Asheville, NC

I arrived early in Asheville anxious to see my new place. This sit was also in a rural area, also in the Blue Ridge Mountains. In fact, the “Skyway Drive” that I never made it up to in Virginia connects to the “Blue Ridge Parkway” which is just up the road here. My very welcoming and friendly host showed me to my guest room and I almost cried to see how clean and bright it was. It was immaculate, and it smelled like fresh sweet oak wood. I don’t know if oak smells sweet, I just know it smelled fabulous and she said it was oak. The house was built in 2022, and it was clean and bright, with windows letting in light everywhere and clean white cabinets in the kitchen. I’m sure she thought I was nuts as I wandered around her house oooooing and aaawwwing and smelling everything. There were beautiful views off the deck. I drank my coffee out here every morning watching the sunrise. (Sunrise, because the dogs are up at 5am!) What a great place after the Virginia sit.

My two charges were a GSP (German Shorthaired Pointer), and an English Lab. I have since learned that GSP is synonymous with ADD. This dog can run all day and never get tired. In fact she needs to run all day, or she’ll get bored and start causing mischief. No problem, I was up to the task! I got directions about where the hiking trails were in the area. “Just walk up the road here, past 2 switchbacks, past the barking dogs, and then you’ll see the trail that takes you to to the Blue Ridge Mountain-to-Sea trail. You can take that as far as the ocean if you want.” Perfect! “Oh, and by the way, here is some bear spray if you want to take it”. Huh? She told me that yes, there are bears in the area, but “if you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you.” And then the “just don’t get in between the mammas and their cubs.” Ok, cool. She also told me, the dogs are supposed to be on leash, but nobody does that, and nobody cares.

Segue, (btw, I had to look that up, its not spelled Segway), I have discovered through my vast experience with pets that how they behave around their owner is not always the same as how they’re going to behave around you. I’ve also sat for several dogs who are ‘reactive’ to other dogs. So if I’m walking a dog on a leash, and your dog is not on a leash and comes up to my dog, my dog is going to freak right the f*ck out. It doesn’t matter how nice or friendly your dog is, there is going to be an altercation. So, I’m not real comfortable with the dogs off leash thing, but it’s her dogs, her mountain and she would know. And, I can always just keep them on a leash.. no problem. I thought.

They take off to catch their flight and I start setting up & settling in. The dogs do tend to bark their heads off at any passing dog walkers and cars… and also at bears. I look out from the house I’m in and I see a bear family, a mamma bear and three cubs right across the driveway!!! Wow! So cool !!

Then it was time to walk the dogs, and suddenly the bears were not so cool!

I followed her directions, up the road, past 2 switchbacks. You know they only put switchbacks on a very steep road so yeah, getting up the road was no ‘walk in the park’. This is also where I discovered these dogs are not great on leash, they pull, hard. On the hike up, this was great, the lab was big and strong and literally pulled me up the mountain. I would have missed the path to get to the “trail”, but the dogs knew it. It was less a trail, and more a rock climb, pretty much scaling the mountain side, straight up. By the time I got to the ‘mountain to sea’ trail, I was exhausted! It was a single track trail and I was only up there for about 2 minutes before a runner came by with his dog on a leash. I struggled to hold my dogs at bay. They are strong and hyper and so excited. Then a few other people came by. I’m not sure what the dog etiquette is up here. Is it really ok to unleash them ? And, I know there are 4 bears in the area! But there was no easy way to walk them on leash on that trail because they wanted to run and I couldn’t control them. So, I decided that was enough for one day, and we’d just head back to the house. The dogs were clearly disappointed, but I was exhausted and it had been almost an hour outing by the time we got back. That was Day 1.

Day 2, I opted to stay on the road for the walk. She had a package coming in, so I took the dogs down the road to the mailboxes. It was about a 1/2 mile, very steep, and the dogs are trying to pull me down the road and I’m hanging on for dear life. Halfway down the road, I see a plastic garbage bin on its side. It’s got bear straps on it, so obviously the bear was not successful. And then I hear another garbage bin rolling around. I look up, and right off the road is the bear wrestling with another garbage bin. The dogs did not see it or smell it so I kept going. The bear looked at me and I looked at him and I just kept walking as fast as I could (which was easy, because the dogs were pulling me). I probably should have turned around at that point and gone back, but that would have caused the dogs to wonder what I was doing and possibly see the bear, so I just hurried on, cursing myself for not bringing the bear spray. I was on the road, I thought I’d be safe. Once we were past, I heard the garbage bin rolling around again. Heart palpitations …. OMG! I retrieved the mail from the mailbox and then took my sweet time getting back up the road, going through all the possible bear scenarios in my head. There is a new house being built up the road, so there was a bit of traffic on the road. My ‘worst case scenario’ thought was.. If he’s still here, I’ll flag down a car and ask the car to drive by slowly honking their horn and I’ll just walk by on the other side of the car to get past him. How else was I going to get back home? And if the dogs saw him, I knew I could not control them.

