I was wrong.
Yesterday I said it was cold, but I was wrong. It was cold today.
We woke at around 7.00am to -1°C. On my way to the shower, I opened the door to the outside patio and I can confirm that -1°C is as cold as you expect it will be.
Last night we stayed at Ashley’s house in Harrisburg, a suburb of Charlotte NC, in a Granny flat. Not quite as spectacular as Will’s place the night before, but pretty good. We didn’t actually get to meet Ashley or her husband/partner, but we did get some messages from them so I’ll assume that they exist.
It’s quite funny looking outside, because you see squirrels running around the yard. Not quite what you expect.
By the time we had breakfast and were ready to roll, the temperature had climbed to a dizzying 1°C, and that was about as good as it got for the day.
We wanted to do a drive through the Blue Ridge Parkway today on our way to Asheville NC, so we headed off towards Blowing Rock NC which was the nearest place that we could find to get us access.
Traffic was pretty quiet heading out of Charlotte NC, so it was a nice stress-free cruise along the 16 towards Blowing Rock.
We had a bit of an issue with Jolene as we were cruising along the 16 this morning. If you don’t know who Jolene is, you will need to read yesterday’s post.
Jolene became confused and had no idea where we were. She kept shouting “proceed to the route” over and over, even though we were blasting down the 16 like she had told us to do.
I was beginning to worry that the world had ended and that all GPS technology as we know it had stopped working and we would be stuck in the USA forever … but then she consulted with Google Maps, or Apple Maps, and got her bearings again and we were OK.
So, the usual story of our lives, coffee + cold weather = unscheduled bathroom break, so we were looking for somewhere to stop and spied a McDonalds at a place called Hickory NC.
We figured that it was the right thing to do to buy coffee in return for using their rest rooms.
The team leader at the Hickory NC McDonalds – Stacey – was very friendly and decided that we “looked close enough to 55” to qualify for a senior’s discount … if only she knew 🙁 So we got two cups of bottomless coffee for … wait for it … $1.05, including tax.
That was a little embarrassing, so we searched their menu and discovered that they sell donut sticks, and we thought “it’s a sign!”. So MBW went up to the counter to get two serves of donut sticks and we got them for free because they “stopped serving them at 10.30am (it was now 11.00am) and they could not guarantee that they would be fresh.”
So, two cups of bottomless coffee and two serves of donut sticks – with chocolate dipping sauce – for $1.05 including tax.
In the interests of full disclosure, I need to add that the donut sticks that you can see in the above photo were what was left of my serve, after I had already eaten the first 5 donut sticks.
Stacey was keen to ensure that I got my free refill before we left, and came back with a jumbo sized cup brimming with coffee because my “first (small) cup looked like it had a few crumbs in it …”
I was at risk of caffeine poisoning 🙁
So we kept heading to Blowing Rock NC and found it to be a very pretty – very cold – little township.
As you can see above, they had received some snowfall the night before and some cars were covered with snow.
We discovered that there is not only a township called Blowing Rock, but also an attraction/lookout called Blowing Rock, so we headed there for some photos.
In case you are wondering, yes, it was cold. Still about 0°C.
So cold in fact that this little waterfall at the Blowing Rock was frozen.
After seeing the sights at Blowing Rock NC, we decided to jump on the Blue Ridge Parkway to head down into Asheville NC.
Unfortunately we found that most of the BRP was closed due to winter storms, although we did manage to catch a few miles of it … a very pretty drive.
We stopped for a bite of lunch at the side of the road near Linville NC. Ate in the car because it was still a bit cold out.
We rode the 221 all the way into Asheville.
I took a wrong turn – actually I turned too early – on the way to Cindy’s AirBnB, so Jolene punished me by taking us on a long winding detour through the bad side of Asheville.
I won’t make that mistake again 🙁
Tonight we went to the North Carolina Arboretum – which is the local botanical gardens. They (apparently) look beautiful during the warmer months, but in winter all of the plants die off, so they make a spectacular lighting display instead.
Photos don’t do it justice – it was spectacular. And cold. I don’t think that the temperature go above freezing (0°C) while we were there, but it was fun walking around looking at the lights with MBW, and talking to all the people with funny accents.
Today’s journey looked like this – 227mi or 363km. A bit of a lazy day really.
Tonight we are staying at Cindy’s AirBnB, and after the arboretum we have come back to the AirBnB and been sitting by the gas fire, thawing out.
I forgot to mention the significance of today’s song and post title. It was MBW’s choice tonight and a reflection on the Christmas lights that we saw tonight.
I know that we are not in Tennessee, but we will be tomorrow … hopefully via the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Near enough is good enough.
Tennessee Christmas (Amy Grant).
Ciao
#G&KTAKEUSA2019