Carolina B&B and Zambra, Asheville NC

After leaving the Blue Ridge Parkway, we made our way quickly to Ashville and then into the historic Montford District just north of I-240, easily finding the Carolina B&B a few short blocks from downtown in the middle of a neighborhood of glorious turn of the century and Edwardian era homes. The house is a beautiful 1901 Arts and Crafts- (Craftsman-) style building with a mustard yellow pebbledash finish, dark 12-over-1 windows, twin chimneys, a hipped roof, and a hipped front porch that runs the width of the front of the house. Twin shed dormers on the second floor and a third in the attic give the front façade a lot of character.

Arts and Crafts-Style Carolina B&B

We Stayed in the Cottage out Back

The house is on a fairly large property, a good acre by the looks of it, and other than the obligatory swath of green lawn out front, is surrounded by gardens with mature trees, especially out back. Some of the flowers were just coming into bloom, especially the rhododendrons and Siberian iris. The wooded back lot is home to a lot of birds. Each morning we were escorted to the car by Catbirds and a pair of Carolina Wrens were constantly on or around the cottage, trilling and chirping, often toting mouthfuls of nesting materials.

Garden Fronting the Cottage

Catawba Rhododendron

Siberian Iris

Violets and Buttercups Outside the Cottage

After a brief welcome by James and Susan Murray, James gave us the nickel tour and showed us to our room out back: Ann had booked the cottage behind the house for our 3-day stay. We arrived about 5pm and James told us that they do hors d'oeuvres and wine each afternoon at 5:30 in the front parlor. We got unpacked into the spacious and nicely appointed cottage with just barely enough time for a brief shower before arriving for a glass of wine at 6:00.

We found the cocktail table in the parlor set with mixed hors d'oeuvres and a bottle each of a Biltmore red and white wine. Ann and I opted for the red which wasn't at all bad, though it was varietally vague. Kudos to the Murrays for serving the "local" wine, but a little shame to Biltmore for using California grapes to make their wine. They don't try to hide it (see the "American" appellation on the label), but they sure hope people mistake it for North Carolina wine. I'm not in the winery business and I don't have their debt to service, so I shouldn't really criticize, but somehow this strikes me as a little dishonest. Biltmore is not alone. Plenty of Virginia wineries do it too and I'm not happy about that either.

Each Night at 5:30, They Offer "Local" Wine

And Put on a Spread of Hors d'Oeuvres

Earlier in the mountains, the weather had been cold and rainy, but it cleared as we came slightly north and east to Asheville. By cocktail hour in Asheville, the weather was so nice that all the cocktail hour guests congregated on the deep front porch that runs the full width of the house. Ann and I claimed the swing at the end of the porch, where just next to us, song sparrows were apparently nesting in a shrub. They kept up their (at times deafeningly) loud calls all during our time in the swing. The hors d'oeuvres looked wonderful but I never got around to trying them, trying to save room for dinner in less than an hour.

Given that the B&B is a short walk from downtown, we left on foot at 6:45pm for our 7:00pm reservation at Zambra, a tapas restaurant. Two blocks from the B&B, my flip flops blew out and though I didn't step on a pop top on the way back to change shoes, walking barefoot on the sharp gravel of the driveway back to the cottage was no fun at all.

I'm afraid at this point I was in a bad mood and we were going to be late for our reservation. We took the car into downtown to get there as quickly as possible and made several tours around the blocks near the restaurant in a hopeless quest to find parking before I gave up and dropped Ann off at the restaurant. Several more passes through downtown yielded nothing so I once again gave up and drove back towards the B&B, finally finding parking on a side street about halfway back on the far side of I-240.

On my 10-minute walk to the restaurant, I finally saw why there was no parking, as I threaded my way through a packed eclectic crowd in front of the US Cellular Center. The Alabama Shakes were playing that evening and the concert crowd had nabbed all available parking.

