Adventures Around Asheville Part 1

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Our first reserved campsite after having our motorhome serviced in Gaffney South Carolina isn’t until Wednesday with a late afternoon check in time. It’s only around a 90 mile drive to Lake Powhatan near Asheville. We had already stayed one extra night in Gaffney and knew there wouldn’t be a problem spending another night there but we’ve more or less explored all the areas around here so we decided to to to drive up to the Elks Lodge in Hendersonville North Carolina. That will get us to a lodge we haven’t stayed at before and by driving the 65 miles we will only have around 20 miles to go the following day. This lodge has no “camping” services but the designated parking area is behind the lodge on what likely were old tennis courts so it is flat and wide open so our solar panels will have no trouble doing their thing during our visit. We arrived before the lodge opens in order to make sure we can navigate the parking lot back to the old courts.

Admittedly, Chris had an ulterior motive for a stop in Hendersonville - goats. We had made a day trip to Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site back in the spring of 2022 when we were staying in nearby Brevard. We had toured the old home and visited the farm on the grounds with all the goats. She was hopeful that there would be another round of babies by now and she wanted to see them. So after we got parked and discovered that the lodge wouldn’t open until much later this afternoon, we head over to see goats.

Chris and Her Goats

We make it to the parking lot and know there is a bit of a walk up past the old home to the barnyard. Of course we hadn’t considered how this part of the mountains were impacted by Hurricane Helene back in September 2024. So maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise that there was damage at the Sandburg property. The main bridge over a creek and former pond was damaged and visitors are now forced to take a bit of a detour.

Damaged Bridge on Sandburg Property

Temporary Bridge Upstream

We don’t bother with the home since we’ve already toured it and it wasn’t clear that there were even tours being offered today. We head straight for the goats. We encounter a volunteer who is on “goat duty” and talk with her for a bit. It turns out that prior to the hurricane, there had been a sinkhole open up and drain the pond and slightly damage the bridge. After many months of evaluation and dealing with the budget and approval process from the National Park Service, the repairs to the bridge were scheduled to take place but before that could happen, Helene came through and took the bridge out beyond a simple repair. So now the process needs to take place again and given the scope of the damage, she didn’t seem optimistic that a bridge replacement would be coming anytime soon.

We were the only visitors for the goats this afternoon so she had us enter the pen to find them mainly in the shade of a side room of the barn. As we entered, a few of the more inquisitive goats came out to greet us but many stayed in the shelter. I particularly liked how the one goat appeared to be resting her head on the rump of her friend.

Will You Be My Pillow?

There were no baby goats to be found and later discovered that due to government funding cuts, they haven’t started up the breeding program so we are limited to the 11 females on hand and a couple males held in nearby pens. It was a nice afternoon so we started to walked away from the barn into the next door field to see if we could get any goats to follow. Sure enough a couple of the goats started to follow us and that was enough to prompt the whole herd to follow. They acted almost like puppy dogs and followed us around the field wherever we walked. Chris was in her hay day.

Chris is Out Standing in Her Field

Grazing Goats

Birdhouse Could Use Some TLC

After a bit, Chris had enough goat time and we head out of the pen. We chat with the volunteer a bit more before we head out for one of the hikes on the grounds. When we were here previously, we had hiked some trail but not the one to Glassy Mountain. From the barn, it’s about 1.25 miles to the peak and does gain just over 500 feet in elevation. Having spent the past 6 months in the flatness of Florida, this would be our first hike in some time with some real elevation gain.

Small Dam Along Stream

Mountain Laurel in Bloom

There were a few other people out enjoying the trails but it wasn’t too crowded. We made it to the top and found a large exposed rock outcropping with a decent view. There are a few benches and plenty of room to just sit on the rock and take in the view. We walked down a few other trails to the car and whole day came in as 4.33 miles and 874 feet of elevation gain.

On the Right Trail

Glassy Mountain Overlook

We make it back to the lodge and by now it is open and fairly crowded. We head in to let them know we will be staying out back tonight. After we chat with a few local members, we head back to the rig to have dinner. There was one other motorhome back with us and we met the owners at one point. Turns out they had just left Gaffney yesterday after getting their rig serviced and were here visiting with a friend that lives in the area. Since they were staying with her, we had the place to ourselves that night. Since check in time isn’t until late, we are able to walk from the lodge and into downtown. There are lots of cute little shops and even a Mast General Store which is always worth a visit. We did pick up some literature for the area from the visitors center and then back to the rig to start the short 21 mile drive to Lake Powhatan Recreation Area - less than 10 miles southwest of Asheville.

