Day 3: Asheville! and 4th of July
We continued along Rt 81 South, parallel to the Blue Ridge Parkway, past Bristol, VA, and into Tennessee. In a small town there, stopped for some dinner. Near the restaurant was a huge fireworks tent, which had more types of fireworks than I ever could have imagined. And when we went to check out and pay for our sparklers and bottle rockets, I was surprised to see a guy with a fire dept fire chief shirt on, handling our purchase!
Later we crossed from Tennessee over into North Carolina, and arrived in Asheville, easily finding our friends Jen and Paul Baker's house. Griffin and their 6-yo son Dalton hit it off right away, and their 4 year old daughter Dahila played right along with them. After we got the kids to bed it was nice to sit up on their deck, sample the local Asheville brews, and catch up after many, many years.
Monday morning, July 4th, dawned warm and humid, with the noisy sound of kids playing together at an early hour. We had breakfast (Paul made "tie-dye" pancakes) and then headed out to the Blue Ridge Parkway. I should note that the Bakers were also hosting two high school exchange students at the same time, who had just arrived the day before. So we all set off for a morning hike.
The drive itself was gorgeous and the hike to Black Balsam Bald was great- cool, fresh air, wilderness, and lots of space for the boys to run and wear themselves out. We miscalculated snacks and lunch a bit, so had some grumpy faced kids towards the end who refused to really cooperate well for photos, but all in all, it was a great morning.
Then we headed to a riverside open-air restaurant-type gathering place where they had a live band, more micro-brews, and food trucks and got some lunch while Griffin discovered frisbee golf and later invited himself to join a nice unsuspecting couple's game of cornhole.
In the afternoon we headed home and then took the kids to Jen's neighborhood pool.
We continued along Rt 81 South, parallel to the Blue Ridge Parkway, past Bristol, VA, and into Tennessee. In a small town there, stopped for some dinner. Near the restaurant was a huge fireworks tent, which had more types of fireworks than I ever could have imagined. And when we went to check out and pay for our sparklers and bottle rockets, I was surprised to see a guy with a fire dept fire chief shirt on, handling our purchase!
Later we crossed from Tennessee over into North Carolina, and arrived in Asheville, easily finding our friends Jen and Paul Baker's house. Griffin and their 6-yo son Dalton hit it off right away, and their 4 year old daughter Dahila played right along with them. After we got the kids to bed it was nice to sit up on their deck, sample the local Asheville brews, and catch up after many, many years.
Monday morning, July 4th, dawned warm and humid, with the noisy sound of kids playing together at an early hour. We had breakfast (Paul made "tie-dye" pancakes) and then headed out to the Blue Ridge Parkway. I should note that the Bakers were also hosting two high school exchange students at the same time, who had just arrived the day before. So we all set off for a morning hike.
The drive itself was gorgeous and the hike to Black Balsam Bald was great- cool, fresh air, wilderness, and lots of space for the boys to run and wear themselves out. We miscalculated snacks and lunch a bit, so had some grumpy faced kids towards the end who refused to really cooperate well for photos, but all in all, it was a great morning.
Then we headed to a riverside open-air restaurant-type gathering place where they had a live band, more micro-brews, and food trucks and got some lunch while Griffin discovered frisbee golf and later invited himself to join a nice unsuspecting couple's game of cornhole.
In the afternoon we headed home and then took the kids to Jen's neighborhood pool.
Paul's parents live nearby so we had a nice picnic dinner on the deck, and later gathered on the front lawn while Steve and Paul shot off the fireworks in the street (turns out they had bought some pretty serious ones at a tent sale in NC too) and gave the kids sparklers. The kids were well asleep by the time the real fireworks started and the grown ups watched them from the back deck, of course- drinking more Asheville microbrews!
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