I was fit to be tied at this point, hungry, tired, and exasperated with the parking situation, when I joined Ann in the restaurant, a funky, half underground space on a side street. The restaurant is pretty dark, so I had a bit of a time finding Ann, who had already chosen a nice bottle of Hacienda Monasterio Ribera Del Duero, a modern Bordeaux blend. The Spanish section of the wine list is pretty nice and I wish I had more time to explore it. Ann started with the house take on a Moscow Mule that she really enjoyed. I do wish that we had better stemware from which to drink our wine.

A Modern Bordeaux Blend from Ribera del Duero

Cheers!

The lighting was so dark, the restaurant being mostly below ground, that we only got a couple of photos while there was a touch of daylight. Overall the food was good, but not exciting. Our server did suggest that we try a dish whose description did nothing for us, but which turned out to be so good that we ordered two plates of it: Grilled Watercress on Grilled Bread with Romesco. Something about grilling the watercress gave it a delicious smokiness that when coupled with a little crunchy salt yielded a novel and delicious treat.

Among the other dishes we ate were pomegranate-braised pork spring rolls, calamari and arugula, scallops on grits, beef heart taco, patatas bravas. None of these dishes was really memorable. The calamari and arugula wasn't all that successful and the patatas bravas, a staple of tapas restaurants worldwide, were downright boring with no spicy sauce.

Calamari and Arugula

Scallops and Grits

Grilled Watercress

After dinner, we walked around the corner to The Vault for drinks and then we headed back to the B&B for the evening. I was ready for bed after a long, long day of driving, hiking, and dining.

Gatlinburg to Asheville

Gatlinburg and Asheville seem so close on the map, but the way we travel through the mountains when there are things to see and do, we knew that it would take us all day to travel the 55 miles as the crow flies. So we were up early and by 9:15 we had checked out and took the back way rather than the bypass into Gatlinburg to get gas and some supplies for lunch. Clearly there is a lot of money in Gatlinburg: some of the mountain houses and estates on the hills above town were stunning and way out of our price range. Winding down the switchbacks reminded me in part a little of San Francisco and a lot of mountain towns in the Alps.

Gas station options are slim in Gatlinburg, but there is one at stoplight one on the way out of town and it is conveniently located next to Old Dad's General Store which makes really good sandwiches. While I filled up on gas, Ann went next door and scored bacon biscuits for breakfast and one each roast beef and turkey sandwich for our lunch.

Heading south out of town and then working east on US 441, we saw a couple of tom turkeys on the side of the road feeding nonchalantly. Quickly, the day went from partly cloudy to overcast and chilly. The day before when we dropped into the Visitor's Center, the volunteer who told us about things in the park told us not to miss Newfound Gap on our way up to Clingman's Dome and over to the North Carolina side of the park, so Newfound Gap was our first destination.

View East and South from Newfound Gap

The NC-TN Border Runs Through the Gap

Climbing relentlessly from the valley floor, the pressure hit our ears around 3100 feet and the flora changed entirely above 4000 feet. It was almost as if spring had not yet come: there were no leaves on the deciduous trees above 4000 feet just like back home seven hours north. At Newfound Gap, where North Carolina and Tennessee meet, we had beautiful but deteriorating views on both sides of the gap. The big parking lot in the gap was busy with a bunch of AT thru-hikers, even more day hikers, and a local Baptist church doing a trail magic breakfast for the thru-hikers.

White Fringed Phacelia

After a brief walk where we took in lots of wildflowers including masses of bluets, violets, and White Fringed Phacelia, we came back to the parking lot and chatted with a threesome of thru-hikers, one of whom was busking with a ukulele. We didn't catch his name, but his trail posse comprised Sherpa, a surprising moniker for such a little guy with massively taped glasses, and Giant, a tall bearded guy who owns a marijuana dispensary.

