Black Mountain and Asheville

What can you say about a town that has a huge turnout for an opening exhibit of teapots?? Either there isn't much to get excited about here, or art means a lot! In Asheville, it is both. Asheville basically rolls up it's streets at 6pm, assuming some of the shops even opened at all on a Tuesday. We started our day on a bad note- Dave doesn't understand the concept of exploring and wants direction from me but then gets annoyed that I've given him directions to just explore!  Anyway, our slight detour meant that we got to sit and "chat" by a butterfly bush that had at least 30 butterflies flitting all over and around it. How can you stay annoyed with butterflies all around you?



We got to the center of town, Black Mountain, which is close to Montreat and reminds me of Ellicott City near home. We wandered up and down the streets, poking around in the stores. Pottery abounds, however I found a store that makes hammered dulcimers and bow psaltries and had many recordings of artists that play these instruments. I am now restocked with great dulcimer music!



The next stop on the pottery cavalcade was Asheville, another place that has an abundance of artsy pottery shops. We had intentionally not eaten because we wanted to go to a restaurant called "Laughing Seed Cafe", a vegetarian restaurant. Eagerly anticipating a yummy meal, we went up to the door only to  be greeted by a sign that read, "Closed Tuesdays" GRRR. We had to settle for a nice celtic themed bar called Jack of the Wood and pub food, which I am suffering for at this point... bleh... We wandered around a bit more and decided that we would take a short drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway.



Not sure where we will go tomorrow, depends on the weather...