Chapter 17 - Take Me With You - Day 1

I don't know about you but Dave and I dream of the day we will retire. While neither of us is ready quite yet, we know that first and foremost on our agenda is travel. We are currently (due to COVID) only contemplating road trips within the continent and had the opportunity recently when good friends suggested we meet them in Nashville, Tennessee.

Road trips are not new to us. Dave and his family traveled a lot on their vacations, all over the US. While my family's travel was not as widespread and often had the goal of meeting up with an old Army buddy of dad's, our summer vacations always involved road trips. My dad used to plot out our trip meticulously on maps, knew where we would stay each night, and compiled a list of places to see along the way.

Trained well by our parents, our first stop as we started thinking about the trip to Nashville was AAA. To our surprise (although it shouldn't have been) AAA is no longer publishing travel guides. Instead they have an app and you can download the travel guides from there. (Hint - you no longer need to be a member to get the guides, just download the app.) This keeps the travel guides updated constantly. We then decided how many miles we would drive each day and where our journey would take us.

Our first stop was in Asheville, North Carolina, about 4 1/2 hours from North Myrtle Beach. While in Asheville we decided to visit Malaprops Bookstore (crazy I know!) but steered clear of the Biltmore on this trip. Since Asheville is so close to our condo in Anderson, SC we decided to do this as a day trip sometime this summer. Malaprops was a lovely bookstore and as the stop was really just an overnight we didn't do more that that. Dinner was at a wonderful French restaurant Isa's French Bistro. While a little pricey, the food was worth it.

As you know I am always thinking books so some about this area include Time Is A River by Mary Alice Monroe, Ghost On Black Mountain by Ann Hite, and The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home by Doris Kiernan.

Next week I'll tell you more about our trip! Have you been to Asheville?