Tag: North Carolina

Hendersonville, North Carolina

The second part of our “cool down in the Mountains” August Trip went like this …

Hendersonville is another small town with a hopping Main Street area. On Friday night they close off a section of downtown for live music and a car show. In other times of the year they have arts festivals and even an apple festival. We have been fortunate enough to check out a few of those over the years. There’s no shortage of places to eat, shop and socialize along this stretch of town. During this trip we enjoyed a lovely dinner at SHINE, walked around downtown with our precious family baby, who loved looking at the bear statues on every street corner, looked at the historic cars and danced to the fun street band. https://www.visithendersonvillenc.org/

Cideries, Breweries and Wineries, OH MY!

We are not big drinkers in my household but I do love a good Cider and on occassion enjoy a refreshing wine. On this trip we checked out two very different Cideries but saw so many others in the area. A great idea would be to hire a driver, sit back and enjoy the view and taste test along the way.

Bold Rock Cider is a well-known high production cider. We popped by during their featured Sunday brunch and tried a tasty flight. It would be fun to go back for an actual tour. The grounds are spotless and features a music stage. I can only imagine how much fun this place would be on a Fall Saturday afternoon. https://boldrock.com/

Appalachian Ridge Artisan Cidery was by far my favorite. It’s a smaller production, locally owned Cidery that is also part of the Saint Paul’s Vineyard, just across the street. They converted an old worn barn into the most gorgeous site for their Cidery, even using the downstairs stable doors to make tasting tables out of. On the outside the barn just looks like a regular white siding building but when you step inside, the warmth and history envelopes you and you just don’t want to leave. The young-man that lead our tasting was phenomenal and fun. The tasting was $10 and included 6 ciders and 2-cordials. Yes, we walked away with a few treats to enjoy this fall. All were delicious and did I mention how beautiful this location was? They offer service on their patio on the weekends, often times featuring live music and a food truck. I highly recommend this stop along your travels. https://www.facebook.com/Appalachian-Ridge-Artisan-Hard-Cider-494317397428080/

Apples!

Along this same stretch of Hendersonville you will find orchards until your heart is content. We made a pit-stop at Grandad’s who were just opening for the season and not quite super busy yet. Not all of their varieties were ready but we were able to pick up a few pears which delighted my pear loving heart. The views were gorgeous with apples, corn and sunflowers growing in the foreground with the mountains in the background. They have a large fenced in play area for the kiddos, my husband loved that part as you can see. Fresh HOT apple doughnuts and cold apple slushies along with many preserves and other canned or bagged fun take-aways. We thoroughly enjoyed seeing how another orchard does it as My Mom and I have a favorite annual stop that I will tell you about closer to September. https://www.grandadsapples.com/

Sugar Mountain for mine and Sugar’s Anniversary

Of course we packed a pic-nic before hitting the road. Our first stop on this journey was to Linville Falls where we first had lunch and then hiked. There are several trails and all are fairly easy. The views are amazing. Unfortunately the leaves were not quite a peak but it was still very pretty to see. https://www.visitnc.com/listing/n9wC/linville-falls

Our next stop, and this was completely unplanned, was to Linville Falls Winery. https://www.linvillefallswinery.com/ We spotted it on the drive and made a u-turn to check it out. We were not sorry. It was a relaxing treat to sit outside on their patio and enjoy the mountain air after an invigorating hike. The wine tasting was fun as they offered two options so we each tried a different one. Of course, we grabbed a few bottles to go for our mountain stay and to have at home.


From there we made it to our accommodations that we had reserved through Air BnB. I won’t spend too much time on this but we had a heck of a time with AirBnB. Our first host canceled at the last minute, which left me running around like a chicken with my head chopped off trying to find alternate accommodations during peak season. Our second host, thankfully was a property management company because they ended up having a maintenance issue. Long story short, they were able to upgrade us to an even better Condominium on top of Sugar Mountain. We were quire literally swinging from the tree tops. In fact, on the second night the wind was so intense we seriously thought we might wake to having been blown off the top of that mountain. We gave up on keeping the pilot light for the gas fireplace lit and just went to bed. The next morning we woke to frost and news reports of 100mph wind gusts having been recorded in our area throughout that night. The views from our balcony were breathtaking and the condo was quite spectacular.

The first night in town we had dinner at the Eseeola Lodge. http://www.eseeola.com/ It was a very romantic, warm atmosphere with top notch service. Of course I had the Trout special. What a TREAT!


The next morning we woke up to fog so thick we couldn’t see out our balcony at all. We enjoyed the fire place while I prepared a light continental breakfast and then got ready for the day. By the time we were ready to go the day had cleared and was gorgeous but still very windy.


We drove into Blowing Rock and spent the day shopping, having lunch and actually touring the famous rock. We also stopped at the original Mast General Store, at a trout farm and a few other Mountain spots that you just can’t drive by without stopping to check them out.





It was a long, fun day so we opted to head back to the Condo and enjoy a light supper by the fire. We also still needed to enjoy the top of our wedding cake that my Mom had saved all year.

Happy 1 year anniversary. Wedding Cake Topper.

This is the night mentioned above so we woke to FROST. Neither of us had packed appropriately for that. We had to check out of the condo anyway so decided to just out for breakfast before heading to the famous Woolly Worm festival in Banner Elk and then touring Grandfather Mountain. We opted for a small Mom and Pop for Breakfast called, Grandview http://grandview-restaurant.com/ While you could indeed see the view of the Grandfather on top of Grandfather Mountain from the road, you couldn’t really see it from the restaurant. The food was decent but they were so SLOW and we were anxious to get on with our day. Honestly we didn’t enjoy it all that much, which pains me to say it because I just love to patron local joints. This one did not impress us much at all and the staff were not seemingly interested in even trying to be friendly. ouch! We would give a different establishment a shot next time over this one.


When we arrived in Banner Elk it was A) Freezing and B) the Woolly Worm festival was in shambles. The wind the night before had knocked down all of their tents and displays and they were feverishly trying to clean up. While we walked around town a bit the festival leaders apparently decided they were not going to be able to clean up and successfully host so they called the event. That was a disappointment but we understood and I felt so very sad for them. As a plan B we had planned on taking the ski lift up Sugar Mountain to look at the views but when we checked in with them they stated the wind gusts were still too high therefore they could not put anyone on the ski lifts. We drove back into Grandfather Mountain where we had planned on ending our trip anyway. When we arrived we were told that while the park was open the path to the top of them mountain and the famous swinging bridge was also closed due to the wind. At that point we decided to just slowly make our way back home. It was fine, we stopped at a few road side markets, listened to our wedding CD we had given to guests the year before and just took our time home, enjoying the views along the way. This is such a beautiful area of the country that I am sure we will be back one day to do the things we were unable to check off of our list during this trip. While fall is peak season, I can imagine that any time of the year is great. Cool in the summer and beautifully covered in snow in the winter, (although that might require a 4×4 vehicle). Either way, it was fun celebrating year #1 with my Sugar in Sugar Mountain.