March 14-15, 2016

Our original plan was to leave Boston at 1am Monday morning to get through NYC before rush hour picked up; however, Corey wasn’t even close to being ready when he got home at like 9:45pm on Sunday. Extremely frustrating!!!… but that’s a whole other story.

We finally left at 4am and I drove the first leg until 7am. We were just beginning to hit traffic when we decided to get gas and take a car nap. I have no idea how long I slept for because at some point Corey took the wheel and when I was awake enough to figure out our location, we were about to cross the George Washington Bridge to New Jersey. Corey was able to use his phone and bluetooth from the car to take his 10am meeting while driving. Freakin mind blowing to be talking to a group of people from all over the world while driving through Jersey.

The whole day we just kept switching off. Whenever one person drove, the other would take a nap. It worked out extremely well. It was definitely exhausting, but the mindset I had was similar to when I worked doubles. By the time we had 4 hours left, we felt like we were “almost there.”

The drive was pretty uneventful except for:
Seeing a ton of cows through Virginia and Pennsylvania (doesn’t compare to the Azores at all though)
Getting a speeding ticket for going 79 on a 60 (complete bullshit cause everyone else was going the same speed)
Hail storm that I thought was going to break my windshield
On and off whiteout conditions from rain
The fact that we finished a 14 hour drive without being completely miserable

We stopped to get food at one of the only places that was open in at 9pm in Asheville, Wicked Weed. The food was wicked good. By the time we got to the Air Bnb and ate it, I couldn’t even find the energy to eat without falling asleep. After half a sandwich, I found fries falling out my mouth from me dozing off while chewing. I called it a night while Corey kept working for a bit.

This morning was glorious! We woke to sunshine and 70 degree weather. We set up outside so Corey could work while I looked up places to go to in Asheville. After a relaxing morning we made our way into the city. We knew we would love Asheville just by driving through the previous night to pick up food. It was very hip with a ton of mom and pop shops. I needed to find a CVS or Walgreens to buy stuff and couldn’t even find one. Instead we went to a co-op store and bought stuff like locally made granola, matés, kombucha, chia bars, and seltzer. How much more hipster can you get?!?!

We also ate at White Duck Taco Shop where I had a bangkok shrimp taco, fish taco, and duck mole taco. AMAZING! and cheap too! After walking around the city we headed towards Blue Ridge Parkway to watch the sunset. Since we had time to kill, we took a 45 min car nap. We’re amazing at car naps!

After our nap, we were ready to take a mini hike and have a picnic to watch the sunset! The views were amazing driving up Town Mountain Road. When we were ready to turn onto Blue Ridge Parkway, the road was blocked off due to road maintenance. Huge bummer!!!! I was really looking forward to it, but I know we’ll be back in the future for longer. Instead we drove around and watched the sunset from and outlook.

Now we’re back at the Air Bnb trying to get some rest. The plan is to leave around 1 or 2 am  to get to NOLA early.

Overall, Asheville is awesome. So much to see and do. So much food to try too!

Asheville bucket list:
Check out the hot spring nearby
Black Balsam Knob
Check out waterfalls
Pour Taproom- 56 beers on tap. pay by the ounce. (THINK FROYO FOR BEER)

PS- I hate writing. I’m tired. And idgaf about typos.