Asheville NC

We left Nashville the week before with sadness in our hearts after losing our beloved Amelia, but moved on to happier times in Asheville, North Carolina.  We were there to attend Linda's High School reunion.  I call it that because for her, it was High School.  But there are not enough students who attended her school in Izmir Turkey to have a reunion for a single class.  So this reunion was for anyone who ever attended the school.  It was a good turnout and it was good for her to see some of her old classmates.  I enjoyed meeting them for the first time too!  There are only 5 surviving members of the 12 in Linda's class of 1960, and 3 of them made it to the reunion.  Here is a picture of them from the banquet.

Class of 1960 Izmir Turkey Reunion

We stayed at a beautiful RV Park located just east of Asheville on the mountain above Swananoa, called Mama Gertie's Hideaway.  The panoramic view from our site made it well worth the rather precarious climb up the tight and steep road.  We were also able to wash the coach after paying a minimal $15 fee.  We hadn't washed it since leaving California 3 months ago so it really needed it!  When I asked for permission and paid my fee the lady said she had to check because they had been in a drought.  What??  So I guess it hadn't rained for an entire week!  That is a drought around here!  I liked it because it pretty much rained every day in the afternoon and was very refreshing.  Summers here are nice as the temp is usually in the low to mid 80's with cool nights and thunderstorms.  We actually needed sweatshirts a few times while we were here.

The mountainside location made it harder to get our walking in as we did not want to hike up and down the steep grade.  We were able to get at least a mile in each day by going around and around the level area at the top of the hill where we were parked.  Pablo was kind of bored with that but he was still glad for the exercise. 

On Thursday Linda's sisters, Bobbie and Micki came up and spent the night with us.  I barbecued some steaks and then we had a campfire complete with s'mores.  It was great to see them again and catch up on each others life events. 

Later when it was time for bed, I was taking Pablo out one last time.  We came out of the rig just in time to see a black bear about 50 feet away.  He stopped and watched us so I opened the door to the coach and I called everyone over to see him.  After watching us for a minute he continued on his way down the hill.  We found out in the morning that he had ravaged the trash dumpster down by the office.

The view out our living room window.

Afternoon walk.

One of the events planned for the reunion group was a visit to the Sierra Nevada Brewery.  Yeah, I wondered "what is Sierra Nevada doing in the Blue Ridge mountains??".  I'm not really sure, but they have built a beautiful facility in Mills River right behind the Asheville airport.  It was fun too see the whole place even though I don't drink (16 years sober in November).  We had an interesting lunch at the Tap Room restaurant on-site with unusual  dishes like Ham and Cheese with béchamel sauce and gruyere, chorizo verde and white beans, and a burger with fontina cheese, bacon, hot sauce aioli.  It was good and we had a nice visit with some of Linda's Izmir friends.

Some of the Izmir crew. On Linda's right is her good friend, Ida and on her left is her sister Micki.  On the far right in yellow is her sister Bobbie and next to her in the blue shirt is sister Kathy's husband, Bill.  Kathy was still busy taking care of banquet plans and didn't make the brewery tour.