This isn’t our first time staying in this campground. We were here back in the spring of 2015 before we had decided to go full time. We were doing our first “snow bird” season down south to escape the Rochester winter. We had spent most of the winter bopping around Florida in our previous motorhome before finding a Dutch Star for sale in the Dallas area. After heading west to swap out the two motorhomes, we were working our way back east to get the chassis serviced in Gaffney before heading back north. We don’t recall too much about that last stay other than we stayed for 5 days and found quite a few geocaches. This time we are staying for seven nights. Unfortunately we hadn’t planned far enough in advance to get a site with any services so we will need to rough it for that week without water, electric or sewer. Since the campsites are pretty much in the woods, we will see how well our solar system works.

Our Site at Lake Powhatan

After getting setup and scoping out the rest rooms and shower facilities, we decide to go for a short walk around the park. There are plenty of trails here and we are able to find the trails from the camping are to Lake Powhatan.

Possible Beaver Dam?

Man Made Dam at Lake Powhatan

Getting around to the other side of the lake did take a bit longer hike to find a bridge across a creek, but we finally figured it out and got in a nice 2 mile hike to close out the day.

Butterflies Puddling

Lake and Mountain View

3 Turtles

The next day we decide to check out the North Carolina Arboretum. We have been here twice before - back during our prior stay at Powhatan in 2015 and again in 2021. We typically don’t repeat visits to places we’ve been before but arboretums seem to be the type of place that is constantly changing so I doubt it will look too familiar - plus this one is very nice. The arboretum does charge but only for parking, not admission. There are trails in our park that connect into the arboretum trails. Technically we could walk from our campsite but we can save a few miles of hiking if we drive to a popular trailhead just outside of the camping area for the Hard Times Trail. This is one of many access points to the miles of mountain biking trails. Fortunately being a Thursday morning, there aren’t that many cyclist out. We follow the trail along Bent Creek and eventually make it to the back gate to the arboretum.

Arboretum Entrance

Small Cascade on Creek

Clouds Hanging to Mountain Tops

Even in the remote section of the arboretum, there are lots of interpretive signs explaining plants, animals and habitats. It was definitely top notch. We found one geocache before we get to the main arboretum grounds where 99% of the visitors congregate.

Statue

Fountain

Quilt Garden

Some of the displays look familiar but for the most part the place feels new and fresh. One section we remember from prior visits is the bonsai garden. Unfortunately they put the plants away during the winter months so there was nothing to see other than some workers painting some hand rails. It turns out that this upcoming weekend is the grand reopening of the bonsai garden.

Beetle Sculpture

Pansy

There are so many plants and artistic features to check out. Some of the iron gates are very creative and each one shows off various animals like birds, snakes and turtles. The bear statue was unusual. From a distance it wasn’t clear what it was made from but once we got closer, we saw that the whole things was made out of old bicycle tires - very unusual.

Artistic Gate

Perched Bird

Black Bear

Made of Bicycle Tires!

Normally for a longer hike like this, we would have carried some sort of lunch with us. But we knew there was a lunch area in one of the buildings so as we got hungry, we headed there to pick out something to eat. It felt good to be able to sit for a bit.

Wisteria

Clematis

We checked out the main visitor center that has a lot of different art on display. Outside was a planter with a couple of kaleidoscopes pointing at the plants. It takes a little bit of patience to line up the camera to get a creative picture. Of course Chris wanted to get involved and held her hand underneath which gives a rather unusual - almost alien hand look!

Visitor Center

Flowers Through Kaleiscope

Alien Hands?

After exploring the bulk of the main gardens, we decide to head to one of the other more remote sections with the Native Azalea Collection. This area is much less formal but still has lots of plants. Many of the blooms were past their peak but there was still plenty of to see along the circuitous paths.

