Summertime in North Carolina

I’m a little over a month late with this post, what a month! Sorry for the delay, the following is my trip to Charlotte in July:

 

After my last post, we did in fact make it out of Denver and onto the plane, ready to go! I had selected an Exit Row seat, and actually ended up in the very-enviable position of not having a seat in front of me, which meant lots of leg room! I sat back to relax, enjoyed a recent weight-loss that helped the seat belt fit a little better… and started to enjoy myself a little bit. I’m on the plane, and that is infinitely further than last time!

 

The trip was quick, though I had forgotten to download my Google Books onto a new phone, so I ended up reading on the same tablet I’m writing this right now… it’s good but unwieldy, and got a bit tiresome! I’m reading “The Magicians”, a series by Lev Grossman, one that I only discovered due to the credit from the television show by the same name, and I have to say that I love it almost as much, if not more than, the television series! More to come after reading on my flight back. It has a lot more detail than its counterpart!

 

 

The flight was uneventful, save for a sunset that looked amazing from thousands of feet in the air. It was almost as if we were flying into Charlotte as the sun was flying out, and as we descended through the clouds they lit up like billowing smoke in front of a fire behind us. It was beautiful, and I have some pictures. It was great to spend time with my travel buddy, Jen, and begin our weekend together. I landed late, after nine, but we still managed to hit “NoDa“, which is a term I’ll have to look up but has to do with Northern Davidson in Charlotte. We would spend a lot of time here over the next few days. Tonight we started with a bar for a quick drink and some food. I had a sour beer from Wicked Weed (also a theme of the weekend!) which was amazing, and Jen tried a beer as well. We caught up about all the life happenings we’d been missing, and relaxed into a friendship that had been waiting a while. No matter how old we get, I’m still changing, she’s still changing, and there are always things, people, and places to talk about.

 

 

 

From one bar to another, we headed to a better place for dinner, had some french fries with different toppings (poutine, beer cheese), and one more beer. The night was wrapping up and soon it was after midnight before I tapped out and said I was extremely tired. The next day was Asheville, a two-hour drive from where we were staying, and we still had to get there, unpack, and head out again to meet a friend at 9:00 AM. We were going to have to wake up early as it was!

After settling in and a good night’s sleep near Charlotte, we woke up early, hoping to locate a coffee shop on the way, and headed for Asheville. We were planning on meeting a friend of ours, Eliza, and taking a tour of the city. I’d been near Asheville a few times in the past (the Biltmore Estate being one of the places I visited last time I was in town), but had never toured the town itself. I’d fallen in love with the idea of the area some years ago thanks to the book Cold Mountain (Charles Frazier), and the Blue Ridge Mountains have been something majestic and beautiful in my mind ever since. Asheville wouldn’t disappoint, and neither would breakfast.

 

One of my favorite things about visiting North Carolina is Tupelo Honey Cafe. The biscuits the company makes to showcase their honey are some of the best in the world… and adding fried chicken and gravy (health concerns completely aside on this one…) makes this all the more delicious. We had a few drinks, plenty of food, and decided to tour the town on foot for a bit.

 

 

Asheville has quite an area of small shops, tourist attractions, and restaurants. We spent some going from shop to shop, including  the Mast General Store where there are wooden barrels full of all sorts of candies, and eventually stumbled into a street fair across from the fire house. We had spent a few hours walking by that point, grabbed a few drinks at Wicked Weed brewing company,  talked to the firemen for a bit (Jen got to fire up the engine, and smiled very much like an eight year old does when allowed to do the same), and then we decided our next stop should be Sierra Nevada Brewing Company… which is just outside of town. We said goodbye to the firefighters, and headed out.

 

Sierra Nevada, if I’m honest, has never been my favorite company for beer. I’m not a huge beer snob, and will drink just about any beer, but overall it’s not one I would normally pick… but I would go back to their brewery in a heartbeat. It was beautiful, and even though we didn’t get the official tour, we got the “Eliza version” and it was just as good! The tour ended at the brewery’s attached restaurant, and we put our name down for the 45-minute wait. We sat in the sun outside (Sierra Nevada has a concert venue out back, but nothing was playing midday), and made small talk while people came and went.

 

 

We had a few beers, and soon it was time for our table. We beat the rain, but just barely, and as we went inside to sit down it began to pour on all those that were still waiting. Most of them just transitioned to somewhere inside and kept waiting, and the food really was worth it. To some degree the menu is a little limited, but what they do offer they put a lot of effort into, and I really enjoyed all of it. I don’t remember exactly what we ordered, but I remember being very glad we had a good variety of things.

 

 

 

 

We said goodbye to Eliza at the brewery and headed home. I had brought a few Colorado beers with me on the trip for Jen, and we decided to have a quiet evening of leftovers (if we got hungry) and beer. It was a quiet night of relaxing after being out and about all day, and then it was time to go to bed and prepare for the next day.

 

The next morning, coffee was needed and we’d had our eye on a coffee shop back in NoDa named “Smelly Cat”. This is apparently a ‘Friends’ joke but I haven’t even seen the show, however the coffee was very good and we sat down for a long few hours. One of the agenda items on this trip was completing our Antarctica paperwork and ensuring we discussed packing and next steps. We did so, enjoyed our coffee, and watched as the place filled with locals and visitors alike. Today, we decided, would be a laid-back day. I didn’t fly out until that evening, so we had a little while left to spend our time how we wanted.

 

One of Jen’s favorite things to do is watch movies in a theater, we’ve done this throughout our friendship and seen everything from all-day Oscar movie marathons to new releases here and there… so we decided that should be on our list (I know, travel faux pas, but completely worth it with a good friend when you don’t get to do it all the time anymore), so we watched the newest Star Trek and I enjoyed it! I won’t focus on the movie here, but it was entertaining enough and soon it was time for a quick bite before heading back to pack and start the trek home. After a tour through downtown Charlotte, we ended up back in NoDa again at a place specializing in Fish Tacos.

 

 

This was actually my first real foray into fish tacos, however I tried the seared tuna taco and was not disappointed! It had a ginger-based sauce and was a bit spicy with wasabi also… and tasted amazing. We both had a few drinks, washed it all down with dessert, and headed back very full. We talked more about Antarctica and when we would next see each other, and I packed up to go. The flight back was uneventful, Charlotte airport was okay as usual and I was in First Class for the way back (free upgrade!) due to the problems the first time I tried to go. I listened to music on nodded in and out, thinking about the great weekend (and great food) I had enjoyed over the past few days.