Travels With Stu

When I decided to drive to Asheville I had one thing on my mind…wanting to see the Great Smoky Mountains the next day. I didn’t think much about Asheville, and wasn’t expecting to have that great of a time. I didn’t have the greatest time in the world, but after a few hundred miles in my car I found a hostel in Asheville, checked in to a single room that cost me $40 (a fortune for me and a hostel in the States), and made my way downtown. There were a lot of restaurants and bars in downtown, but LP suggested Early Girl Eatery. I wasn’t sure if this was a restaurant or a place for a good time, but it was listed under the “Eating” section, and I found it without much trouble. The restaurant was located on Wall Street which was a cobble-stoned street lined with restaurants and quaint shops. The restaurant was a Southern restaurant, and not a sketchy place to my pleasant surprise. I tried ordering a chicken platter, but they had run out of chicken, then I tried salmon, but they didn’t have any before I felt forced to order the meatloaf. I had never ordered meatloaf in a restaurant in my life, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, and since meatloaf isn’t the most appealing meal to me, I had low expectations.

Somehow the meatloaf was surprisingly good, and the free refills of coke kept me full and satiated. I had been reading a Bill Bryson novel and found some time to read a chapter, before paying the tab and heading out to discover the town. Asheville had a lively downtown for a place the size of Asheville, so I headed towards some beer gardens before deciding I didn’t want to drink and made my way to the city square where a band was playing some type of rock music. I saw a bunch of people gather around the band, and saw one of the weirdest things in my life. Apparently all the homeless people of Asheville congregate in this area and there were about ten of them, dressed in dirty clothes or rags, or both, dancing with each other. Sometimes they’d kissed, sometimes they did vulgar things, but it was by far one of the most intriguing things I had ever seen in my life. Had I been the lead singer or guitarist standing 5 feet away from this spectacle I probably would’ve, well I probably wouldn’t have cared, but since I was standing in the crowd I was terrified to join this motley crue on the dance floor. After watching this craziness for a few minutes I continued my ramble around Asheville, before trying to find my car and heading back to my hostel.

For some reason it was really nice to have my own room and bed when I got back, and the thought of spending $40 wasn’t that awful. I passed out thinking about The Smoky Mountains, but the more daunting drive through the Blue Ridge Highway to Washington DC was lurking in the back of my mind.

My last day in Charleston consisted of me actually walking around the city. Over the course of 1 and a half days I had somehow managed not to walk around Charleston’s “downtown,” but ramble around King Street for food and drinks. I had met a handful of people in the hostel and had gotten to know a few of the people and had spent the past couple days enjoying the city with them, but now most of them had taken off for different destinations and I finally had time to explore Charleston.

The walk from my hostel to downtown Charleston was no more than 25 minutes, as I took the King Street route past lots of restaurants and shops before reaching Market. At Market I headed towards the water in hopes of finding Waterfront Park. For the past two days I had been meaning to see and explore the park, and I was pleased to see that it was a quiet, green and rather large as I walked along the water. There was a large fountain spurting water at random times making certain kids excited when they walked over one of the spurting fountains. After a few minutes of observing the fountain I continued further south and checked out White Point Park & Gardens. This was another pleasant greenspace in downtown Charleston.

I then decided to take another route through Charleston to head back to my hostel. I walked around the residential area of this section of Charleston checking out different historic houses, like the Aiken-Rhett House and Nathaniel Russell House. I didn’t pay to enter any of the houses, but they all looked pleasant from their exteriors. I checked out my LP and saw that there was a notable Jewish synagogue in Charleston so I headed towards Kahal Kadesh Beth Elohim, America’s first Reform congregation. The synagogue was very large but closed so I couldn’t enter so I began my walk down King Street and back to the hostel.

The next morning I went to a market that was one of the most pleasant experiences i had in Charleston and on the road trip. There must have been around 30 stalls each selling or giving samples of cheeses, meats, jams, spreads, fish, sweets, drinks and everything else youd want from a market. I spent an hour or so filling up on the samples and then I got a Quesadilla filled with cajun fish and left the market extremely satisfied. It was my last day in Charleston and I had a long trek to Asheville that day, so I made my way back to the hostel, checked out and started my 270 mile drive to North Carolina to see the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The next morning I woke up relatively early (I usually woke up around 8-9 AM on this trip) and was ready to begin my day walking around downtown Charleston. I lifted my head from my pillow, and the next ... [Continue reading this entry]

After spending a miserably hot day in Savannah, as well as driving from Jacksonville to Charleston, I was extremely relieved when I finally arrived at my hostel in Charleston that was charging me less than $20 a night for a ... [Continue reading this entry]

Based off the pictures, or picture, I had seen of Savannah in my LP guidebook I was really excited to see Savannah. I imagined large plantations, and streets with filled with large oak trees with Spanish moss hanging from ... [Continue reading this entry]

Jacksonville is usually a huge distance when I think of traveling to Jacksonville, because it's nowhere near my grandparents place in Melbourne, so it was always kind of a drag to make the long haul to see my aunt, but ... [Continue reading this entry]

I arrived in St. Augustine about an hour after I left Daytona...it's only a 60 mile drive, and I was instantly impressed with the layout of the city. I learned that St. Augustine is the oldest city in the ... [Continue reading this entry]

After spending the past week with friends and family in New Orleans and Florida it was difficult for me to want to break away and start my solo trip again. The biggest force that was telling me to move ... [Continue reading this entry]

The entire time I was in Melbourne I had a lot of difficulty accepting the fact that somehow I was visiting my grandparents, aunts and cousins and no one else in my immediate family were with me, and my car ... [Continue reading this entry]