Asheville Get-Away

Southern Living Magazine stated Asheville, N.C. one of the top 10 places to visit. After we decided Chicago wasn't going to work out on the weekend we had planned, we decided to travel only 4 1/2 hours away here. It was fantastic! We could not have planned for better weather!

We left around noon on Friday and were able to get to Asheville in plenty of time to walk around Downtown. Our awesome hotel, Crown Plaza, {thanks to Priceline} even offered $5 round trip shuttles to Downtown anytime between 8am-11pm. Yes, Please! We lived for that shuttle!

{...it's so hard to take pictures when you are on your own! disregard all the self-timer photos!}

Their Downtown is so much fun. Little shops everywhere, fun places to eat, open-air bars, and they even had a local drums concert going on!
We took in the sights and ate and drank the local food, wine, and beer.
Here are a few pics from Friday night:
{Patio at Mayfel's ~ SUCH yummy food! We ordered an extra plate of sweet potato fries here b/c they were so good!}
{local drummers and dancers right in our view from the patio}
{local beers from The Thirsty Monk ~ so fun!}
{Senior Photo shoot b/c no one here ever asked us for our i.d.'s :(}

{re-enacting some awkward moments that happened to us that night!}

On Saturday we woke up with no plans ahead! That feels so good, doesn't it? Although we got a little late start to the day {we are so not 21 anymore ~ ha!} we decided to drive out to the Biltmore Estates to see what that was all about. UM, excuse me, who knew it was sooo expensive?! Well, we did not. After some contemplation, we decided to go ahead and visit. It was actually more fun than I had anticipated! We walked through the gardens, around the estate, and then headed to their Winery for wine tasting. That was fun ~ neither of us had ever done that before!

{The Biltmore Estates}
{on one of the patios of the Biltmore}
{The Biltmore}
{tasting Biltmore Wine}
{Outside Antler Hill Winery, gotta love self-timers!}
{The Garden's at Biltmore}






Next we headed to our hotel to grab the shuttle and went back downtown to Oktoberfest. It was super crazy. People were everywhere dressed as Germans with live German music! We only hung around there for a bit, and decided to walk around to Park Place and Battery Park where some local arts fairs were going on. We also hit up some major people watching. Asheville is like nothing I've ever seen. Here in Lexington, you pretty much see the same type of people everywhere. In Asheville; you can't turn around without seeing someone 'unique'. I mean, these locals were OOC! Hippie capital of the world!
{Oktoberfest}
{I don't know the story behind this, but both nights downtown this funny looking nun would ride around on this large bike and everyone would yell and wave! It was hilarious!}
Then came the best part of the night...in true Burton fashion...we decided to hit up all the local bars and restaurants we'd read about and get an appetizer and drink from each of them! HA! Here are a few we hit up that night:
{The Southern}
{L.A.B. brewery}
{TallGary's where the people were, um, interesting!}
{This place was called the Bier Garden. It was the only bar downtown with TV's! We caught part of the sorry UK game.}

We decided to not be as fun as we were on Friday night since Saturday we had done a LOT of walking, and ended the night after our bellies were full! Loved calling the shuttle to come pick us up!

On Sunday we decided to hike at the NC Arboretum through the Blue Ridge Parkway. The scene was so pretty! My dinky camera did not even grasp how fun and pretty the trail looked ~ but here's a try:







Next we drove around to 3 different places hoping to eat lunch. The first one wasn't open on Sundays, the second one {with the great view} was too long of a wait, so we found a fun little Tavern that ended up having TV's everywhere and ALL the NFL games on. So B was in heaven watching the Packers game! {too bad every team we root for lost this weekend!}

All in all we loved Asheville. It was super different than we had expected, but in a fun and crazy way. You know what else was fun? Going on a vacay where we really didn't have anything planned, we just went and found things to do. I really liked it that way. Hopefully we can continue this non-planned fun for a while!

I'm so glad my hubby and I make time to get away and celebrate the 'little' things in life! Although, six months being married is the biggest anniversary we have to date!