Hola amigos! I hope all of you had a wonderful weekend. Ernesto and I drove up to Asheville to visit my brother
Brrrian. He just bought a little mountain cabin 10 minutes from the center of town. It really is the best of both worlds being in the middle of the woods yet so close to downtown.
We had some major car trouble on our way to Asheville
(** details at the end) but that didn't stop us! We arrived a couple hours late and ready to have a good time!
I knew that Brrrian's cabin was a fixer upper, so I'm not sure why I was surprised when I walked inside to a construction zone. I am excited for him. I can see the potential in the cute little 2 bedroom place; since Brrrian is so handy (he used to build houses with my brother Bill) he has his work cut out for him. Our good friend TJ is living with him (it was so great to see him and catch up). He has been working in home renovations for years, so that will be a big help.
Ernesto helped him with one project on his list: tearing down the unstable deck. It only took them a couple hours and they were sweating their asses off. (yep. still hot in the mountains)
I hung out with Titi, who unfortunately was not warming up to the cabin, or Bruno. (Brrrian's Dutch Shepard) He did, however love the great outdoors. Believe it or not, Titi was happy to hang out on his leash.
Here our pets hang out in the kitchen civily, but anytime Bruno showed interest in Titi, he got hissed at. I felt bad. Bruno is a sweet, very well behaved dog and just wanted to be friends and play. He may act differently when Brrrian and Bruno come to our house...Titi's territory.
We made it downtown a couple of nights. I love Asheville. There were so many people out walking around. All of the restaurants spilled out on the sidewalks. On Friday nights there is a drum circle in the square and tons of people dancing to the beats. Talk about great people watching! Unfortunately, I was not able to partake in the awesome beer tasting that this town has to offer. Oh well, just about 9 more weeks. (I told Ernesto that I would like a cold IPA beer and some sushi in the hospital!)
Sunday we decided to go tubing on the French Broad River. We started and finished at brewerys along the river.
The Wedge is upstream and we were floating a couple miles downstream to
the ByWater.
We each started with our own tube. Ernesto and I bought two cheapies at
Target. Within the first 2 minutes in the water, Ernesto sat on top of a rock and his tube tore, so we shared the bigger tube and Brrian used our cheap one.
About half way down the river, it started sprinkling. We said oh, this is nice the cool rain feels good. In a couple minutes the sky was overcast and we saw the pouring rain coming at us. We hopped out and waited under a loading dock to see if it would pass.
You can see how hard it was raining from the stream running off the gutters.
After tubing we sat outside Brrrian's cabin and enjoyed all the green surrounding us in the yard. Brrrian made a beer can chicken (with Coke Zero) on the grill. I made beans and a tomatillo salsa.
We didn't leave until 10pm and arrived Atlanta just past 1am. Whew! Was I tired! I was up at 530am Monday morning to work. Needless to say this pregnant girl took a much needed nap that day:)
**What is normally a 3.5 hour drive, took us 5.5 hours. We were giving Brrian a kitchen table so we drove Ernesto's truck. He has been driving without 3rd gear for a couple months now, so he knew the transmission was having problems and would need to be replaced...someday.
Two hours into our ride, we were on the side of the highway. I have to give my sweet husband credit [and thanks]. It was the most well-handled [potentially stressful] situation. Not one foul word, not one scream from his lips. Through his persistence, he got the truck moving again and we got to Mr. Transmission in Greenville just before they had left for the day. We rented a car and continued on our way. This may have been the most expensive trip to Asheville ever but boy did we have a great time.
In the end it's not the money that matters, it's the memories that you create, right?
