Toxaway Fall < Blue Ridge Parkway < Bumcombe County 24Aug21

The call of the falls ~ we hiked to midway @ Toxaway Falls before departing our cool condo for phase two, Asheville food & brew.

We drove up the Davidson River valley from Brevard to the Blue Ridge Parkway for our "long cut" to Asheville. Tons of damage from Fred up the Davidson but there were still plenty of fly fishermen on the river - I fished here on our last visit but not this time. We acquired the ridge line at ~5Kft elevation on the Blue Ridge Parkway - cool road which a team of road bikers was using - when I met them at the Pisgah Natl Forest lodge they were 35mi and 4800ft into the ride; it was downhill from there to Asheville.

After descending to Asheville we hit the very good White Duck Taco spot we'd learned of from our foodie tour here previously. Awesome again.

A benefit of any visit to western NC, especially Asheville, is the chance to visit the great breweries. And so we did ~ on our first afternoon we walked to the "South Slope" area and hit the spectacular Burial Brewery. This is my favorite thus far in NC ~ great American IPAs with great names. I've had three 1/2 pint pours so far (The Wretched Pit Of Identity, Precipice Of Self-Immolation & To Wear Their Bones Across My Shoulder) and there are 4 more to perhaps try, all were excellent and served in their funky multipurpose property. There are no tastes offered here in Asheville, a blue dot in rural NC. We moved on to Green Man where I tried the hazy IPA, which was good. Kevin appreciated the more refined nature of the spot with great merch, nice indoor seating, cool wall art, etc.. Finally we ate and tasted again at Bhramari, a kitchy cool quasi-Indian brewery and eatery. Kala and I split the two hazy IPAs ~ both of which were good. My take on day one is that there is Burial and then "others," unfortunately distribution is just to GA, NC and NY thus far. We have 30+ from among to sample (we won't do them all but we'll try several more). When passing Green Man again at night it was jam night (the lady in white on fiddle was stellar).

 

We learned "Ticket To Ride" from Norsworthys and I was fortunate to post the largest score they'd ever seen in my 2nd sitting. Really fun game at which being lucky, but recognizing your good fortune as a strategy, is needed.