Vacation - Day 7 (Friday)

It's nearing the end of our vacation and we've saved the best for last (although we didn't know it at the time). We (again) lazed around the cabin, took a walk around the area and then took a short ride into historic Hendersonville (http://www.historichendersonville.org/), just a few miles up the road from Saluda. We didn't realize it at the time, but we were about to be amongst the many visitors of the 61st annual North Carolina Apple Festival. Our real reason for venturing into Hendersonville was to visit Mast General Store (http://www.mastgeneralstore.com/), an 'ole fashion and very historic general store which began it's existence in 1883. What a treat that and the Apple Festival turned out to be!!!! We spent almost the entire day there wandering into and out of various stores and booths, eating naughty foods and just generally being 'child-like' - a completely fun-filled day. It rained off and on but that didn't dampen the fun at all because we were given plastic ponchos by the locals - a ploy to keep us there I'm sure! And if the day wasn't special enough all by itself....we found a 'Barney' look alike (seems that, unbeknownst to me....Andy Griffith and Mayberry are N. Carolina treasures) that we were able to talk into taking a picture with. The day couldn't have turned out any better!

Vacation - Day 2

It's Sunday, Day 2 of Vacation (not really - as I'm backtracking a little since there wasn't much time to make entries each day). We lazed around alot today - mostly because my idea of vacation is to be lazy and catch up on some well needed and much anticipated rest! We finally made it to the grocery store so that we'd have plenty of food for the week. Headed out to historic Hendersonville to find a Wal-Mart and ended up at Ingles (compares to our Kroger) instead. Did our shopping and made our way back to Saluda (thank goodness for the GPS we brought with us!) via the infamous Howard Gap Rd. Since it is/was Sunday, Saluda (http://www.saluda.com/) was totally shut down by 6pm so we were able to take lots of good shots of historic Saluda without all the cars parked outside the stores.

Vacation - Day 1 (Saturday)

Today was the first day of vacation. We flew into Charlotte via AA with a pilot who not only made up for the delay we'd experienced at the airport at DFW but also made one of the smoothest landings I've ever experienced! We picked up our luggage, our car and made our way to Saluda (just outside of Asheville). We're staying at Saluda Mountain Lake Retreat (http://www.ashevillecabinrental.com/) in a cabin called the Bear Chalet - a very rustic cabin w/a terrific view, plenty of room and a hot tub. We spent our first day relaxing and finding a grocery store and have already taken lots of pictures.