We slowly approached the bear sighting spot and I listened and looked and listened and watched the dogs. I saw the 2nd garbage bin down at the bottom of the hill, near the road. I guess he lost the fight with it and wandered off .. or lost interest in it .. or was just waiting around the corner!! Remember this road is steep, so I’m out of breath just walking up it. Now I’m putting it into high gear walking past the area quickly looking all over the place, head on a swivel, heart racing. We finally made it back to the house and I collapsed, exhausted! The dogs were still jumping around, oblivious to the entire situation, they wanted to go run! OMG!

As an afterthought, before she left, she told me there was a field behind a church where I could take the dogs to let them run if I didn’t want to take a hike. She had also left me a dog crate, so I packed up those dogs into their crate in my car and went to check out this place. Wow! Game changer! Apparently, some guy keeps this place available for the cross country high school team next door. But during the day, locals come by to let their dogs run around. I went there almost every day of my stay! Its gorgeous, there are some forest-y trails and also some wide open grass area for the dogs to run free, without a leash and without bears !!! Halleluiah !!! I ran into a few other dog owners, also letting their dogs run free off leash. It was like a private dog park. All of them were there for the same reason, to avoid the bears!

During one of my conversations with the locals, I learned about a site called sniffspot.com. You can rent out someone’s private fenced yard to let your dog run free. Who knew? It’s around $10/hour, you get the place to yourself and just let them go. These places are all over the country! I got a free trial and tried a few, it was cool. One of the places was a hippy campground and there was all kinds of bizarre & funky art.

Psychological Dog Wars:

I read somewhere that the ‘smart’ dog breeds are as smart as a 4 year old. So, when I’m dealing with them, I always think of it as dealing with a 4 year old, and I always assume my superior brain power and maturity can outsmart them… but anyone who’s ever dealt with a 4 year old knows that’s not how it works.

While we were are the dog park place, the GSP found a squeaky ball, and was so excited, happily squeaking away. A few times she allowed me to throw it, and she would eagerly run at 90 mph to go get it and then run around squeaking it. A light bulb went on in my brilliant head! I would go get a squeaky toy at the pet store so that when she started to get bored and tear things up at the house, I could go throw the squeaky toy around in the yard. Its a very small yard, but enough room for her to run around the house if she had something to run around the house with! I stopped on the way home and got a cute little Frankenstein squeaky toy from Pet Smart, reveling in how smart I was!!

OK, good idea, bad execution. I went through about 4 dog balls and they were all annihilated by her. It did keep her occupied, but have you ever tried taking a toy away from a 4 year old ?

I think if I hadn’t just come from Pet Semetary, I might have been more annoyed about this sit. The GSP dog was pretty high maintenance and when she got bored she’d start tearing stuff up, or stealing my socks, or stealing my Rx bottles and running around with them wanting me to chase her. After one of our sniff spot visits she refused to get back in the car and I had to chase her around for about 20 minutes before she finally relented, and I think only then because I was so pissed off she could sense it in my voice through my clenched teeth.

The Biltmore Estate

My very gracious and nice host left me a free voucher to go visit the Biltmore Estate. This is yet another Vanderbilt mansion. So, they made a ton of money and then built mansions all over the east coast? It was beautiful and amazing and maybe a little gaudy. It was all decorated for Christmas already. I think it should have been decorated for Halloween!

I really liked the gardens and the conservatory (with Col Mustard and the knife), which was filled with some funky looking tropical flowers, and hanging gourds.

eBike Tour

eBike tours are my new favorite way to see a city. We did one in Athens, and we rented some in Acadia. The guy who did the tour here was great, super laid back. He wore jeans an no helmet, and usually had one hand in his pocket while riding. We got a great tour of the city, and a lot of his personal experience about Hurricane Helene, which I’m going to paraphrase here.

He went to bed the night of the storm, listening to all of the warnings and alerts and thinking, “Oh brother, we’re in the mountains, its fine.” (Famous last words) He got up the next day and the electricity was out, but didn’t think much of it. Finally that afternoon when the electricity wasn’t back on, and the water wasn’t running and there was still no cell service, he ventured outside and saw the damage. He spent the next month “camping out” in his house. He said he met all his neighbors, they would build campfires and toast marshmallows for the enter neighborhood some nights. Everyone spent the days cleaning up the city. Maybe a small silver lining on an enormous black cloud. Can you image being without cell service for a month!!?! And running water!

We saw some very cool places in the city, saw where some of the hurricane damage was and how high the water was, which was mind-blowing! This was down by the river, the water was up to where the black paint meets the bricks.

Another cool spot was the Omni Grove Park Inn. Beautiful hotel with amazing views and a gorgeous patio overlooking the city and mountians.

A few more pics. Bears by the house, and an amazing brewery with a fully fenced dog park! Genius!

A good sit, a little high maintenance, but a beautiful area. I was ready to start moving back west.