On the positive side, I am no longer the homeliest member of our traveling circus. Oh, well, it'll grow out.
On our first full day in Asheville we repeated something we had done six years ago - we took a trolley ride through the city in order to see the sights and hear again the fascinating history of Asheville. Below is Dr. Carroll's sanitorium, where Zelda Fitzgerald received treatment for her psychiatric disorders. Zelda was the brilliant but erratic wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was the famous author of The Great Gatsby and other classics.
Later, Zelda's mental status worsened and she lived for years a bit further down the road in Highland Hospital, which cared for patients with addiction and psychiatric disorders. In 1948 there was a fire in the hospital which resulted in the deaths of Zelda and eight other women.
The trolley stopped at the Grove Park Inn, established by Edwin Grove, the "father of modern Asheville", known as Dr. Grove, who made his fortune by selling Grove's Chill Tonic, which contained quinine and according to Wikipedia and our tour guide sold more bottles than Coca-Cola. Grove Park Inn is a truly magnificent structure which has hosted famous guests from Thomas Edison and Henry Ford to Barrack Obama. We plan to visit it for cocktails before we leave Asheville.
Our tour took us through many of the neighborhoods of Asheville, some of which we will explore during our time here as potential homesites for us in the future. Of course any houses available for sale at this time will be long gone by the time our motorhome trip ends eight months or so from now, and the prices here will undoubtedly go up. So what we will do is get ideas as to which neighborhoods might work for us and what the relative price points are for those areas.
One arena in which Asheville can hold its head high is its ranking as a foodie destination. I am amazed at the number of upscale restaurants here, the concentration of which must be up there with New York and San Francisco. We plan dinner tomorrow night at one of them, but we did have a couple of lunches which we will, honest to God, be talking about for a while. Roman's Deli has a reputation as the top hamburger joint in Asheville, and we were served literally the best restaurant burgers we've ever enjoyed - right up there with Nancy's best. And Asheville is known for its barbeque restaurants. We both had the ribs at Moe's Original Bar B Que, and it was a transcendent experience. From the first bites we were making groaning noises of pleasure and wonder. We've never had thick, meaty, full-flavored ribs of such amazing tenderness. Don't miss Moe's or Roman's if you ever make it to Asheville.
There are similarities between the Santa Cruz area and Asheville. Both have wonderful weather, Santa Cruz's a bit more temperate, but neither having a season with extremes of temperature that chase some of its residents out of town. And that's unusual. Both have beautiful scenery, Santa Cruz with both beaches and modest mountains, Ashville with grander mountain views and four seasons. Both voted for Clinton in the last election. Both are college towns and have intelligent, sophisticated citizens. Both have a good restaurant scene, but Asheville is way ahead in that respect. The downtown areas of both are nice, although Santa Cruz is more picturesque. Santa Cruz has a population of 65,000; Asheville 90,000.
Santa Cruz is the "second happiest city in America", according to Forbes, and Asheville is the "coolest city in America you've never been to", according to Gentlemen's Quarterly. We could be happy in either. We probably couldn't be cool in either.
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