Art, Glorious Art

Although we were sad to leave the captivating Blue Ridge Mountains, we enjoyed the picturesque path south through the Virginia valley, across the skinny bit of Tennessee, and on to Asheville, North Carolina.  We arrived in the dark at the Taps RV campground which turned out to be a bit disappointing (like waking up to 6" of snow in November) upon daylight. We were located right behind a gas station and just off a busy road (but hey, a "Chick-fil-A" was close by for midnight cravings).  The RV's were really packed in and we had trees on either side of us so there wasn't room to extend the slide out on the driver side in the front (so our "tiny house" remained in inhale mode). This office "shack" (pictured below) was the highlight of the park (Ya'll got a rezer vay shun? Yesum, I did it on the inter-webs!).  Banjo music plays eerily in the background.

That night we watched a movie I haven't seen since it came out in 1987 with the famous line: "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father.  Prepare to die." If you know this movie you win the prize in exceptional taste in iconic comedic cinema, if not, so sad (buzzer goes off in the background, trap door opens and you are dropped into comedic purgatory to watch endless reruns of Carrot Top, the Three Stooges, ventriloquists, and MIMES). 

About 5 in the morning, surprise, surprise, we are also located just next to the train tracks, almost as delightful of a wake up call as the diesel engines at Walmart. But, with a tad bit of imagination, I pretend I am riding the train to the Biltmore to have dinner in the massive dining room:

In my dream I take a seat close to the fireplace (since I know it's pretty dang cold in here from living in Dalkeith Palace in Scotland) and enjoy a full 21 course feast (OK, I only make it past the cheese and crackers part but Doug of course would enjoy it all) complete with cookies and milk for dunking. 

We came to visit Asheville with the girls about 7-8 years ago and toured the splendiferous Biltmore mansion (a must do for a "bucket list" if anyone hasn't been) and toured a bit of the town. I remembered Asheville was brimming with art so I felt like a dog in the open car window as we perused downtown Asheville again.  Art galleries here are akin to taverns in Wisconsin, one about every quarter of the block but minus the spilt beer smell (and just in case you were curious, I looked up spilled vs. spilt and modern English has now given way to using spilled in place of spilt so I'll go with spilt as a nod to our BFF like William Shakespeare--give me a "W", I heard echoing in my head from our former tour guide). 

Asheville also has the most incredible array of restaurants--something like 800 listed in Trip Advisor (for a town of 87,000 people).  We had a late lunch at Chestnut:

and then browsed the myriad of galleries--coop galleries, independent galleries, folk art galleries, wearable art galleries, old department stores made into antique-mall/cubby-like galleries; it's like the Mall of America in art. A jolly Australian fella working in a lovely coop gallery (his medium was stainless steel--beautiful sugar/creamer sets)

told us a good place to watch the sunset and have a drink was the Skytop bar on the 8th floor of a fabulous old building.  The ride up to the top is only attained by hailing the "elevator man" who guides the vintage (only two in Asheville) metal grate doors closed and states in classic fashion, "going up".  We had wine and beer but learned later they have fabulous mixologists that create incredible libations.

Worth the trip up for this:

And then after a bit the moon came out to greet us:

Being the artsy town that it is, downtown Asheville is also a hub for a vast array of colorful folks, and sitting outside at a sidewalk cafe provides great viewing. One person joked with us that he and his wife play two games while people watching in Asheville.  First game is like "Bingo" but basically winning with the middle square if you find 5 hippies and a puppy (yes, I kinda won once--only three hippies). The second game is "Is it a girl or boy"?, guessing the gender of some of the more kaleidoscopic folks downtown.  Not sure if you can really win at this one but I feel I am allowed to participate since I've been questioned twice (and probably more behind my back) if I was a boy or girl, causing me to curse my "athletic bulid" through High School, but appreciating it down the pathway of age. It's all just an illusion isn't it? Boy or Girl? But then again my name is Chris so that clears everything up. :)

We had a little time for people watching after grabbing a coffee from Double D's Coffee (all bra sizes allowed inside, obviously): 

Upstairs in the bus there is lots of room for sitting and people watching.

View upstairs toward the staircase. 

Then we took a stroll over to the Grove Arcade, another magnificent building built by Edwin Grove (more about this renaissance man later). This building is so wonderfully elegant with all the amenities of a "Downton Abbey" lifestyle. It reminds me of being in (a three story) "Marshall Fields" building downtown Chicago:

Love the fancy fretwork above all the doors!

