Next up after Tennessee: North Carolina. En route to Asheville NC (so many villes!), we stayed overnight at a Harvest Host – Paint Rock Farm. Which had nothing to do with painting rocks or any other type of art and all to do with hemp-related products.

According to Wikipedia, hemp is a variety of the cannabis plant species grown specifically for the industrial uses of its derived products. At most of our other Harvest Hosts, we generally buy something. A bottle of wine for example, or in the case of Stoneyard distillery, as much of their coffee liqueur and horchata cocktails as we can fit in the truck. Offered for sale at Paint Rock was a rather paltry selection of CBD-related products, some smokes and t-shirts. On this one, we politely declined and gave a donation instead.

The single track, steep incline road to make it up to Paint Rock was a bit hairy but it was so worth it for the gorgeous setting and views.

Asheville, NC

One of the main attractions in Asheville is the Biltmore estate, the largest private residence in the US with 255 rooms and French chateau-inspired architecture. All this set amongst 8,000 acres of grounds, which I was more interested in than the house, but it’s all or nothing in terms of entry fee. Given the cheapest ticket was $84 per person (up to $304pp for a custom two hour tour, including complimentary parking), I figured I’ve seen enough stately homes in my time to skip this one.

According to our research, Asheville boasts the largest number of breweries per capita of any city in the US. And would you believe it, we were there for a week and only went to three of them.

Our 2020 COVID friend had a hand in dumbing down our Asheville brewery experience. Outside seating and reduced capacity I can cope with (providing you can still get in – no mean feat). Some closed down with no clear path to reopening 🙁 And then the big one… no beer flights. Que? It’s not that I like a lot of beer, almost the opposite. I like to try small amounts of different types of beer. Which the North Carolina governor has deemed higher infection risk than having a pint. Maybe too many glasses to wash?

Somehow, having a pint is less social-media-grammable than a flight and in trawling through my photos, I seem to have ended up with zero pictures of our Asheville breweries. Best I can do is the exterior of New Belgium Brewing, a well known ‘craft’ brewery with some very decent beers, sold nationwide across the US. Not closed down but sadly closed to us. Literally their last day open to visit was the day before we arrived in Asheville, after which they were ‘hibernating for the winter’. Thanks COVID.

In so-called prime leaf-peeping season in the Smokies, Asheville camping was all booked up, which put us in a hotel in town for the week. Not a bad option as a change, also meant we ate out more (or got takeaway due to working late and/or restricted capacity on dine in). I guess we could have eaten in the BaseCamp in the hotel car park, but this was no Knoxville rooftop situation.

Anyway, the food turned out to be an unexpected highlight of Asheville. Indian takeaway featured poppadoms & chutneys, crunchy kale pakoras, grilled chicken tikka and spicy sag paneer. Normally deprived of anything approaching proper British curry, we were in our element.

The Lobster Pot turned out Oysters Rockefeller – baked gulf oysters with Pernod and fresh herbs, topped with hollandaise and breadcrumbs. I’m not normally an oyster fan, but this was the food of converts. Also a traditional lobster roll – a lightly toasted sub generously stuffed with meaty Maine lobster drizzled with melted butter. Accompanied by creamy lobster mac’n’cheese. Yes please.

But the highlight of the food week had to be our visit to Curate, a high end Spanish tapas restaurant where we lucked out in bagging a reservation. Top of the list was Oloroso sherry and acorn-fed Iberico ham. Reminded me of the last time I had Iberico de bellota (and a sherry flight if I’m not mistaken) – in Barcelona in February, before all this craziness.

This was followed by lots of tasty morsels – if I can’t do beer flights, let’s do a food flight instead 🙂 The Galician style octopus was smoky with paprika (although I have to say, it’s not Seabourn); the albondigas were packed with meaty goodness; and my new found favorite, house made spicy chorizo wrapped in potato chips (aka crisps). Delish!

Our mid-week recreation was localized around the French Broad River trail and the Botanical Gardens. It was somewhat scaled back due to a spell of autumnal weather quite closely resembling a damp, heavy, British October. As in rain. Luckily not all week.

But one of the main attractions of North Carolina, for us at least, was the Smoky Mountains. I was surprised to learn that Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited in the US, with 12.5M visitors (in 2019 – I don’t think anyone’s counting 2020 as anything close to a normal year, statistically or otherwise).