As we were leaving the gap, it was clear that we were going to be socked in at Clingman's Dome some 1600 feet above us. From the gap, we took the side road, at times in North Carolina and at times in Tennessee as we flirted with the ridgeline separating the two states, on up to the Clingman's Dome parking lot below the summit of the highest mountain in Tennessee. By the time we exited the car, ragged shreds of clouds were sailing across the parking lot.

Starting up the Clingman's Dome Trail, Bundled Up

The weather was raw, windy, and damp and we bundled up for the hike up to the observation tower at the summit. The clouds were condensing on the fir trees and then dripping to the ground beneath. Usually when it rains, the ground under the trees is the driest spot. Perversely not here. It was a very steep walk up the paved half mile trail to the summit, though it leveled off just before the AT crossed maybe 100 yards below the summit, the highest point on the AT. It was a tough climb for us flatlanders.

All the way up, we could see that we were in a unique northern microclimate, technically a spruce-fir rainforest, averaging 85 inches of rain per year. The vast numbers of dead fir trees on the way up was heartbreaking: they've been attacked by a little mite-like insect (an adelgid) from Europe against which they have no defenses. At the top, at 6644 feet, the third tallest peak in the east, we climbed the 45-foot observation tower with no hope that we'd be able to see anything, visibility being less than 50 yards. There was another batch of thru-hikers here climbing the tower to see what couldn't be seen; this little group was a day behind the group that we met coming through Newfound Gap, about 8 miles further north. The trip back down was a lot easier going but the steeper parts were tough on the quads. We noticed a lot of Rufous-Sided Towhees calling from all sides of the path and a bunch of Song Sparrows below the trail.

It's a Different World, a Coniferous Rainforest, at Nearly 7000 Feet

The Top of Clingman's Dome. What a View!

Back Down From the Summit, Clouds Starting to Break

Back down in the parking lot, we could see that the cloud cover was starting break up as we chatted with a couple who travel the country in their RV with their standard poodle. Taking our leave, we made our way back down from the peak to the gap and continued in the direction of Cherokee NC on US 441. At the bottom, we parted ways with US 441 turning left onto the southern terminus of the Blue Ridge Parkway just past the Oconaluftee Visitor Center.

Along the Blue Ridge Parkway

A Successful Selfie!

We ambled north along the Parkway at a very sedate pace, stopping as we felt like, with the weather getting more beautiful with each passing mile. At one point, we came across a mass of golden ragwort gleaming in a sea of deep blue larkspur, a phenomenal sight.

Golden Ragwort in a Field of Larkspur

Larkspur Along the Parkway

We grazed on our sandwiches while making headway north along the Parkway when suddenly we spied a sign for Waterrock Knob, which at 6292 feet, is the 15th highest peak in the East, so we turned off the Parkway and made the short drive up to the parking area where the views were phenomenal. In the parking area we saw a sign that indicated that the knob itself was only a half mile hike, so we went for it. I am not sure who in the hell measured that half a mile, but it was the longest half a mile I have ever hiked in my entire life. The walk to the top was a good 35 minutes, so at least a mile and probably more.

The Sign Lies. The Longest 1/2-Mile I Have Ever Hiked

We Were on Mountains to Sea Trail

About half the trail up to the peak is part of the Mountains to Sea Trail, an 1150-mile trail that stretches from the Tennessee border to the Outer Banks. The first few hundred yards of the trail is steep but paved, giving way to a dirt track above a terraced overlook. Starting about halfway up, I started seeing little bits of mica shining up at me from the trail and as we got higher up, it seemed that mica was the predominant mineral. There were a lot of wildflowers at the lower elevations including rafts of Spring Beauties and a bunch of Trout Lilies.

Spring Beauty

Trout Lily

Cresting the Summit of Waterrock Knob

At the Summit of Waterrock Knob

Notice the difference in sunshine and garb than earlier in the day at Clingman's Dome. Sections of the trail ran through low scrub with ample hot sunshine that actually had us sweating and wishing for shade. Dozens of Rufous-Sided Towhees called from feet away in the scrub, but proved almost impossible to see as they scratched for food on the ground. Ultimately the view from the parking lot would prove to be as good or better than the view from the summit. This is one of those peaks that I am not sure was worth the effort; still it wasn't heavily trafficked and the views were not all that bad.