Fire Pink

Azaleas

Columbine

Coming to see the azaleas late in our walk worked out well since this put us near the trails we would need to head back to the car. We did do a brief detour on Owl Ridge Trail to attempt a geocache that sounded interesting. This one was placed by the arboretum staff and the description told cachers to go to ground zero, but instead of looking for a container, you are looking for “eyes” on a tree. Once found, stand by that tree and move in the direction it is “looking where you will search for another pair of eyes. At first it wasn’t clear exactly what that meant and we were concerned that the “eyes” might be fire tacks like used for night caches. If so, those thumbtack sized things might be impossible to spot. When we made it to the first stage, we realized the eyes were going to be much easier to see. But there still was the issue of trying to walk through the woods while pointed in the appropriate direction and looking for the next set of eyes. Not knowing how many sets of eyes we needed to find before we were led to the actual container. Fortunately, we found the eyes easy enough and I noticed the cache by a fallen tree otherwise we may still be out in the woods wandering around. We made it back to the car about five hours after we started and got in 7.6 miles and over 800 feet of elevation gain - quite the hike!

Pink Ladyslipper

Eye See You

The next day we were looking for something a little less strenuous. There were a few geocaches along the Blue Ridge Parkway in an area not too far from camp. We have a couple of short hikes - one starting at Beaver Dam Gap Overlook. We needed to hike some of the Shut In Trail. We only needed to go out a little over a half mile but it was a bit of a steep climb - rising 375 feet in that short distance.

So Many Views Along the Blue Ridge

Our second stop along the BRP was near where the road crosses the French Broad River. We hadn’t originally planned to come here, but a stage of a multicache we found at our first hike, put the final container along a portion of the Mountain to Sea Trail. This section of woods had a lot of downed trees. The trail was cleared but as geocachers, we typically need to go off trail at some point to locate the container and lots of large trees laying on the ground make the search that much more difficult. We did find all 3 geocaches we looked for. We had walked out onto the bridge over the river to get a better view when we finished this 1.5 mile hike. One interesting thing was that by being this high up, some of the larger trees growing down below have their canopy pretty much at eye level to us. We knew the tulip poplars were blooming right now but we typically only get to see the blooms that have been blown off the trees. From this vantage point, I could see just how many flowers the trees produce.

Overlooking the French Broad River

At Eye Level with Tulip Poplar Blooms

For the afternoon, we had booked a tour at New Belgium Brewery. We have toured the main brewery in Fort Collins Colorado back in 2022 and took the long tour at their plant here in Asheville back in 2024. But a lot has happened in those two years. The River Arts District where the brewery is located is right along the French Broad River. We had walked all over the area and stopped in many of the shops after our brewery tour. So 4 months later, we were astonished to see the videos of the massive flooding that took place as Hurricane Helene struck and this area. Many of the smaller shops down closer to the river level were completely washed away. Even the brewery suffered flooding and was shut down for 80 days as they cleaned up and rebuilt as needed. We arrive at the brewery grounds a little before our tour was to begin and there were no real signs of any flood damage.

Grounds at New Belgium Brewing

They no longer seem to offer the 2.5 hour “Behind the Scenes Tour” but we were okay with the $15, 90 minute “Production Tour” since we were really just wanting a chance to see and hear about how the brewery was able to come back online after the flood.

Main Kettle and Vat Room

Large Display Showing Current Brewing Status

After taking the spiral slide down to a lower level, we hit an area that had been damaged. Lots of new art and decorations were in place. I was kind of surprised that there was nothing to highlight where the flood line was. Often places that go though a flood will have some sort of line painted on a wall to show the flood level. I guess management decided to not dwell on the past.

Celebrating This Property's Past

Anyone for a Slide?

More New Artwork

The tour was fun and our guide was fairly knowledgeable even though he hasn’t worked there a full year. This tour doesn’t take us back into some of the production areas we saw previously so we are forced to simply look through the windows. They do have some pretty cool artwork on the windows of the production area showing various aspects of the beer making process.

All About Yeast

The Beer Making Process

Fermentation Explained

Packaging

We did get to sample various beers at three different stops along our tour. The last stop was in a room that overlooks the packaging area - both bottles and cans. Both lines were running but the bottling line was more interesting.

Bottling Below

Closer View of Bottling Line

At this stop they have taps with all the various IPAs that New Belgium produces. Even if you haven’t had a New Belgium IPA, you’re likely familiar with their “Voodoo Ranger” mascot that seems to adorn this style of beer. We aren’t big IPA fans but they had one with a higher alcohol content called Imperial IPA that wasn’t too bad.

As we walked back to the main tap house after the tour, we debated about getting a beer and enjoying the sitting area either inside or outside. But then we saw how long the line for beer was and we decided that all the samples we had on the tour was likely enough for us. It was nice to get back to New Belgium and see that they have recovered from the flooding.