Our pet/home sit as noted was located in the area of Biltmore Villages. The village was pretty vibrant, in part based on the close proximity of The Biltmore Estate. There were lots of shops and restaurants within walking distance, including a place called the Pour Taproom. This was an interesting place as there are a crap load of beers, ciders, and wines on tap where you serve yourself and pay by the ounce...The bill is calculated based on a scanned wristband unique to only you. There is a limit to how many ounces you are allowed to serve yourself, but this can be overridden by one of the servers. When you pay by the ounce the bar bill increases pretty fast. There was also an issue around the costs...there were several options where there was a set price for a pint, but when we got the bill the price was not reflected as such, it was charged per ounce. Wilson ended up pouring less than a 16 oz. glass and got charged more than the advertised price....Pricing that is different than advertised seems to be a theme throughout our trip. Most times it's young people whose only response is "I don't know why", "The computer charges it that way", "There's nothing I can do, you can wait for or call the manager", etc. This sparked conversations regarding how reliant people are on computers, especially young workers; how people don't seem to know how or are not empowered to make it right. I'm not surprised by this...
Downtown Asheville is a very interesting place. There seems to be a variety of people who live there, not unlike the feeling of Montpelier. There appears to be a large arts community there which was evidenced by the various street vendors that we encountered. While downtown we we did a couple of things:
We visited the Basilica of Saint Lawrence (opened in 1905) - our first church stop on this trip. The entire building is made of tiles and other masonry elements without the use of wood. The best vantage point for viewing the interior of the church is from the main aisle at the altar steps. From here, the dome stretches out 82' x 58' and is considered the largest free standing elliptical dome in North America.
While walking around the convention center we were approached by men offering tickets...tickets to what we asked and realized that SoCon basketball tournament games were being played. Wilson and I enjoy going to basketball games, in fact our first official date was to a basketball tournament game at the BOR. Well it was a no brainer, especially when we realized that Wofford was playing...Wilson has some history with Wofford and it if that wasn't enough, their tour bus drives by us as we are standing on the street....I don't need to know the teams to enjoy the game...it's the energy that surrounds a tournament game that makes it really, really fun for me.
We also visited the Omni Grove Park Hotel, which is a beautiful old inn rich in history. Wilson and I roamed the halls a bit, had a beverage while enjoying the views, and almost attended a Ballroom Dance competition. The inn has hosted many well-known people in it's over 100 years of existence including Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone and many more.
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