Just beyond Waterrock Knob we came up the highest point on the Parkway. As we pulled over to take in the view along with a half-dozen Harley bikers who quickly left, Ann spotted a Broad-Winged Hawk on the top of a small tree.

For the East, That's Up There

Broad-Winged Hawk

By this point, it was getting to be late afternoon and we were in the last ten miles of Parkway before turning off to go into Asheville. We noticed lots and lots shrubs along the roadside with trellises of white blooms. We finally found a good place to stop and have a closer look. They looked extremely familiar to me, like the Pieris japonica that I have grown in my gardens, but it wasn't until later that evening that I discovered that they are a close domestic cousin, Pieris floribunda, also known as Mountain Andromeda.

Pieris floribunda, Mountain Andromeda

After spending the last two days immersed in the woods and away from civilization, it was quite surreal leaving the Blue Ridge Parkway to enter immediately urban Asheville with four-lane roads, interstate highways, noise, and loads of traffic. 

Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Afternoon and Dinner

After lunch, we retraced our path west out of town back towards the Visitors Center. On the way into town, we noticed a footbridge across the Little Pigeon River and I made a mental note to stop on the way back past it.

Us on the Footbridge Over the Little Pigeon River

Notice the Great Blue Heron in the lower left corner of the photo above. I managed to get a shot of it just before it flew off croaking away. Ann was somewhat surprised to see it, associating herons with her time in Florida. I've come upon them in the oddest places, in all bodies of water all over the east, and in creeks not 18 inches across.

Great Blue Heron; Little Pigeon River

From the footbridge we proceeded west along the river in the direction of Cade's Cove and saw the first of many, many turkeys that we would see in the park and along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Most were toms casually foraging on the side of the road. We never saw any hens; they're probably all up in the woods on nests.

One of Many Turkeys

Shortly past the Visitor's Center, we came to the parking area for Laurel Falls and it was full, even on a Monday afternoon. We parked a quarter mile down the road and backtracked, taking us past some yellow trilliums in full bloom. They don't have the prettiest of blooms, but the foliage is outstanding.

Yellow Trillium

The path to Laurel Falls is a paved and easy path with way too much company, including a ton of kids. I would skip this on a subsequent visit. The crowds outweighed the beauty of the falls for me. Still, it was a quick hike that fit into our jammed itinerary.

Laurel Falls

Annie at Laurel Falls

It's a good 45- to 60-minute slog from Gatlinburg to Cade's Cove along a beautiful stretch of two-lane road that meanders alongside the river, at places with overhanging rock. The drive is slow and twisty but a lot of fun if you're into that kind of thing. Cades Cove is wide green valley surrounded by both mountains and trees, making it an ideal foraging spot for wildlife. The major attraction here is the bears and the traffic on a Monday afternoon was nearly intolerable. I would not make the drive again, preferring to be in much more peaceful, wooded, and less populated parts of the park.

Cade's Cove, a Sea of Green Surrounded by Mountains

About two-thirds of the way around the one-way loop, we came across this little yearling bear foraging for leaf buds in what appears to be a sycamore tree along a hidden creek.

Yearling Bear Foraging for Leaf Buds

After a few minutes of watching it and wondering where the mother was, we finally spotted her in the brush about 50 yards away. She was encouraging junior to come back to her and he very reluctantly climbed back down the tree and headed slowly back down the creek to her location.

Mom is Calling Junior Back to Her; He Reluctantly Climbs Down

The yearling, after touching base with mom, decided to go back up the tree and continue snacking. After a few minutes, we finally saw why the mother was in the brush: she had a little baby with her. She and the baby finally joined the yearling in the tree.

