Pinnacle in the same day since the hikes were nearby and relatively short and the following day I checked out Black Balsam.
I ended Asheville with my hike total at over 57 hikes since June 2021, when I started my trip. That’s surpassed my total number of hikes (56) in all of 2020. That’s pretty impressive considering the fact that I didn’t get to hike at all in the Winter and Spring of 2021 since I was too busy preparing for this trip!
Unrelated to hikes, I happened to be in town at the very end of minor league baseball season and their happened to be a beloved hometown team, The Asheville Tourists. They had a bunch of themed nights coming up for their last home stand and I picked up tickets to their Craft Beer night where they offered $3 craft beers.
I decided to treat myself to the “expensive” seats, so for $36 I sat right alongside the home dugout and had access to unlimited drinks (water etc), hot dogs, nachos and other disgusting bull park food but the most important part was it was delivered right to my seat. I was a little anxious about the idea of attending a three hour baseball game by myself but forced myself to go, knowing I’d regret it if I didn’t.
So I went.
And I really enjoyed it. The ballpark had an amazing list of local breweries and, while the home team got crushed, it was so nice to see live sports again.
The September weather was still nice enough for some afternoon kayaking so I booked a long Kayak trip down the the French Broad River with Asheville Outdoor Center. The setup was similar to my experience in Harpers Ferry, you loaded up onto a shuttle and they launched you a ways up the river and you ended at the outfitters main location, where your car was parked. This trip had a few pockets of rapids, nothing major and all beginner friendly but the instructors did have some words of warning on how to hit them successfully. We were in sit atop kayaks and the weather was warm enough that the worst that could happen would be we’d get a little wet and maybe a little scratched up but I’d never kayaked anything beyond a few waves in a bay near Jones Beach, NY so I was a little hesitant going into my first bit of rapids.
I’ve kayaked countless calm lakes and rivers but I found it a little boring and tedious. I REALLY enjoyed the mix between calm water and pocked of small rapids that got my blood pumping and brought a new level to kayaking. It was kind of like hiking up a mountain, sometimes you had steep inclines and other times you had flat ground where you could catch your breath. I’m hoping to learn more about rapids and what each of the classes mean to hopefully tackle more minor rapid rivers like the French Broad during my trip.
Another dog friendly adventure Nova and I took was a visit to Biltmore Estate. While you can also purchase tickets to enter the estate, I brought Nova with me and she was only allowed on the grounds but that didn’t really matter since the grounds were so large we spent almost the entire day there just wandering around.
If the tickets weren’t so expensive, I’d probably have gone back to hike one of the mainly trails we didn’t get to explore in our hours there.
Coincidently part of my kayak trip (sans Nova) went along the grounds of Biltmore Estate
My September in Asheville, NC whizzed right by and it was bittersweet to say goodbye. I loved Asheville, NC and would happy spend another month or more there but I’m not entirely sure it was the place for me. While Asheville was welcoming and open to all people, I didn’t catch a sense of the vibrant queer community I had been looking for.
On to the next!