Asheville, NC to Nashville, TN
To start the morning of Jan 5 in Asheville, Mike drove a few blocks to the Owl Bakery and picked up some coffee and delicious pastries. While I packed up and did some trip research he took Merlin back to the French Broad River dog park for another romp. We reluctantly checked out of our AirBnB and headed toward the arts district.
The only time-sensitive aspect to our trip is that we have to be in Denver, Colorado by January 10 to meet Mike’s mom and step-dad and ski at Breckenridge through the 16th. This deadline (combined with the extreme cold) has been driving short stays on the way out to Colorado. We’ve been considering this portion of the trip as a kind of fact-finding mission to bookmark places we might want to visit again, either on our way home or on a dedicated trip. Asheville absolutely falls into that category.
The River Arts District is a group of about 20 former warehouses that have been converted into artist studios, galleries, cafes and breweries. Every building is completely covered in impressive graffiti. Almost every studio allowed dogs, food, and drink and Merlin happily came in to escape the freezing wind. The sheer size of the district was really impressive. It was easy to see that on a nice sunny day you could spend an entire day there taking in the art and enjoying a beer or coffee at one of the picnic tables.
Before heading out of town we drove around the hilly and cute downtown area which had enough independent shops, restaurants, and bars to keep anyone busy. We grabbed sandwiches to go from Roman’s deli and could be heard remarking about how delicious they were as we drove out of town with Nashville in our GPS.
As we neared Nashville about four hours later, our shortest drive so far, we stopped off at the Stones River Dog Park facing the dam of the Stones River. The park was really well maintained, had nice clean bathrooms, and slowly filled with a lot of nice people and dogs in the time we were there.
Our friend Bobby splits his time between Nashville and NYC and lucky for us he was there this weekend and offered to host us at his apartment. We rolled in and relaxed with some Teddy Grahams and Asheville Brewing Co beers, and headed out for dinner, more drinks, and live music!
We grabbed nice food and cocktails just a couple blocks away at Union Common before going to the Station Inn in the Gulch. Although it was my first time in Nashville, Mike has been a few times and he and Bobby both suggested I wouldn’t be missing much by skipping the Broadway nightlife scene. I was happy to oblige - the Station Inn has been operational for more than 40 years and offers the best in Blue Grass! The venue itself is barebones, plywood floors, various tabletops, and folding chairs facing a platform stage spotlighting the most beautiful microphone I’ve ever seen. We spent the next 3 hours sharing a pitcher and tapping our feet completely memorized by the blue grass jams of David Parmley & the Cardinal Tradition!
After a long and busy day we laughed our way back to Bobby’s apartment, ate some late night nachos, spilled a bottle of hot sauce all over the floor, and hit the sack!