Mom and Baby Come to Join Yearling

The photo below shows all three of them, the mother on the main trunk, the yearling up to the far right, and the baby is the black spot on the lower left along the creek bank.

Mom and Her Two Cubs

It's quite amazing how limber and agile these big creatures are. Note to self, climbing a tree isn't going to keep a bear away from you! It's also amazing how hungry they must be right now just having emerged from hibernation to be eating fairly non-nutritious buds of a tree. It was pretty cool to see how relaxed these bears were. Around here, we generally see their rear ends as they are running away from humans though we do have them in town each spring raiding bird feeders and scavenging pet food and trash.

Mother Bear in on the Act, Eating Leaf Buds

By this point, it was getting to be very late afternoon and we had to hustle back to get showered and make our dinner reservation at the Lodge at 7pm. There really wasn't any hustling with all the traffic but we made it back in time to relax for a moment before dinner. On a slow Monday night, we were able to secure the last table outside on the porch with a fantastic view of the mountains. We decided to eat at this restaurant before we left because it is really the only fine dining restaurant in the area.

Beautiful View from Restaurant Porch

Despite the beautiful view, there were warning signs almost immediately that our night was heading south. We came into the restaurant with typical fine dining expectations and wanting to spend a leisurely dinner over a bottle of wine.

Those expectations seemed doomed almost immediately upon looking at the wine list which comprises a handful of wines. Still holding out hope, I asked if perhaps there were a full wine list. No such luck. The list is the list, a few very commonplace and ordinary wines with huge markups. We got a bottle of Champagne that was served in really clunky flutes. That seemed to be a trend for the trip: none of the restaurants in which we dined had really good stemware. Why is that?

The menu was equally limited with four appetizers, two salads, and five entrées. So much for our preferred method of ordering many appetizers to share: it wasn't going to happen with this menu. We bit the bullet and ordered traditionally, scallops and filet for Ann and mussels and pork shank for me. It was barely light enough (with a lot of help from Photoshop) to get pictures of the appetizers. It was too dark to record the entrées, not that we would have wanted to remember them. More on that in a moment.

Scallops with Peppercorn Sauce

Saffron Mussels

I really hate to beat up a restaurant because being in the business, I know how hard people work and how deflating a bad word can be. Still, I would be lying if I did not say that this was perhaps the worst executed meal for the dollar that I have ever had. I don't mind paying for food, but if you are going to charge top dollar, you are going to get judged against top standards. Our meal, against these standards, was a failure.

Our sampling of the tiny and unimaginative menu led us to conclude that the food here is characterized by overuse: too much smoke on the smoked shrimp amuse bouche, too many peppercorns in the beurre blanc for the scallops, too much cheap saffron in the mussels. I've never had worse mussels; these reeked of sulfur (gunflint) and were tiny and flavorless. Ann's steak was buried in an obscuring sauce redolent of A-1; we have no idea how the meat tasted. My pork shank ($36 for an entrée that cost maybe $4) could have been cooked a bit longer, was not super flavorful pork to begin with, and was served off the bone on a wad of not well executed lukewarm to cold-in-the-center mash. I ate a third of the mussels, maybe half the pork, and none of the mash.

After we beat a hasty retreat without risking dessert, Ann wondered aloud and probably only half in jest if we could get pizza delivered: we both went to bed hungry. The experience made the decision to skip breakfast again the next morning a no-brainer. It's really a shame that a first-class property such as the Lodge at Buckberry Creek does not have a restaurant of comparable quality.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Morning and Lunch

From our temporary home at the Lodge at Buckberry Creek just slightly west of Gatlinburg, we took the Gatlinburg bypass to the Sugarlands Visitors Center and Smoky Mountains National Park Headquarters to get the lay of the land.

Knowing that we hadn't eaten breakfast and would have to get some lunch in Gatlinburg, I had it in mind to stay near Gatlinburg in the morning on the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail and venture further afield to Cades Cove in the afternoon. Before we left the Lodge, we got a couple of recommendations for lunch and decided to stop at the more promising of the two.

