Downtown

The downtown areas of Black Mountain and Asheville, North Carolina, are probably not what Petula Clark had in mind when she sang her hit single many years ago, but that’s where we spent most of today.

We began the day with a visit to the Folk Art Center in Asheville, a crafts showcase (and store) run by the Southern Highland Craft Guild. After viewing some pretty neat (and of course expensive) crafts – quilts, furniture, art, sculpture, etc. – we continued on to the small town of Black Mountain, about fifteen minutes east of Asheville. We walked around the small downtown area, which has a nice collection of craft-type stores. From what we could see, there used to be a fair number of restaurants as well, but for some unknown reason (since the town seemed pretty busy) most of these establishments are now closed, while the remaining businesses seem to be doing well. This made it a little tougher finding a place for lunch and resulted in a wait of 15 or 20 minutes to get a table once we chose a restaurant.

Following our visit to Black Mountain, we returned to Asheville and spent the remainder of the afternoon walking through its somewhat larger downtown area. A bit more spread-out than Black Mountain, Asheville also sports a nice collection of interesting shops. There were also several interesting wall murals painted on some of the buildings (see photos).

That pretty much wrapped up our time in Asheville. We also made a quick stop to look at the McDonalds restaurant in Biltmore Village… probably the only McDonalds that contains a grand piano as well as a fireplace, tiled floor, nice wallpaper and other decor not typically found in a fast food restaurant.

The anticipated cold front did not really materialize today. Although temperatures may have been a few degrees cooler than the past several days, the weather continued to be hot and humid.

Tomorrow, we’ll be heading east to the Outer Banks… just about our longest one-day drive of the road trip, we can look forward to somewhere between seven and eight hours in the car.

Stay tuned,

Stu