February 20, 2016 (North Carolina)

Mile 269 Asheville- The Bullingtons bid adieu to our friends and hit the road for Asheville.

Cool public art project on a wall surrounding a void in an otherwise beautiful downtown area. Wonder where I could find one of those. Ahem. (clears throat and glares at Phillip Goldstein)

Home of the largest collection of bumper stickers in the world! (only a hunch, scientifically unproven)Since my sweet friend Karen moved here and I visited a few times, I have called it the land of opinionated bumpers. I, too, love peace, kale, quinoa, free thought, open minds,  little puppies, and Mother Teresa. I just don't feel the need to wear it back there. I am getting a little deep for Mileophile, but when your car in a junk heap in 20 years, so will be your bumper sticker ideology. And there is something sad about a "Teach Peace" bumper sticker cracked and faded on the back of a impounded, rusted out Sentra. Actually getting your happy heiny out there and teaching peace without getting all preachy will leave more of an impact, don't you think? (And that just sounded totally preachy. The struggle is real, y'all)

 Anyway, most Ere’ body in Asheville wants to make sure you know that they are co-existing while eating locally grown sustainable kale. They have come up with a heap of ways to tell you that plastered on the back of their Subaru Outbacks. We get it. You live in Asheville, I know your dog is a rescue. I know that you bark less and wag more. I know that Kale is your Power Plant. I know that you think a cow is a life not a lunch. I almost stuck my own sticker on the back of car just for giggles but I couldn’t decide between  “You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers” and “If God didn’t want us to eat animals, he wouldn’t have made them out of meat” I couldn’t do that though, because a.) I could never find those for purchase in Asheville and b.) I would never  have them on my person because my bumper (unlike my talk hole) is quite unopinionated. 

All kidding aside, we LOVE Asheville! Everyone is overtly nice, the food is great, lots of great music and very kid friendly. It really is "anything goes", which is nice if you are trying to roll up into a bar called the “Odditorium”. I had read that it was the place to go if you’ve never seen a taxidermied two-headed duck. (which we hadn’t!) They apparently have a decent display of weird stuff but I emailed the owner about potentially gaining access outside of bar hours to view his collection of oddities.  I also wanted to check the “kid friendliness” of it because a previous exhibit had included some stuff that was questionable. I didn’t hear from him in time so we nixed it, but got an email on the way home that he would love for the whole family to come take a look at the oddities. Oh, well. Next time!

In the meantime we ate at Farm Burger for lunch and our favorite Indian Restaurant of all time, Chai Pani for dinner (now there is one in Decatur! Whoot!) 

Mae give Indian Coke a Thums Up!

We saw a really big Iron, 

drank hot chocolate in a double decker bus, 

and  wandered around the Grove Arcade.

The Grove Arcade (not the video game kind) was one of the last historic Arcades constructed in America.  It was restored and placed on the National Register of Historical Places after some opinionated preservationists insisted that it restored for its original use. I guess being opinionated isn't so bad after all....

Tomorrow The Largest Privately Owned Home In America!”