We chose a walk along the Appalachian Trail, to Charlie’s Bunion. It was heavily forested with spruce fir trees and deciduous trees in various stages of losing their leaves. Somewhat more muted than the dazzling gold of the Colorado aspens, but very pretty all the same. We’ve been a bit lazy recently so an 8.5 mile walk with 2,000ft of elevation gain nearly killed us.

OK, that’s enough of this hiking lark, let’s go play at the beach!

Not too much to write about a 1,200 mile cross-country weekend road trip. When you gotta get the miles in, there ain’t too much stopping and exploring going on. After leaving Colorado Springs, Kansas was our first milestone. Which brought on the inevitable references to “You’re not in Kansas now, Toto” even though we blatantly were. I scanned the horizon regularly for tornadoes ready to whisk us away into another world. Nothing doing. No need for red shoes.

Laser-focused, we continued racking up the states, and spent the night at an alleged brewery/winery ‘harvest host’ in Missouri. When you ask for a beer and they offer you something from California (when they’re supposed to have their own-brewed beer and we’re 1,800 miles from California) that’s not so good. Still, a very scenic place to spend the night and beats a Walmart hands down.

Onwards we progressed through a corner of Kentucky. Bit bummed we didn’t get an opportunity to stop here. Three things that spring to mind with Kentucky: 1. Kentucky Fried Chicken (no shortage of KFCs along the freeway and no doubt way better chicken further from the beaten track); 2. horse racing (closest we got was seeing signs for horse racing stadiums), and most importantly 3. Bourbon. How we missed out on doing the Bourbon trail I have no idea. One for the ‘still to do’ list.

And finally, after Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and Kentucky, we made it to Tennessee. Home of country music, Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley and bbq. (Or maybe it’s Texas for bbq. Dang it, they do pretty good bbq here too, y’all). For us at least, Tennessee was mostly about the food, drink and vibe.

Nashville, Tennessee

Hot chicken is the local specialty dish of Nashville. What’s so hot about it? It’s a crunchy chickeny flavor bomb, doused in a cayenne spice mix and deep fried. No doubt the stuff heart attacks are made of and beaten only by dry-rub fall-off-the-bone unctuous ribs and tangy baked bbq beans that we indulged in at Peg Leg Porker.

The drinking establishment options also had a southern twang, with Yee Haw Brewing and Ole Smoky Distillery. I have to say after trying Apple Pie flavored moonshine at one extreme to Blue Flame at the other (with all sorts of nastiness in between), I am not a moonshine convert.

Bit low on hiking options in central Nashville but we did roam around Fort Negley, where the remains of a fort from the American Civil War stood languishing on an overgrown hillock, looking down protectively over Nashville. So overgrown that they had to bring in the Chew Crew. Local herd of sheep reporting for duty!

Certainly unique and eclectic was the co-working office, InDo. Not quite downtown Nashville, we were located in an industrial/arty/grungy area, dotted with its share of breweries. A good option for late evenings.

They take their music theming seriously at the co-working office – shiny black vinyl records (remember them!), glitzy silver CDs (even they’re old hat now) and country music album covers form the decor back-drop, interspersed with hand-drawn portraits and sketches. Of famous music people of course.

Oh, and then there’s the toilets in the office:

Knoxville, Tennessee

A week in Nashville, followed by a week in Knoxville.

Who would have thought the highlight of Knoxville would be a multi-story car park? And by that I don’t mean that Knoxville didn’t have much going for it. Just that the car park was awesome. If Carlsberg did penthouse suites in car parks, this would be it.

In short, campsites are a bit hard to come by in the middle of the city, and the standard inner city car park they use to house RVs overnight was full. And so we got our own private rooftop mansion, snuggled in the corner with awesome views of downtown Knoxville.

Most nights we finished work at 9pm, now a whole three hours on from pacific time. With balmy nights and views of the city skyline (not forgetting the bus station), our post-work wind down spot was perfect.

Fickle as we are about the weather, the morning fog we experienced consecutively for three days was not conducive to getting out there doing stuff before work (to be fair, neither were the late night rooftop bar sessions).

Happy Friday, fog-free and so it’s time to play day. Ijams nature reserve gets bonus points for being only a few miles out from downtown Knoxville yet feels like a peaceful haven, with a carpet of fallen leaves underfoot reminding us of the season.

