Asheville, Day One

J. and I took a trip to Asheville, NC over Memorial Day weekend. We went there for the first time two years ago. It was under far less than ideal circumstances, but we managed to have a good time even then, and have been wanting to go back ever since.

Asheville is a curious place. Though known primarily as the location of the Biltmore Estate, which we visited on our first trip, it is far more than that -- an artsy, politically and socially liberal college town in the middle of remote and desperately poor rural Appalachia. It is surrounded by breathtaking country and offers world-class hiking, whitewater rafting and mountain biking, making it a great place to visit for outdoorsy types, but the influx of tourists and a concomitant increase in the variety of shops and restaurants downtown makes it a welcoming place for urbanites. It is the best of both worlds, creating a colorful if occasionally uneasy mix of college kids, aging hippies and affluent boutique shoppers. The single image that encapsulates Asheville for me dates from our first visit two years ago: a girl on the street corner, no older than twenty, punked-out to the n-th degree with purple dreadlocks and at least half dozen ear and nose rings, her skimpy tank top revealing a chest, neck and arms completely covered with tattoos, playing the most amazing bluegrass fiddle I have ever heard.

I frequently have trouble figuring out where to stay when we travel. Lodging is expensive, and short of camping, which we do occasionally, anything that seems cheap usually comes with the kind of character you don't necessarily want. Chain hotels are ugly, sterile and still expensive, and everything else being equal, I would rather spend my money at an independent local place, but those are few and far between nowadays. A historic downtown hotel, something form the golden age of railroads maybe, would be ideal, but those are truly rare, and the only one in Asheville – the Princess Anne – was all booked up. That leaves Bed and Breakfasts, which would seem perfect at first blush and can be a surprisingly good value for the money. The problem is that neither J. nor I really care for the idea. We stayed at one only once, many years ago, but I remember being uncomfortable with the unspoken expectation to socialize with other guests at breakfast. J. and I are both fairly asocial, especially J., and especially when traveling. We are terrible at making small talk, wary of strangers, and in any case, a vacation, however short, is an opportunity to catch up on quality time with each other. Plus, we go into overdrive when we travel, packing as much activity into every day as we can, so we never really spend any time at the place we're staying. This time, however, J. wanted to give B&Bs another chance, and with nothing more attractive available in the center of town anyway, after a little research we settled on the Carolina Bed & Breakfast in the Montford Historic District just North of downtown.

We left home Friday morning, and after a long and uneventful drive pulled up to the front of the Carolina around 4:00 p.m. The place was an imposing house build in 1900 by Richard Sharp Smith who worked for Richard Hunt, the chief architect of the Biltmore, and was the supervising architect during Biltmore's construction. It showed some patina, but generally seemed to be well-preserved. We were meet by the innkeeper, a friendly, robust, round-faced transplanted midwesterner named Sue who showed us around the building and our room. The room was spacious and the décor not particularly frilly.

Showered and changed, we settled on the giant front porch to take advantage of the Carolina's complimentary glass of wine and wait for dinner plans to gel. There, we met Sue's elfin-looking husband David and some of the guests – a middle-aged couple from California exploring the Carolinas for two weeks and another, slightly younger couple. They apparently had already met earlier and were chatting like old friends while they sipped their wine.

J. has some family in the Asheville area (Hendersonville, to be precise) – her cousin D. and an elderly aunt, and it is the cousin we had plans to have dinner with Friday night. D. has been living in the area for over twenty years and is a trained chef, so although there was a bunch of restaurants we had been wanting to try, we willingly took his recommendation. He chose a place called Pomodoro and said they served both Italian and Greek food. Red flag number one – more than one ethnic cuisine in the same restaurant is never a good idea, with a possible exception of Korean places that also make sushi, and one with a name that could not be more clichéd is even more dangerous. He gave us directions, bad ones as it turned out, but we found it after stopping to ask. Even Asheville has a sterile layer of chain restaurants and faceless strip malls between its colorful core and the surrounding countryside, and that is precisely where we found ourselves. Red flag number two.

My fears proved to be mostly unjustified, however, and I was pleasantly surprised by the food. I opted for the goat cheese ravioli, which were respectable. The pasta was quality and cooked to a proper degree of doneness. The filling showed no trace of the roasted peppers the menu promised, but the cheese tasted fresh and flavorful, though it could have used more goaty tang. Our waiter was a serious-looking guy in early middle age, and seemed trustworthy, so on his recommendation I chose the pesto-cream sauce over the tomato. I don’t really understand the idea of a pesto-cream sauce. The whole point of pesto is not to be creamy. But Pomodoro came close to pulling it off. It could have been less rich and could have definitely benefited from an extra spike or two of garlic. But for a generic suburban place, it acquitted itself reasonably well. It pays to have low expectations sometimes.

The conversation with D. was something of an experience, too. He brims with energy and talks non-stop at a hundred miles an hour. He loves to lecture and has an opinion about absolutely everything. Sometimes it’s impossible to get a word in edgewise. On Friday, for some bizarre reason, the conversation turned to classic rock bands. D. turned out to be a huge fan of early Genesis, the lineup that had Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett, and he had recently seen them in concert. Apparently they have been touring, without Gabriel but with Hackett. It was amusing though somewhat sad to hear a man in his mid-forties talk about Genesis and their long-standing defiance of commercial expectations in the seventies like a starry-eyed adolescent. I attempted to express my views on the sad spectacle of geezer band reunions, but he was not listening. I mumbled something about having seen Gabriel on Austin City Limits a couple of years ago, and that he looked too fat and old to be doing his unicycle and his shiny suit thing. “Ah, but you see, Genesis would never even be seen on Austin City Limits,” D. said with the earnestness of a geeky college freshman discovering the wonders of progressive rock for the first time. No amount of irony or snide comments on my part got through, not even my trademark assault on sixty-year-old Mick Jagger in a belly shirt and tight jeans. Periodically, I attempted to steer the conversation away from D. and music and towards his girlfriend whom we hadn’t met before, stunningly beautiful and as far I could tell exceptionally nice, but quiet and resigned under D.’s overpowering performance. Most of the time I failed, and we found out little beyond the fact that she was native to the Asheville area and is an accountant by profession.

Exhausted both by the drive and by the dinner conversation, we drove back to the inn and collapsed into bed, hoping to get as much rest as possible for the hike we had planned for Saturday.