A chimney with no smoke

  Asheville, North Carolina, United States
Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Today we moved on to Asheville North Carolina. Now, we have as you know traveled to all four corners of this huge country and have found many differences between the states themselves, in climate, terrain, vegetation and accents; but it seems none so noticeable as the accent here in NC.
Speaking 'Carolinian' involves adding an extra a and y into words, so:
The name Seth becomes Sayeth and said becomes sayed, train becomes trayen (say them out loud and really extend the y) . More confusing is when did seems to become dayid and died becomes dayed! All part of life's rich tapestry...
Anyway language barriers apart, we went into the visitors centre to enquire about a couple of things we wanted to see and there are faith in helpful, knowledgeable staff was fully restored. Nancy was a veritable font of information; she advised that Chimney Rock would be closed after today for road repairs so we'd best do that this afternoon and that we could save money on tickets to Biltmore House by buying them from her.

Storm damage on the roadside

  It wasn't an ideal day to visit Chimney Rock Park as it had been raining and was still very overcast but we decided to go anyway.

Bit of a dismal day

Not the best day

http://www.chimneyrockpark.com/park/interestpoints/chimney.php the views from the top were disappointing, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. 

Chimney with steps!...

I like this shot

In the Opera Box

Bet the view is great on a clear day...

Up until recently the park had been privately owned but has now been bought by the State. We sometimes think of tourism as being relatively new, but here was a natural feature, a monolith that intrigued Dr. Lucas Morse in 1902, so much so that he bought the parcel of land around it and set about making it possible for others to share. This eventually involved cutting a shaft down through the mountain in order to install an elevator to the top!

Quite a job

Spectacular falls

Our journey was interesting too, passing through the village of Bat Cave and as Nancy had said driving past the weird shapes created by that kudzu weed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kudzu   

Bat Cave fire station

Remember that Kudzu?

The way home was eventful too; we drove along the narrow twisty road and came upon a queue of traffic and several policemen - well sheriffs. We thought there had been an accident, but no there were 3 sheriffs on each side of the road checking the cars, we've never been stopped by the 'cops' so we were a little nervous. The nice officer asked for Malc's license and then walked around the car, thankfully nothing was wrong so we were waved on...phew! Later we stopped at a brilliant diner; sampled fried green tomatoes and fried pickles - very tasty.

Inside Eastside!

Fried green tomatoes + fried pickles