If you want to experience Knoxville at night (other than hang out in a car park), what do you do? Go to the speakeasy of course! In true speakeasy style, The Peter Kern Library was a touch hard to find. And had that speakeasy essence of over-inflated self-importance. The cocktails however… pretty damn good.

Other establishments visited included the Knox Whiskey Works distillery and the highly rated Hi-Wire brewery. No pressure but we got to Hi-Wire at 9:20pm and last orders were at 9:30pm. Never mind, after downing a couple of swift ones, very nice they were too, we took some cans to go and it was back to our home from home we went. Private rooftop bar for a nightcap, don’t mind if I do. Bring on the buses.

Reluctantly, we moved on from Frisco. The leaf show was over, the fat lady has sung. The aspens had switched on their ‘Bring It On’ mode, their silvery trunks and skinny branches standing stoically prepared for the oncoming winter. All boats had to be removed from the lake, as it would soon start to freeze around them. Time for us to move on indeed, but who can resist a forlorn glance in the rear view mirror, an unspoken question on our lips as to when we’ll be back. Because for sure, we will be back.

We moved on to the nearby town of Leadville. If we thought we were high up in Frisco at around 9,000ft, Leadville tops that at over 10,000ft. In other words a smidgeon short of 2 miles high. At that elevation, good job the bike ride we chose was relatively flat. And more to the point, was on paved tarmac 🙂 Such a nice ride along the Mineral Belt trail, my love hate relationship with my mountain bike took a decided turn for the positive.

And of course a bike ride deserves a flight of beer, the two go hand in hand right?

Ever played darts in a British pub and found your form improves after a few beers? And so it would seem my corn hole skills (or corn hole luck) increased too. When Darren unexpectedly lost the first game to me, we upped the ante to Best of 3. At 10-0 down, I came from nowhere to steal the second game too. It is now a few weeks later when I’m posting this, and I can confirm we’ve not played since. Not that he’s a bad loser or anything 🙂

It was pretty snug in the Leadville campsite. We were tucked close into the real life Breaking Bad RV. Not even joking.

Leadville was a mere weekend dalliance en route to our destination for the week, Colorado Springs (co-working office) / Manitou Springs (camping).

What a surprise this turned out to be for excellent morning walking options. Turns out we had Garden of the Gods on our doorstep. The name’s a bit OTT, I’m with you, conjures up an Adam’n’Eve type paradise, I’m thinking snakes and apples. Instead we got ancient sandstone rocks, rather impressive actually, especially at sunrise.

The surrounding area also had some pretty cool morning hiking, complete with the most inquisitive, docile deer you’ve ever had the opportunity to meet.

The Epicentral co-working option worked out pretty well, we had our own office in a contemporary environment with plentiful coffee, beer and hand sanitizer. Also a good central location to partake in some of Colorado Springs’ local drinking establishments.

After a couple of weeks break from running, I eased myself back into it along the scenic river path, just a couple of blocks from Epicentral. And bonus, they even had a shower in the co-working space, no need for me to squish myself into our teeny tiny bathroom in the BaseCamp.

So what’s next? Well we plan to head east, there’s vast parts of the US over there that we’ve not really touched. That being said, there seemed to be a lot of not much at all really between Colorado and a long way away. Fasten those seatbelts, we’ve got a big drive coming up.

Prepare yourself for a lot of pictures of yellow leaves. That’s what we went to Colorado in autumn for, and that’s what we got. So that’s what you get too :-). As the Lightning Seeds would say “oh Lucky You”.

Gotta first just give a shout out to being back in Frisco. Feels almost like a second home. Nice to be back.

Our campsite gave us some of the best views over the Dillon reservoir towards Frisco. Being back on the mountain time zone meant our work start time was reverted to 9am, so we could appreciate the nature around us before heading into the office.

I just couldn’t wait to get into the midst of trees to be within and amongst the golden loveliness, rather than viewing from afar.

I don’t recall getting quite so excited about seeing trees change color when we lived in the UK. But the more you become accustomed to the gradual merging of seasons in the Santa Clarita Valley, the more you appreciate the stark diversity of a waning summer and a waxing autumn when you get to see it in person. The beauty of nature becomes all the more wondrous as you realize you have less time to appreciate it!

