To Asheville and back

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7 hours and 59 minutes... that's the amount of time that it takes to travel from Alexandria, VA to Asheville, NC. On Saturday, March 10th we embarked on this road trip. 7 hours and 59 minutes sounds a little daunting, but with good company and a comfortable car... all is good.

We drove for 4.5 hours and did a pit stop in Durham. We stopped by Durham for lunch at the Backyard BBQ. This was a big hit amongst the TripAdvisor forum. It's a is family owned-hole in the wall dive that had Pork Barbeque, Ribs, Smoked BBQ Chicken and Beef Brisket. Good ole southern cooking. How could we pass this up. So we didn't. We had BBQ Chicken with corn and cole slaw, Beef Ribs with mac and cheese and fried okra and Pork BBQ with collard greens and sweet potatoes. All Yum.. Clearly our eyes were larger than our stomachs... but we couldn't help ourselves. O and did I forget to mention the hush puppies? Yum-MEE!!! I was tempted to ask for a to-go order but refrained.

After ingesting all the food. We decided to make the most of the road trip and make a pit stop in Winston-Salem. It's about 2 hours away from Durham. In typical girls weekend tradition, we saw a Tanger Outlet on the way to Winston-Salem and we just had to stop by... Mary bought a pair of shoes...

We finally made it to Winston-Salem. Winston-Salem had a quaint little historic town called Old Salem. The origin of Salem dates back to January 1753 when it was settled upon by the Morvaians. The benefactor named the area "die Wachau" (Latin form: Wachovia). Wachovia Bank takes its name from this area where it was founded. Many of the original buildings in the settlement have been restored or rebuilt and are now a part of Old Salem. There also resides a small all girls academy called Salem College.

Another 2 hours later and after hitting an animal along the way, we were in Asheville. We checked in to Hampton Inn in Fletcher and believe it or not... hungry. We asked the receptionist for a recommendation and she suggested Frankie Bones. So we went. I checked in with Yelp and as an added bonus, Frankie Bones offered up a free Bada Bing Shrimp appetizer. Mary had the Roasted Chicken Pizetta, Betsy had the Bourbon Beef Tips and I had the Mayfair Ceasar Salad and Penne Pasta Bolognese. Only draw back... they ran out of ceasar dressing, so i had to use blue cheese.

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