Pre-South America: Asheville / Rosman (NC)

For no reason other than we’d never been together, we went through Asheville, NC enr oute to Florida. So down to one car, we piled everything into the Ford Flex and hit the road. 

En route to Asheville, we stopped by James Madison University (Kelly’s alma mater) and Kelly got on the phone with American Airlines to book new flights. American Airlines implemented a different policy from JetBlue and there would be no issue with Gidget. She even got her own confirmation number. The new flights were 3X the price of the JetBlue ones, but in fairness, the JetBlue flights were really inexpense. Derek stopped spiraling at this point, though it would not be the last time he pointed out how Gidget increased the degree of difficulty (and cost) for this experience. 

We visited some art galleries, drank some local brews, and walked around the downtown area. Asheville is a nice area with way more to explore than we had time for. One notable thing occurred during our time in Asheville that had nothing to do with Asheville, which is that we finished reading We Came, We Saw, We Left - a book about a family that took a “gap year” together that we started reading as a family in Cleveland. We finished it over a spread of wine / sparkling cider, cheese, and fruits in the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

After Asheville, we spent a couple nights in Rosman, NC, which is 45 minutes from Asheville on the outskirts of the Pisgah National Forest. We hiked a little, rode a natural rock slide, and went tubing in a river outside our AirBnB. Rosman is a very small but nice town, and it was a relaxing couple days before the long drive to Sarasota. 

To “keep it real”, traveling can be stressful, traveling with family can be stressful, and being together all day for weeks on end can be stressful … all that to say, we had a family meltdown en route to Sarasota. No details necessary, but just a reminder that this is not all sunshine and rainbows despite only capturing smiling faces on the photos we post.