Blue Ridge Mountain Kind of Day

We had been told by a good friend that the Blue Ridge Parkway was an incredibly beautiful drive, but we wanted to get to Charlotte in time to see Jed's older brother Jonas, one of my other God-sibs, so we thought we were going to have to skip the experience. Then it turned out that Jonas' theater group wasn't going to perform in Charlotte until 7 pm so we decided to hang out around Asheville on Wednesday until after lunch. I had been interested in going to the Folk Arts Center and it just happened to be about 15 minutes from Asheville on the Blue Ridge Parkway. What a beautiful road! I'm so glad we got to drive on it just a little bit. I could easily see spending a day or two driving farther down the parkway all the way to Boone. As it was we had a really great time taking the kids to the Folk Arts Center and then walking a short trail in the woods next to the center.

Running up the hill on the way to the Folk Art Center

The center had beautiful rock walls all around it.

The boys were mesmerized by the wood turner. They couldn't stop watching him.

All the traditional Appalachian arts and crafts were represented. I was especially excited about the quilts.

The upstairs gallery included newer works like this sculpture with ravens. Izzy loves ravens.

The little trail near the center had signs that explained all about the different trees in the area.

The woods of the Smokey Mountains are truly beautiful.

I kept seeing mushrooms I've never seen before.

After the Folk Center we went back into Asheville for lunch. We ended up eating at a really great restaurant called Tupelo Honey Cafe, it's what they are calling "new southern" cuisine. In this case it's cuisine that's also ex-dead head cuisine, so the vegetables are all fresh and the meat is organic and local. I had greens, beets, and cauliflower all wonderfully and interestingly cooked without being over cooked, and the biscuits were perfect. Asheville turned out to be a very nice town, there's a lot of culture, music and interesting people there. I think it's likely a better place to live than to visit.

Walking downtown towards the restaurant, we had to avoid the stinky ginko berries on the ground.

Climbing public art.

We had to wait for our table so we went to the little park across the street.

The kids decided to become part of the parks fountain. They blend right in.

Dancing to Dylan in Asheville

We headed out of Atlanta with every intention of camping near Charlotte and heading towards the Democratic National Convention the following day. As we drove through South Carolina the weather turned and we were suddenly in an intense heavy rain that didn't seem to let up. We stopped in Greenville, SC to eat Indian food and discuss our plans. We didn't want to camp in heavy rain and the weather report said that it would continue to rain for the rest of the week. Also the storm was much more intense in the south and east of North Carolina than it was in the western hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We decided to get a hotel in Asheville and check out the town which had been highly recommended to us by one of our favorite North Carolina natives.

One of the first things we did in the morning after waking up in Asheville was to go out to a coffee shop on the other side of town that had a reputation for being intense about their coffee. Our kind of people! The place is called Waking Life Espresso. It turned out to be a charming place in a converted house. The whole place smells wonderfully of coffee, and the guy making the fabulous concoctions was not only very nice, but very competent.

They were playing Bob Dylan and the Band's Basement Tapes. We have been playing Dylan the entire road trip so it was comforting and fun to hear something we hadn't been listening to from our current favorite. The kids were happy with it and danced around.

Then I gave the kids my phone to take pictures with.

If Asheville is anything like its coffee shops we are going to enjoy it very much!

Izzy's writing assignment for today: We went for a walk in Asheville in the rain.

Another Important Civil Rights Site

On our second full day in Atlanta Marisa took us to see the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site. This is an impressive experience. Genuinely one of the most important sites to see in Atlanta.

The site is actually several blocks of buildings that include the museum but also MLK's church, his tomb and the house where he was born. Upon entering the entry walkway to the museum we were greeted with several long rows of squares with various civil rights figures names written on them. Among these names was Medgar Evers, which tide the beginnings of our families exploration of the civil rights sites together.

The museum section of the Historic Site is filled with interactive and multimedia displays.

The Room Where the Assassination Pictures Are Hung, and the Cart His Body Was Carried In For the Funeral

The Statue In the Center of the Museum Depicting People Marching for Freedom

SNCC Is One of the Organization Names Listed in the Statue Commemorating the Civil Rights Journey

I found myself tearing up or struck silent with intensity in almost every section. Other people were openly sobbing in the room displaying his assassination, or tense with rage watching video coverage of the various atrocities and histories of racism.

A Description of the Children's March in Birmingham Honored in Kelly Ingram Park

The church that had been party of MLK's family history was just across the street from the museum. It had been fully restored and was an interesting type of historical experience. I found it ironic that we were sitting in a church on Sunday, but that we were there to site see.

The Church Has Sermons and Speeches From MLK's Collection

Sitting Quietly In a Museum Church Is Just As Hard As Sitting Quietly In a Regular Church

The place where King and his wife Coretta are buried is a little bit weird.

It is the obvious location for their tomb, but the fountain that surrounds them is a strange design, somewhat too monumental and austere surrounded by so many other more intimate and personal monuments to his life.

The House Where Martin Luther King Jr. Was Born

We couldn't help ourselves we had to buy books and a CD of his speeches, and we also got t-shirts for the kids. We hadn't been compulsively shopping most of this road trip. It is hard to be sure whether it was because the information was so compelling we wished to bring a bit of it with us, or whether the shopping experience was a balm to normalize and calm us after so much intensity.

After the museum Marisa took us to a wonderful restaurant called Highland Bakery. The food was excellent nouveau-southern and our waitperson was so nice to the kids they didn't want to leave. Hannah. A good thing as we were all pretty wiped out when we arrived.

Tired Girl and Emotional Dada