That said, my oohs and ahh’s were far exceeding Darren’s and he was becoming impatient with our inability to make any progress on our walks without me stopping incessantly to take pictures. I eventually realized the difference between what he thought was awesome and I thought was ‘out of this world absolute best thing I’ve ever seen’: Magic Glasses. Yes really.

So I’d recently acquired a new pair of prescription sunglasses, and on a whim I’d switched from a grey/black tint to a brown/yellow one. Amazing as the autumn leaves are, when you put the Magic Glasses on, it introduces a whole new dimension.

Rest assured, more trees to come. But our two weeks in Frisco was more, much more than that. For starters, there were breweries and there were sausages.

And then there was the time spent on our new found friend’s boat. We were generously invited to join him for a soirée on the Dillon reservoir. Complete with awesome views, a real good vibe, and meat and cheese. Which I woefully neglected to get a picture of but rest assured was good.

We loved the boat experience so much, we went back again the next day. Unfortunately, the wind had other ideas. So much so that we just hung out in the marina. Hard life.

Back to trees. I’m gonna put it out there: my favorite tree is the Aspen. Can you even have a favorite tree? (surely only as weird as a favorite color and most people have one of those?). In Summer, aspens are resplendent with bright green spade shaped leaves. They don’t have long to blow their trumpets so they’ve worked out a way to wave their leaves on their branches like a coquettish Jessica Rabbit fluttering her eyelashes. “Look at me, look at me”.

It’s when the air turns crisp, the days become short, and pumpkin spice appears in everything from lattes to cream cheese that the aspens really come into their own. With the chance to experience this phenomenon first hand (complete with Magic Glasses), I was like a kid in a sweet shop. As I googled “best fall colors” I realized there’s even an official term for my new obsession: Leaf-peeping! So leaf-peep we did.

But it’s a fine line when it comes to timing for the best leaf-peeping. While the trees lining the residential streets of Frisco were still turning from green to yellow to gold, the clusters at higher elevations were already starting to look bare, their coats of many colors lying discarded on the forest floor. Well you know what that means… time to move on.

Don’t get me wrong, it was FUN being at home. We had the chance to catch up with friends in person sharing drinks and good times, to chill out in the pool as we re-acclimated to the desert heat, and to appreciate deep gulps of salty ocean air with a bike ride along the coast. Oh how we missed the sea! Oh yeah, missed the friends too 🙂

But there’s a but. The relentless media COVID coverage with the rise and fall of daily cases & hot spots, the latest lock-down measures and ever-increasing death toll seemed so much more acute at home. From a personal point of view, it was clear the cruise industry’s recovery would be a long gradual uphill struggle. Pair this with my company’s extension to remote working for an additional few months, and getting itchy feet was inevitable. Bring on COVID escape road trip part 2.

However, that damn COVID played havoc with our trip planning. Our initial plan involved the state of New Mexico – but they required a self-quarantine or negative test, hassle factor way up there. So we binned that in favor of our go-to summer Frisco base. After that, we’re thinking east but right now all bets are off.

A few things to take care of at home first: teeth done, eyes done, chiropractor done. Hair not done but hey, one for the road. The truck was serviced and Basecamp almost serviced (long story, don’t make me go there). Less than two full weeks after we rolled back into Santa Clarita, we rolled right out again, trusty Basecamp in tow.

Essentially a 1,000 mile weekend of driving to get to our first base, Frisco. Overnight stop number one was a case of “getting dark, need to stop, there’s a brewery nearby, this will do”. Turned out to be better than a case of make do – Cedar City in Utah had a brewery and a vibe.

Creatures of habit, Sunday night en route to Frisco brought us to a Harvest Host distillery we’d previously visited in Dotsero, Colorado. We already knew their coffee spirit was the bomb. This is also the place where they add all manner of ingredients into their uber-alcoholic spirit to steep and soak and bathe. These are happy ingredients that end their lives basking in this way: cacao nibs, ginger, star anise, turmeric. Random cocktails galore and an early night!

All that remained was an hour long commute into Frisco the next morning. You’re going to hear so much about the leaves and the trees in the next post so I’ll save it to then. But put it this way, if this was the regular commute to work, you’d just want to keep on driving…