Western North Carolina, Part 2

Chapter 5: Asheville Cats

After a stop in the quaint town of Waynesboro for lunch (where we savored some non-gloppy food) we rolled into Asheville at about 2 PM to find ourselves in the middle of Bele Chere, Asheville’s wild, free street festival. In fact, this is rumored to be the last Bele Chere, ending a 35 year run and so it was bigger and higher energy than even its usual state. While the coincidence of our Asheville visit with the festival was a happy accident, it was something I had discovered in advance and so I had booked us a room at a lovely boutique hotel within walking distance of the festival. 

Air Dog Demo at Bele Chere

Bele Chere is in some ways wilder than anything in DC – western North Carolina just has more people who let their freak flag fly, as it were, than does buttoned down DC (have you ever seen women walking around topless at the Alexandria Scottish Christmas walk? I thought not) and the beer was flowing freely. On the other hand, it had a mellowness missing from big city festivals. Even on Saturday night the place was never too crowded, and the rowdiness was never out of control or threatening. Perhaps the most telling part, in terms of what North Carolina is about, was the ongoing (but completely non-violent) clash throughout the festival grounds between bible-thumpers who showed up megaphones in hand to denounce the sinners of Bele Chere and Asheville in general (libertines! Homosexuals!) and the large group of hippy-dippy counter-protestors shouting them down.

Religious Right Speaker & Counter-Protestors

Valerie and I spent Saturday night and Sunday wandering the festival, looking at the artists’ wares, browsing in stores along the way, people-watching and listening to bands on the festival’s six stages. I had never heard of any of the bands but they were all quite good, with styles ranging from bluegrass to electro jam band to funk to gypsy jazz.

We also explored Asheville’s restaurant scene, ducking into a Himalayan restaurant for dinner on Saturday when it started to rain, eating Southern-style breakfast Sunday at Over Easy (french toast with vanilla lavender yogurt and house-made granola for me with a side of grits – warning, the bananas were not locally sourced) and then dinner at Asheville’s famous Southerny/organic-y Tupulo Honey (trout with pepper aioli over grits for me - that's two grits meals in one day). Late Sunday afternoon I also managed to squeeze in a brief drive and hike on the Blue Ridge Parkway while Valerie napped.

Chapter 6: Build More

Did George W. Vanderbilt build enough living space in his house? No, he Biltmore! The Biltmore Estate was the attraction about which we got the most conflicting advice. Many of the folk at Folk School panned it as a touristy rip-off while others considered it an Asheville must-see. We decided that visiting Asheville without seeing The Biltmore Estate would be like visiting New York and not seeing the Empire State Building, which is itself both a touristy rip-off and a must-see.

We were glad we wound up deciding to visit. Being fans of Downton Abbey we viewed the whole thing through Downton eyes. Plus, the day we visited featured spectacular weather. We started by touring the gardens and wound up spending several hours strolling through Frederick Law Olmsted’s masterful landscape designs (the tour pamphlet for the Biltmore correctly credits Olmsted with designing New York’s Central Park and the grounds of the U.S. Capitol but shockingly omits mention of his true masterpiece – Brooklyn’s Prospect Park). We hadn't originally planned to spend so much time in the gardens, but once Valerie gets walking in the great outdoors it’s hard to stop her.

At The Biltmore Estate

We enjoyed the house tour as well. You only get to see a fraction of the house’s 255 rooms and 179,000 square feet, but the tour is well designed to show you key public rooms, family rooms, some of the 33 guest rooms, as well as “downstairs” kitchens, storerooms and servants quarters. We really enjoyed it. One funny moment: we were sitting out on a veranda enjoying the view of Mt. Pisgah when I overheard a conversation among a multi-generational family of visitors. The mom and dad were impressed but the grandfather, speaking with a discernible European accent, shrugged and said, “This is nice, but it doesn’t compare with what we have at home.” Sorry, buddy that we don’t have the Palace at Versailles (which is four times the size of The Biltmore!) here, but America's Castle Neuschwanstein has better rides than yours, and FastPass to boot.

During my visit I learned some things about George W. Vanderbilt: Like me, he was born in November ’62, had two older brothers and was a quiet, bookish sort. Also like me, his basement gym included a rowing machine (a fabulous 19^th century steampunk looking thing – I wish photographs had been allowed!). The self-guided tour brochure noted that a man in his position would have dressed four to six times per day, depending upon activities – again, a man after my own heart (Valerie makes fun of me because I change clothes all the time for exercising, work, yard work, hanging out, etc.). Unfortunately there are a few differences between us, most significantly the huge fortune thing.

Speaking of the fortunes one lavishes on one’s children, on the way back from the Biltmore we stopped at the bank to see if we could take care of paying Ted’s August rent via a wire transfer. We were fortunate to be helped by a banker who grew up in Brooklyn and Long Island and with whom we had lots of other things in common. It was too close to closing time to get the wire transfer done but we did leave with a recommendation for a nearby pizza place, run by another Brooklyn expatriate.

Chapter 7: Book Homeward, Angel

Our last full day was a slow one. I got up and did some mountain biking while Valerie finished up our bank business and shopped. We met up for lunch then spent the afternoon lounging and reading. Real life began to seep in around the edges as we packed and I checked work email. Valerie's stomach had been bothering her a little bit and so on the last night we had a light dinner at a nearby crepe place then took one more stroll around downtown. We ran into Asheville's weekly mass hula hoop demonstration, another sign of the kookiness of the place.

Wednesday it was up and out the door early for the ride home. We arrived to find the house and cars largely unscathed, which was better than we had hoped for, and reunited with Ted & David over dinner.