Asheville and Congaree NP

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So we made it to Ashville tired and hungry after our big walk in the Smokie’s but we made it to David Castro’s (couch-surfer) house and got on with making pie, beans and mash with gravy some nice home comfort food. Mr Castro was an interesting fellow; he was a TV writer and had written for such shows as Married with Children so over a bottle of red wine, he shared a lot of interesting stories with us. We watched some American football with him and it was good to understand the game a bit better. The next day we were both feeling better than we had in a while so we set out to explore Asheville; a really lovely town. We visited the farmers market and got some fresh vegetables for tea and then headed into town to do a walking tour; it was really interesting to learn about Ashville’s history and one it’s most famous residents Tom Woolfe a writer. We stopped for chocolate at Chocolate Fetish and then for coffee and cookies at European Bakery; a very nice, quaint little bakery; it was all kicking off when we arrived; a drunk guy singing and apparently disturbing the customers, so the police were called and he was carted away in the back of the van; well if you won’t conform to “normal society” what does one expect (whatever)?!!

That night David went out and on his recommendation we watched City of God an excellent film; y’all should watch it… After, David’s shared his plans for his first book he is working on; a very interesting story indeed about the life of a call girl and we hope it goes well. We got up leisurely the next day, said our fond farewells and headed to Charlotte.

This was a brief overnight stopping point where we spent the night with couch-surfer’s; Mike and Maria who were very welcoming and we had a relaxing night with them in their lovely home. In the morning after gorging on pancakes mmmm… we headed to Congaree National Park. It was a beautiful park; no-one around; we did a 2 ½ mile walk early evening on a boardwalk in the swamp/flood plain/forest and it was really peaceful and silent. We went back to camp which we had all to ourselves and cooked up tea washed down with a nice cold beer – bliss. When night fall came in my bliss turned into a bit of fear; we felt a bit isolated out in the forest all alone. We are never happy; we want to find a place with little human contact but then when we get it we want the comfort of our fellow humans around – silly!!

We survived the night; we got up once when we heard a car pull into the car park with the knife in Dim’s hand (paranoid or what)but they drove away before we could see what they were doing!!! We went for a longer walk in the morning through the forest again where I saw 2 snakes; crazy!!

Unsure where we were going to sleep that night, as we were having no luck finding a couch-surf we headed towards Charleston hoping something would come up; I can feel another period of down coming on….

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Photos

Asheville Walking Tour
Mary loves these

Alley
Great graffiti!!

Massive
This is probably the biggest pumpkin ever!!

David Castro
Our couch-surfing host. He was a TV writer and had some great stories.

Congaree NP
Congaree is a huge swamp, a very different kind of national park

Trees Knees
These were weird. They grew these extra stumps in order to help them stay up during the yearly flooding of the swamp.

Comments

[sally-anne]

when are you coming home? I ready miss you two

[No Filth Please]

Coming Home
Hey Sal, hope you are well. We will be home in October, we will come and see you guys when we return to Scunthorpe. We miss you too x