Well, we didn't have much time to unpack and clean up the car before it was time to hit the road again. This time, we're going with some club members to the NAMGAR (North American MGA Registry) meet in Asheville, NC. We don't have an "A", but wanted to see Asheville and decided to caravan with the others to Asheville. We left early this morning to meet up with the others in Clayton, GA. The weather was overcast when we left, but we were hoping that it would hold out for the drive to Asheville. But, by the time we got to Gainesville, it started raining hard enough for us to put the top up. We pulled into an empty gas station and put the top up, then continued to the Rabbit Hole Cafe for breakfast. From there we continued to Clayton where we stopped at an Ingles fuel stop and filled up with gas. We were a little early, so we checked out the Ingles (the biggest one I've ever see, and actually pretty nice inside). It was raining pretty hard, so I decided to get out of the rain. One advantage of the Midget - can get under grocery store overhangs!!
After we met up with the others, we continued on to Cherokee, NC going through some pretty heavy rain at times. This didn't look good for our drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We stopped for lunch in Cherokee and while we were eating, it stopped raining and the sun came out! We gassed up, three MGAs, and MGB and our Midget, put our tops down and got on the Parkway for a beautiful drive until we got to Hwy. 19 that took us through Maggie Valley and on into Asheville. After we got to the hotel, got our rooms and got our packets for the event, we decided to head downtown for something to eat. Asheville has a very vibrant downtown, with lots of restaurants and shops, (plus your usual performance artists, homeless and panhandlers). Many of the old facades have been maintained and there are many trees planted so it looks very livable. In fact, it appears that many people live downtown. It also appears to be very dog friendly, as many stores have water bowls outside for the K9s. We ate at the Laughing Seed, a vegetarian restaurant which, despite the absence of meat, was very good! For dessert, we stopped at the French Broad Chocolate Factory where you could get a wide variety of items, all made with chocolate! Very good! From there we finally made it back to the hotel for a good night's sleep. More to do tomorrow.
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