While Ye Olde Blog is usually saved for international travel, Covid has changed the vacation landscape enough that even domestic trips are exciting now. Plus, Aunt Mary asked to “travel along with us” this time, so away we go.

Mer and I didn’t go anywhere at Thanksgiving this year because of Covid concerns – we weren’t sure what Europe was going to do, and so we didn’t want to buy tickets too far ahead, which then turned into not buying tickets at all. So we decided to get away with our usual Thanksgiving travel companion, Dubbs, but at Christmastime instead.

We wanted somewhere new (to us) and warm, so we picked Asheville, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina. After an uneventful travel day yesterday, we had a full day of touring today, with Meredith being in charge.

We had breakfast at a Waffle House near our morning destination, the North Carolina Arboretum. An arboretum in winter may seem a bit of an odd choice since nothing would be in bloom, but we find winter hiking a good change of pace – with the leaves down from the trees, you can see more in the woods. In this case, that meant often getting to see some of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

We spent a couple of happy hours there, and it wasn’t too cold unless you got caught in the active wind. Since most of our time was in the woods, in a valley, or both, the cold was manageable. We wandered around the garden area, which was decorated for Christmas. That helped make up for the lack of flowers. Mer even decided to get tickets to come back at night to see the gardens all decorated with lights.

We followed various trails around to get a flavor of the area. My favorite was the rhododendron garden. The plants were still green and in leaf, the trail sometimes went though rhododendron tunnels, the paths were freshly mulched, and it was all next to a very clear stream. Lovely.

After the arboretum, we drove over to downtown Asheville, where we got a late lunch at a Mexican place. Dubbs wanted to make sure we could still get tickets for the local art museum, so we walked over there. After being assured we could get into the museum tomorrow, we went back to an ice cream shop after Dubbs may have dropped a hint or two.

We then walked five or six blocks, passing several hardy buskers along the way. Asheville has about ninety thousand people, putting it between Canton and Akron in size, but it was much more happening than either of those downtowns, even with this being a work day in December. We ended up at the Asheville Pinball Museum, which is a lofty name for a place where you can pay to play seventy pinball and arcade games from our youth. Sadly (and wisely), the folks who run the museum limit numbers, and so had a two-and-a-half-hour wait time. But they also ran the next-door Movie Poster Museum (free, with the hope that you would buy a poster or two), or you could pay a dollar to see the Lunchbox Museum. We did both, which were fun strolls down memory lane.

We went back home to rest a bit before heading out around 7:15 to go back to the arboretum to see the lights. The wait and the drive were worth it. The garden area is small, but was filled to the brim with lights, including a huge “tree” made of a cone of lights that could change colors and make shapes up and down the tree in the lights. We, of course, saw the entire thing. They had an extensive miniature train set with two running trains, which included a “river” of blue lights and white “rapids.” There was a quilt made of lights that were synched to music. There were multiple arches of lights, illuminated trees, wrapped trees, and even a lit-up unicorn. I accidently happened to get a shot of the unicorn barfing up a rainbow. I was delighted by the mistake.

It took us a bit over an hour to see all of the lights, and then we headed back home for the night. Tomorrow is Dubbs’ day to be in charge, so we shall see what shall come of that. So far, Asheville has lived up to the hype.