And visible mail shoots with letter boxes.

Not sure if this was a ticket window or what (below) but I could find a million uses for this other than just a window into a Gallery: puppet theatre, living portrait window (with a regally dressed person just sitting in the window with eyes slowly following observer as walking by), mirror with crown strategically placed so when passer by looks over the crown is placed on top of their head, a shrine to all the lost souls who believe "Us Weekly" and "National Inquirer" are really "media coverage"...oh, the possibilities are endless!

 Old telephone booths recycled into marketing billboards below (note, one small "shrine" to the ATM) but again, the possibilities could be endless: little free library, shoe exchange (pinching shoes? just exchange them for others), magical entrance to another world, charging station for phones, mini gallery for tiny paintings and sculpture, husband vault--if you go shopping park your hubby inside with TV screen and some kind of car/sports/adventure show on, grandma vault--if grandma gets tired park her here and have craft items handy...see, the world doesn't need any more boring ad space.

Tuesday it was beautiful, almost 80 degrees so we decided to try out the mountain bike trails at Bent Creek park, near Lake Powhatan. The trails were extensive, no "horse rocks" here! A few logs and roots but nothing difficult except the cardiac straining switch backs up the mountain.  Several of the trails felt jungle-like with the foliage creating lovely arched tunnels:

The trails all shoot off from this "fire lane":

 Forever the stunt man:

Wednesday we headed out to Grovewood Gallery, an interesting array of buildings connected to the Grove Park Inn (more on the Inn later).  The Grovewood Gallery was filled with stunning art and craft, and the Gallery has won numerous awards through the years. The creativity and talent in this area is exhausting, there is one piece of art more beautiful and inspiring than the next.  It would be difficult to stand out in any medium with the plethora of talent.  Before entering the gallery we wandered through a sculpture garden filled with a variety of whimsical sculptures and gates.

The crow with golf ball is titled: "Excuse #153"

This pup (above) is just like me riding through downtown Asheville.

The bullfrog really was titled, "Jeremiah"...ha, now you too have that song stuck in your head.  

Another serendipitous find was the Estes-Winn antique car museum located amongst the gallery buildings. All of these buildings next to the Grove Park Inn were part of a former woolen mill (hand-loomed wool sold to high end designers) which began as a sort of social work project to improve the lives of the impoverished folks in the area around the turn of the century.  The business originated near the Biltmore Estate and was later moved to these buildings next to the Grove Park Inn.  Eventually the craft diminished with the advent of automated looms and proliferation of cotton and other new textile materials popular in the 50's. By 1980 all production ceased, however in 1992 the buildings were renovated to create this delightful complex of art galleries, artisan studios, and museums. 

The car museum is filled with  rare and vintage automobiles and carriages collected by Harry Bloomberg, a Cadillac dealer and philanthropist in Asheville.

We wandered up to see the hotel and WOW, I was blown away by the spectacular stone (which looks like a dry stack but there is mortar behind each massive stone) hotel built from 1912-13. With four hundred men working 10 hour shifts, six days a week the hotel was built, as promised, in a year. Fred Seely (a renaissance man: chemist, pharmacist, architect, and activist (he was a strong voice against the chain-gang labor of inmates in Georgia) along with his father-in-law, Edwin Grove, also a wealthy businessmen in the pharmaceutical industry and investors in land in the up and coming area of Asheville, NC. They used their fortune from the "Tasteless Chill Tonic" to build this massive resort.  

Walking through the Grove Park Inn is like walking into a giant home for the  three bears.  There are massive fireplaces flanking the lobby, one fireplace stoked with a roaring fire and rocking chairs, the other one decked out for fall (each fireplace is 36 feet in width--120 boulders were used to create each of these two story towers). I could pretty much stand inside the firebox. 

We ate lunch on the porch and this was our view:

The first deck down from the porch:

The back of the hotel:

After lunch we walked down by the spa and through the shops located inside the hotel (a Christmas shop, an outdoor shop, another gallery). We took a quick peak in the bar area and admired the wall of photos of all the famous folks that have mingled, slept, and walked the halls of the Inn (Rockefeller, Edith Vanderbilt, Houdini, Edison, Ford, on and on...) and walked back through the Vanderbilt wing of the hotel. What kinds of things did they talk about here? Did any of them tell any good jokes? What were the parties like in the 20's?  

By far the most famous person to walk the halls past and present, however, is the mysterious "Pink Lady"....more on that in the next post.