The rest of Asheville...and Western NC!

I wish we had at least one more day in Asheville. There is so much to do, nevermind relaxing in the cabin's hot tub and making delicious meals by the fire.

Saturday morning we woke up freezing in the cabin. We didn't realize the A/C unit was also the heat too and neither of us felt comfortable sleeping all night with gas logs on. We quickly warmed up with some hot coffee and I made Eggnog French Toast with mimosas. Ben loved this!!!

By 11am we were on our way into town. We did some shopping, walked around downtown and had lunch at Jack of the Wood with some Green Man beers. After lunch, we found a great little shop with some neat Christmas gifts for our family, then headed to the Chocolate Fetish I've heard so much about for truffles.

Since we did come to Asheville for the beer we stopped in Barley's for some good local brews. This was the best place for local stuff! While there we enjoyed:
~Catawba Valley King Don's Pumpkin Ale (tastes just like Pumpkin Pie)
~Catawba Valley Blackwater Uber Pale Ale (Excellent and very unexpected)
~Catawba Valley Hyper Monkey Java Stout (Delicious...like pure coffee)
~Pisgah Brewing Co Red Devil (Belgium fermented with a ton of cherries and raspberries)
~Highland Cold Mountain (a warm holiday spice brew)

This trip would not be complete with a huge shopping trip to Bruisin' Ales...the 2nd top rate beer store in the country! Ben was like a little kid in a candy store. After almost an hour of pondering and checking off the list Ben made of beers to look for, we checked out and took our case of special beers to the car!

We then headed to Thristy Monk's, which has a bar downstairs that serves only Belgian beer and one upstairs...we had a flight of 3 beers downstairs and shared a couple half pours upstairs with delicious peanuts on the side before heading back to the cabin.

Once back the cabin, I made a mushroom risotto and lemon scented asparagus while Ben grilled steaks. We decided to open a beer we've been saving for almost a year...Foothills Sexual Chocolate. It's one of the top rated beers in the country and world. Last February, Foothills made a limited release of 500 bottles. Our bottle was number 174...this was so good...to the very last drop. Hopefully they'll make this again and we can be lucky enough to get at least one bottle. If you love chocolate...you'll love this.

Sunday morning we woke up to dense fog and a chill in the air. Ben requested more Eggnog Frenchtoast for breakfas instead of the omlettes I'd been planning on making. After being lazy, we got packed, loaded up the cars and set out for Boone to get our Christmas tree.

It was literally a drive over the river and through the woods. I doubt there really isn't a great road to take across several mountains. Combine sharp winding roads with fog and cliffs...it was a little stressful and took us almost an extra hour to get to Boone. But we finally made it in 3 hours and had a delicious lunch at Macado's. It was such a treat, and just for a second, I thought I was in Blacksburg. I had my usual Johnny Dee (Grilled Chicken, Pepperoni, Provalone cheese, Lettuce, Tomato on a bagel with ranch dressing on the side).

The Christmas Tree farm was only 10 minutes away from downtown Boone, once there, it took us over an hour to find the perfect tree. There were so many choices and we kept losing track of our favorites, but we found it. It's an obscenly ginormous tree that's 9 ft tall! The guys on the top of the hill cut it down for us, bayled it and tied it down on top of the jeep. We set out for another 3 hours driving in the rain, but it didn't matter since we had just enjoyed one of the most relaxing weekends with each other and we had our perfect Christmas tree!