At the Visitors Center, a wonderful volunteer gave us a quick orientation on the map and showed us some of her highlights of the park. Ann asked her for a waterfall to see and she suggested Rainbow Falls or Laurel Falls. We decided to see Laurel Falls after lunch as it was on the way to Cades Cove. I would have liked to have seen Rainbow Falls but we didn't have enough time to make that hike and do all the other things on our list.

From the Visitors Center to the beginning of the motor nature trail, it is necessary to drive down the main drag of Gatlinburg. Gatlinburg is unique in that it is basically a one-road valley town whose traffic lights are numbered. This certainly makes it easy to give directions to tourists, such as "Turn right at traffic light number 8."

Gatlinburg is certainly touristy but is nothing compared to the hellhole that is Pigeon Forge: Gatlinburg at least has some charm, some trees, and the beautiful west fork of the Little Pigeon River running through it. I can see how getting around at the height of tourist season would be a chore, but in the offseason, especially early on a Monday morning, we had an easy go of it heading east to the start of the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail.

Within moments of turning off the main drag, we found ourselves at peace in the woods and as we climbed the views became nicer and nicer.

Overlook on Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail

Almost at once we noticed beautiful displays of wildflowers along the roadsides: large swatches of crested dwarf iris at the lower elevations and higher up above 2500 feet on Piney Mountain, masses of blue phlox, thyme-leaved bluets, and Tiarella cordifolia, so-called foamflower because masses of them in bloom on the roadsides look like someone has spread seafoam on the ground.

Blue Phlox and Tiarella Cordifolia

Blue Phlox

Once you climb to the top of Piney Mountain and start the descent down the other side, Roaring Fork appears on your right as a delightful little creek spilling over masses of boulders as it drops from its source high up on Mt. LeConte. At times it rushes alongside the road and at times it is hidden down in little gullies overgrown with rhododendrons. We had ample opportunities to get out and listen to warblers sing over the rushing sounds of the little creek.

Roaring Fork

There are equally many opportunities to get out and have a look at the log structures that were abandoned by the small Appalachian community that lived here when the park was formed. I was really taken by the interplay of light and shadow on the buildings in the strong morning sun, not to mention the axe- and adze-work necessary to build these structures. The chinking is all gone now, but the bones of the structures remain as a reminder of those who worked these hardscrabble farms.

Detail from Alex Cole Cabin

Detail from Homer Bales Barn

I was worried that we had missed the trillium bloom and indeed we had this far south except for these few that we spotted right near the Homer Bales Barn. We didn't yet know that we would encounter entire hillsides of trilliums blooming north of Asheville along the Blue Ridge Parkway later in the week.

Trilliums in Bloom

It was after noon by the time way made our way down the mountain. We drove to the far western end of Gatlinburg to have lunch at the Smoky Mountain Brewery at recommendation of one of the front desk staff at the Lodge. There's not a lot of non-touristy food in Gatlinburg so we went for the local brewpub, figuring at least we could get a decent glass of beer.

Smoky Mountain Brewery: Beautiful Open Space

Wings for Ann

Ruben for Ed

It was a pleasant lunch in that on an early season Monday, there were few other diners in the brewpub. The food was decent enough but not memorable; certainly it satisfied our need to eat after a long morning with no breakfast. As for beer, I had an Appalachian Pale Ale, which seems to be their flagship ale, and Ann had a Windy Gap Wheat beer. Both beers struck us as a little thin, but they were competently made. I would have liked a touch more malt and more hops in my pale ale, but still, I'd give both beers a B+.

After lunch, Ann wanted to ride the ski lift up the mountain above town, but I put my best pouty face on and insisted that we needed to get a move on. I'm not sure she has forgiven me yet, but we did arrive in Cades Cove in time to see a mama bear and her two cubs. I hope that was at least some compensation for vacating Gatlinburg immediately after lunch.