Patti & Tom Come to Town!

WEEK SIX - We are so excited that Patti & Tom Hicks came to visit (well, Zoey and Deborah are excited. Some of the rest of us think "oh, lord, more visitors")and that we got to show them around Asheville. They arrived late Monday afternoon. We had dinner in and spent the evening catching up. Next day we took them to our favorite art galleries, the Omni Grove Park Inn and lunch at the Tupelo Honey Cafe featuring great Southern comfort food. Later that afternoon, we went to the West Asheville Tailgate Farmers Market to get strawberries for the first strawberry shortcake of the season—it was delicious (OK, now I'm excited Tom and Patti are here. Deborah even made it the right way in theri honor, not the Varner way which is a biscuit saturated with strawberry soup. This time it has real strawberries and ice cream on top. Thanks for coming Tom and Patti!!!!)!

Patti, Tom and I on the back steps
of  the Omni Grove Park Inn.

Interesting guy at the West Asheville
Tailgate Farmers Market.

Wednesday is kind of a drizzly, gray day, but we make it better by taking the Hicks to a late breakfast at Biscuit Head in West Asheville. It's a hip little restaurant serving the fluffiest, biggest biscuits ever. Actually rivals the Heavenly Biscuit at Fort Myers Beach. But the best part is the amazing array of toppings—butters, jams, and preserves, all homemade—so good!

One of our favorite Asheville restaurants.

Yum, yum!

Patti & Tom left late afternoon—sadly, we have no more guests coming to Asheville. (So I saved the trip to the Pinball Museum where you can play 100s of machines all day for a few bucks until Tom could go with me. Damned if it wasn't closed the days he was here. It opened 4 hours after he left, so in his honor, I'm saving it for our return visit.)

But there is a neighborhood arts and music festival in Montford on Saturday. We walk down, stroll through the artists' booths and listen to a little music.

That evening, we went to Highland Brewing. Highland opened in 1994 and was the first legal brewery in Asheville since Prohibition. Today, they brew 60,000 barrels of beer each year. But we went there to hear bluegrass music—the beer was only a bonus. Can't remember the band's name but they were good—especially the guitarist. (I can remember the name of the beer....)

                                                         (Who's the guy with the pinhead?)