Between Charleston and Asheville, we stopped in Greensboro for a night. We stayed with a friend and had dinner with a group of international teachers. It was a perfect stop in our trip because not a single thing we did was touristy, it was just a great time with great friends.
After that, we felt refreshed for the next few stops on our road trip: Asheville, Louisville, and Chicago, before ending up in my home state Minnesota.
We made sure to leave Greensboro early enough to spend a few hours in the Asheville Pinball Museum – great call. This ended up being one of Chandler’s favorite activities of the whole summer (and I certainly didn’t hate it!).
They have 35 pinball machines and 35 classic video games and for $15 dollars you can play as many games as you’d like. After a few hours, I’d narrowed down my favorite games to Godzilla, Twilight Zone, & Medieval Madness.
The place is also filled with fun facts about the games, such as:
-Pinball was illegal from the early 1940s until the mid 1970s in most of the US’s big cities. It was believed to be a “game of chance” and was therefore likened to gambling
-The 1978 game Kiss (yes, the band) was supposed to be the first game with speech, but it cost too much at the time, so instead the honor goes to Gorgar
-The Superman game was produced in 1979. It is 1 of only 10 pinball models made by Atari and is the only time Superman appeared on a pinball machine
-The 1993 Twilight Zone game is considered the most complex pinball games ever
–Medieval Madness (produced in 1995 and re-released in 2015) is considered one of the top 5 pinball games of all time
The next morning, we had a tough choice on where to hike. We discussed the Great Smokey Mountains, but at nearly a two-hour drive, we decided we should have stayed closer if those were the hikes we were going to choose. Photos of the Catawba Falls look stunning, but it’s been closed since May 2022 while the US Forest Service improves the trail – it was supposed to re-open in the spring of 2023 but now looks like it will remain closed until 2024.
We settled on driving the Blue Ridge Parkway (Chandler prefers what he calls “drive hikes”), with short hikes throughout the Pisgah National Forest.
Our first stops were for views of Looking Glass Rock – there are a number of overlooks that can be used for this purpose. My favorite stop was Cherry Cove, but we used the actual Looking Glass Falls Outlook to park for our first hike. We’d considered hiking to Looking Glass Rock itself, but at 5.5 miles, we weren’t sure we’d have time for any other hikes and I wanted to visit some waterfalls as well.
Our first hike of the day was to Skinny Dip Falls. At just under a mile round trip, I’d read that this was a popular hike. I prefer to take the path less traveled, but knowing that Chandler prefers as many people to be around when he encounters nature, I figured this was a safe bet.
Whoops – we were the only people on the trail. And it’s not like we arrived super early, we started our hike around 9am. The path was easy to follow and the falls easier to find. Before long we were headed to our second hike: Graveyard Fields.
It seems I’d failed again – although this trail had bathrooms and a car park, we were one of four cars at the start of our hike. This time, however, we passed a few hikers on our journey. We started the trail by going right and visiting the Second Falls. These were absolutely gorgeous and gushing with water. We followed a set of wooden stairs to make our way to the base of the falls.
We returned the way we’d come and then continued on the loop. This part of the trek got a little sketchy because not every choice was well-marked, and, without any cell service, none of my directions would load. We made our best guess and asked the few people we came across.
The views were absolutely incredible. The forest got its name because a natural disaster occurred in the area 500-1,000 years ago – a majority of the spruce forest was uprooted and after stumps and trees decomposed, they left behind dirt mounds, which led people to call the area Graveyard Fields.
Poor Chandler had a difficult time focusing on the beauty surrounding us because the park had put up a bear safety sign. We had seen a bear cub on our drive through the parkway and he was a bit on edge. I had scoured reviews of the past few weeks and couldn’t find any bear sightings on the trail, but I know he would have felt better if the trail had been busier (like I’d assumed it would be).
We succeeded in finding the Upper Falls, which, due to the trickle of water, wasn’t quite as impressive as the Second Falls had been. We made our return trek back and finished the loop with a 3.3 mile hike under our belts. By this time, the parking lot was overflowing with cars and we came to the realization that people in this area must really enjoy late morning hikes – it was already past 11:00am.
Our last stop in Pisgah National Forest was the Looking Glass Falls. I assured Chandler this would merely involve pulling over and walking down a wooden staircase. The site was the busiest yet, but we had no problem parking.
This was definitely our most family-friendly stop. There was swimming, picnicking, and photography. Definitely zero chance of bears. The falls were also the largest out of our previous stops, so it was clear why the spot was so popular.
We drove back to Asheville to spend the afternoon in the River Arts District (after a quick shower!). The set up is a bit confusing, because the 23 shops are spread out and on a hot day, it is not convenient to get from one to another. We spent some time in the Marquee, but quickly found it wasn’t really suited to our tastes – this map definitely helped us sort through what was on offer!
Instead, we altered our plans and headed to downtown Asheville to the Historic Lexington Park Shopping District – which was definitely more our speed. Because we’re minimalists, we don’t often purchase a lot of souvenirs during our travels, but I couldn’t helping spending money in Swahili Coast, Malaprop’s Bookstore, Himalayas Import, and Asheville Wine Market.
There’s also great food in the neighborhood, like at Rosetta’s Kitchen (vegan soul food) and Chai Pani (Indian street food). We’d planned on eating at plant as well, but it was closed the entirety of our time in Asheville. I also tried desperately to find a restaurant serving leather britches, but struck out. I’ve been obsessed with trying them since season 2 episode 3 of Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi. In the episode, Padma and the Beanstalk, she traveled through South Appalachia and ever since, I’ve wanted to try the umami-flavored, dried green beans.
Our time in Asheville was brief, but enjoyable and there’s definitely more hiking in the area that I would love to return to.
After Asheville, we spent a night in Louisville in at the Inn at Woodhaven – a B&B built in 1853. Owned by the loveliest of partners, no detail was overlooked and I loved every minute there (so much so that I didn’t go anywhere else while we were in Louisville! Poor Chandler had to visit the Louisville Slugger Museum solo.
Next up was a few nights in Chicago – we packed in the events there. Deep dish pizza at Labriola, a fairly bizarre blues experience at Kingston Mines, a day at G-Fest (aka Godzilla Fest), and drinks at a gay bar with an old Peace Corps friend (while Chandler went to a Cubs game). It was fast and furious and so much fun.
Before we knew it, we were finally in Minnesota, and our road trip was on hiatus.
Abroad With Ashley 