asheville, sunday evening

We're sitting in the outdoor patio of a different internet cafe, killing time before dinner. This time Georg got connected too, yay! There's a band setting up in the courtyard. I really hope they don't suck. It's cool and beautiful here as evening comes on. It would be just about perfect if the waitress would come back with our drinks.

Sleeping in the cliff house was a little less than ideal for me, the light sleeper. I felt like I was falling into the middle of the bed all night. Also, one of the doors to the outside doesn't lock. It's a door that would be really hard to approach from outside -- it goes to a deck, and you'd have to climb up that slope to get to it. But still, at every little noise I would strain my ears to hear if it was just the house settling or an axe maniac. Okay, maybe I was being a bit paranoid. I'm not used to having doors unlocked at night!

Despite all predictions we actually got some sun today. We probably should have jumped on the opportunity and driven up to Blowing Rock, but Georg was tired of driving so after getting online this morning, we went to the arboretum south of Asheville. Which was really nice. They were having a big bonsai show, which we only looked at a little bit. Mostly we checked out the garden of native NC plants. They also had a formal garden with a buncgh of hydrangeas in it. We saw a couple of varieties that we just planted, which still had dried blossoms from this past summer. The mopheads are huge! I can't wait until ours bloom.

[The band is an all-female hot jazz combo. A bit loud, but not at all unpleasant. And my tea arrived.]

Unfortunately we planned today's meals pretty badly. We had coffee drinks at the internet cafe this morning, which made us feel full so we didn't want lunch before the arboretum. Which took a few hours, so we didn't end up eating lunch until about 4, by which time I was feeling pretty darned cranky. We stopped at a little grocery store and made sandwiches back at the cliff house, then drove up to the top of the mountain to walk around the campsite. They have some nice walking trails up there. The yurt looks exactly the same as when we stayed there last summer, same furniture and everything. I wonder if they bought the exact same things, or if they were able to salvage the furniture? As described, the gas fireplace isn't installed yet. The ceramic log got cracked so I guess they have to buy a new one. Also it looks like they're installing an a/c unit. I wish it had had one last year!

Tomorrow it looks like we're going to drive up the blue ridge parkway (as much as we can) to Blowing Rock, walk around and sight-see there, and then take a regular road back down here. We picked up a free map at the campground so our alternate route back is all settled. Unfortunately it looks like it's going to be cloudy and rainy most of the day tomorrow. Damned tropical storm Matthew! At least we both brought boots and raincoats.