VA and NC trip with the wife! Help, please!

[DGrav]

Just did a motorcycle trip with my wife last week on the Blue Ridge plus several other trips in the area over the years.

Peaks of Otter is a great option if you want to break from camping. A blues/Appalachian/Celtic duo named Root 2 play there most Saturdays and they are awesome.

Craggy Gardens Pinical hike is short and easy but offers great views

Asheville has a ton of great breweries (Burial is my personal favorite). New Belgian has an excellent tour that is free and has free beer. Early Girl Eatery is the best breakfast place I’ve ever been to (the Porky Bowl is awesome)

[Deadphans]

Early Girl Eatery, excellent. Smoked trout and slammin’ breakfast - sold. Now I need a BBQ place.

I forgot about that fire road. That’s a great idea. I think that is what we will do.

Asheville has a ton of breweries I am glad to hear a suggestion on one. I love New Belgian but we get that up here. Burial, I will check in to that. Thanks!

Grayson highlands - sold!

I knew you all would deliver on suggestions! <3

[DGrav]

I was just at 12 Bones last week it’s past the River Arts district so it’s a bit of a walk from the downtown area but it’s an easy drive if you have a car with you.

Buxton’s BBQ is newer but right down town, the two times I ate there it was very good.

If you are looking for a place to stay the Downtown Inn and Suites is very reasonable (I’ve paid as low as $75). Great location with over a dozen brewery in walking distance.

The breweries downtown (all in walking distance) that I like are:

Burial
Asheville Brewing
Green man (Dirty Jacks is the orginal location (nice and gritty) and right next door is their new brewery (really nice and if the upstairs is open it has a great view)
Funkatoriam (lots of sours and barrel aged beers)
Wicked Weed
Highwire Brewing

There are a bunch of others but these have been consistently good while some of the others are hit or miss.

[DownYonder]

Try The Whale in W. Asheville. They have a large selection of craft beers and good food.

https://thewhaleavl.com/

[oldpappy]

One more for you, when you are in the Luray Caverns area, go West on rt 211 about 5 miles to "Cooter's". Ben Jones. who was the mechanic "Cooter" in the TV series "Dukes of Hazard", lives in the area and owns this free museum/sandwich shop/gift shop as a tribute to the TV series. With free entry and very reasonable sandwich prices it is worth the 5 mile drive. Just a simple fum place and much better than eating at Luray Cavern.
Here's a video - garage/museum is at the 2 min point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqdCp_Dy3xg

[Deadphans]

One more for you, when you are in the Luray Caverns area, go West on rt 211 about 5 miles to "Cooter's". Ben Jones. who was the mechanic "Cooter" in the TV series "Dukes of Hazard", lives in the area and owns this free museum/sandwich shop/gift shop as a tribute to the TV series. With free entry and very reasonable sandwich prices it is worth the 5 mile drive. Just a simple fum place and much better than eating at Luray Cavern.
Here's a video - garage/museum is at the 2 min point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqdCp_Dy3xg

Good idea for lunch, I saw this yesterday, actually, on a brochure. That would be really neat to check out. I will bring this up to the wife. Thanks!

[Deadphans]

Thank you everyone for the suggestions. Our trip was awesome. It went fast though. We hiked the fire road to the saddle trail summiting Old Rag. It was her first summit and she loved it! Though she was exhausted and hurting afterwards, 👍🏼

We then did a few random trails and sightseeing along the way down. Natural Bridge State Park was one of them, and very beautiful!

We went to the top of Mt. Mitchell (drove) and ate at the restaurant at the top.

We went to 12 Bones BBQ and it was delicious - we really enjoyed the art district.

We helped rescue a stray dog that was running down Tunnel Road! He was very frightened and dirty. I gave him water and some spam as that was all I had and he looked starving. Another person fed him some crackers and was able to load him up in her car. I hope he is okay!

Early girl eatery - The Porky Breakfast Bowl was amazing!!!

Funny story, my truck had been having passenger door latch issues. It opened and closed though, just stuck every once in a while. And on the first day my wife HAD to touch it (lol) and broke the latch in the closed position with the door open. We had to drive to the nearest Auto Zone in Luray, VA with her holding the door, it felt like national lampoons vacation Lolol! They were able to break the stuck latch and close the door and advised us not to open it. Shortly thereafter she accidentally broke my rear trunk handle! Lolol. I am not sure what her beef is with my truck lol. My driver side lock hasn’t been able to be unlocked or locked for a while with a key or button so I leave it unlocked all the time, but during the trip we had to lock it with all our stuff inside. So the whole trip, in order for us to get in to the truck, I had to climb through the trunk window, unlock the driver side lock and she had to climb through to the passenger side. It was quite funny - especially when we were dressed up for our fancy dinner.

Again, thank you all for the suggestions and we definitely followed your advise. Thank you very much!

[DGrav]

Sounds like a great trip. Such a great area I’ve keep going back every year since my first trip down there in 2013!

Just noticed you’re from Bordentown. I’m right across the river in PA and a good friend of mine is a Bordentown firefighter. Small world!