Up early, but not out of bed too early. Rather frosty in here. When I finally get up, I find a fake little woodstove looking plug-in contraption that blows some warm air out of the bottom. I get that puppy cranking right away. Then some breakfast, a couple chores, a shower and out the door to pick up my surprise guest. I arrive at the Asheville airport and there is Michael Alexander Baydush Simon! When I spoke with him on mother’s day, I invited him down on a whim and he accepted! 20,000 miles later, and here he is.
We drive to town and fortunately exit the highway to the south of town and on a main road that leads to where we are headed. We meander slowly checking out the various restaurants, stores and service offerings to try and start filling in our picture of Asheville. A slight detour down the the River Arts district, a cool area filled with townhouses, warehouses, restaurants and art showroom galleries and studios. Pretty funky. Back onto the main drag and I make a quick pitstop into a tea/coffeehouse. There are a lot of little local stores on the block, but we have to get to the real estate agent’s office at 1, so we promise ourselves to return later. A quick stop into the Green Life to pick up lunch items (and a brief moment of OMG, I lost my wallet!) and we get to the Beverly Hanks office only a few minutes late.
We walk in and meet with Don Bell, our agent. We review some of the places he has recommended a few I found online and asked him about. I will post the MLS numbers of the land we visit in case you would like to see as well. Just go to www.beverly-hanks.com and insert the number I provide and you’ll get some idea. The first one we went to see today isn’t worth posting – a large piece of land, but railroad tracks run along parallel to the river, and the riverfront is only partly adjacent to the property. The second, #485926 that we saw had a great running river,
full of trout, but the land was fairly vertical and so doesn’t fit our criteria to be able to have enough level ground to have an incredibly large garden.
Back to the office (about an hour), made arrangements to meet in the morning, then Michael and I headed back to town and parked. We spend a couple hours walking around, poking our heads into stores (especially a super bookstore with mostly used books and a selection of the most esoteric/artsy magazines in almost every category….kind of like the Trident on steroids. their seating consisted of totally OG school desks scattered around as well as a row of former movie theatre seats, about 7 across, randomly places for siting and perusing the material at hand) and checking out the menus at a few restaurants that had been recommended. Around 7, we ducked into Chai Pana for Indian street food. Not the same as what Matty and I consumed, but still pretty good. Finished up and headed back to the Ladybug, which prompted Michael to comment that there must be something seriously wrong with these people!
We checked out directions to our meeting spot tomorrow as well as some hiking options for the afternoon and then hit the hay. 7 am wake-up call!