This is a blog of my five-week exploration of culinary experiences in North Carolina. Baaswell Sheep is accompanying me and offering his own commentary on the trip, although he refuses to go into any place that serves lamb chops.
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We checked out of our nice suite in Asheville and stopped by the Blue Ridge Parkway Folk Art Center before leaving town. The center is a combination of several art galleries and a large crafts shop, the works coming from local craft guild members. There's also an interesting exhibit about the creation of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Lots of interesting arts and crafts, but nothing much in our price range (I particularly liked this one large vase with a gorgeous turtle sculpture and flowers made into the front, and then my companion pointed out that it was marked at $30,000!) There were more afordable options – options in the double-digit range, but the things we liked were still a bit more than what my companion was willing to pay.
We stopped here on the way out of town and my companion ordered a gyro and a Greek salad. Well, I refused to speak to him after that – gyros are made with lamb meat for crying out loud! He swears he forgot about that, but I don't believe him. I'll admit, I was hungry, so I just grazed on the salad and tried not to look at him if I could avoid it. EDIT: I was digging in my companion's archives, and to our surprise he had eaten at this restaurant back in 2009 when he first drove the Blue Ridge Parkway through North Carolina. He didn't remember that at all. Talk about déjà vu!
Mountain to Sea Trail, Blue Ridge Parkway
While the Appalachian Trail parallels the Blue Ridge Parkway in central Virginia, it turns off north of Roanoke and takes a more northern route before heading south into North Carolina and on down to north Georgia. But, on the southern end of the parkway, parts of it are paralleled by the Mountain-to-Sea trail. After getting to the Pisgah Inn, my companion took a two hour hike on the trail westward while I relaxed in the lodge room (I still wasn't speaking to him). He got his just desserts, as the trail was not that well maintained, leaving him to wade through lots of foliage (see main post picture to the right). He said he turned back at a point where the trail had suffered some washout damage, for while the area was sort-of crossable, it looked too dangerous in his opinion (see last two pictures below).
To make things up to me, my companion took me to dinner at the upscale Pisgah Inn Dining Room and got me a completely vegetarian dinner: pasta with mushrooms and spinach, green beans and carrots, and a cherry cobbler for dessert. Okay, I guess I'll forgive him … this time.
Please note that all restaurant and product names are used simply for referential purposes and links provided as a courtesy. Reviews are the sole opinions of the reviewer: no restaurant has paid to be listed here, and no restaurant is being explicitly endorsed. In other words, go out there, try them all, and form your own opinions!
We checked out of our nice suite in Asheville and stopped by the Blue Ridge Parkway Folk Art Center before leaving town. The center is a combination of several art galleries and a large crafts shop, the works coming from local craft guild members. There's also an interesting exhibit about the creation of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Lots of interesting arts and crafts, but nothing much in our price range (I particularly liked this one large vase with a gorgeous turtle sculpture and flowers made into the front, and then my companion pointed out that it was marked at $30,000!) There were more afordable options – options in the double-digit range, but the things we liked were still a bit more than what my companion was willing to pay.
