11/19/2016
We are going to see my brother, Donald, for Thanksgiving this year. He lives in Corbin KY and this will be our first visit to his home since he moved there. If I'm honest this is one of the very few visits I've made to his home so I'm looking forward to it. We decided given it's a several hour drive that we would break the trip up so it would be at a leisurely, relaxed pace vs. rushed. So I set out an itinerary.
Step 1 - Let Jack sleep in a little bit given he traveled and worked all week. We ventured out around 10:45
Step 2 - Sunrise Grill for breakfast. This is a weekend tradition for us and well I needed coffee. Breakfast was great as usual, though had an interesting conversation with Jaycee regarding my new cleaning lady; time shall tell.
Step 3 - Chimney Rock Park - This is where it gets interesting. We were driving the truck and as you get closer to the park you must get off the interstate and onto curvy mountain roads. Jack was driving - I was having control freak out issues and he offered to let me drive. Can you just say Thank you, Jesus! Now don't get me wrong - Jack drives wonderfully, but you can't tell my nitwit brain that when we are going around a curve at a whopping 20 miles and hour and I see certain death in my future. Make sense yet? No - not to me either. So he lets me drive and we are on our way only... we weren't. We get about 20 minutes from Chimney Rock to stumble upon the fact the road is closed. No one can go to Chimney Rock at this time due to forest fires.
Step 4........ Yea that is where the itinerary got blown all to Hades and back so we pivoted.
Deviation Step 1 - Go back to find our way to Hendersonville (which is where our hotel is). It's about 30 to 45 minutes out of the way but the faithful Google Maps helps us find our way.
Deviation Step 2 - Check into the hotel early and ask for ideas. At this point, it's 3 PM and we aren't certain what we have time to do. The clerk was very helpful and gave us a brochure of holiday events. I'd like to speak about the hotel for a moment, if you forgive the digression, it's called The Cascades Mountain Resort. It's right next to the Hampton Inn we stayed at last time, but the rooms appeared bigger on the website, the reviews were good, and the price was reasonable. I have to say overall I'm impressed so far. Clean, spacious, huge indoor pool with slide, I'd recommend it if you are in the area. Only 2 negatives so far and they are fairly minor 1) Smell of chlorine in lobby / common areas and 2) Hot water exist, but it takes a while to find your room :)
So anyway we get into the room and sit. No plans, no agenda, just well - what now? I start looking at restaurants and Jack is looking at the holiday event brochure. and we decide - dinner and a play. Their decision made, we got this, we pivot rather well, yes we do. Onward and Upward - we are back on track, no more deviation - this is the plan, let's go.
Step 1 or 5 depending on how you look at it :) - Go to Hendersonville and walk around before dinner. Yea - great idea.... wait its 45 degrees. That's ok, you have a coat. Walk - look in shop - walk - look at shop - walk..... What are we doing? It's cold.... Let's go drive through town - who says we need to actually see in the windows :)
So we drive through Hendersonville. It's cute and if I had longhandles on under my jeans I bet I would have enjoyed it's ambiance, but well - no. So on to the next item on our agenda.
Step 2/6 - Dinner. Let's try something that looks different, something local. The steak house (Binions), Nah that looks too much like Texas Road House. Let's go to Never Blue. Reviews are awesome and the menu looks interesting. So we go in - sit down and order drinks. I order a Sangria and Jack a coke. I had a Sangria in Jamaica and thought they were good.... well apparently Sangria's in the US are different, because this was strong and had an after taste that would kick you in the groin. We look at the menu and suddenly what looked interesting on my phone just looks fancy and not terribly appetizing. So I do the unthinkable... I tell the waiter to give us a check for the drink and we leave. Yep, I paid $7 to take a sip out of a bad drink and leave. Where did we go you ask? Yea, you guessed it, Binions the local steak house.
The food was good I have to say as was the service, but I nailed it with the atmosphere. It's a local TX Roadhouse - not really my scene, but the steak was good - tender and juicy. They had shrimp cocktail as a side dish, which is unique, and their roles were the light wonderful yeast rolls like you used to get at Ryan's so overall - good deal.
Step 3/7 - Play - Now this we did right and I'm glad we missed Chimney Rock or we probably would have been too tired to consider this. We went to see A Christmas Carol at the Flat Rock Theater, the NC State Theater. It was opening night of the play and was magnificent! The acting, the singing, the staging - just wonderful. They also had hot chocolate at the concession area - cold night, hot chocolate and a Christmas play, the trifecta. Honestly, it was an incredible play and they did such a good job.
We are now laying in bed about to call it a night before we finish the journey tomorrow. Our day may not have gone super smoothly, but I had a good time and really for a day meant to be fun, that is the important part right? Hope you enjoyed this glimpse into our day as much as we did having it. Sleep well blogland!
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