Asheville, North Carolina
“Travel not to escape life, but so life doesn’t escape you.” ~Natural Life
Asheville…feels like another home
My husband and I spent a couple of days in Asheville, North Carolina after enjoying the Mountain Retreat in Boone, NC. (You can read about that experience here.) We decided to spend a couple of days in one of our favorite cities to help us reintegrate into society and give ourselves time to process what we learned and practiced over the previous five days. Asheville is a place that has come to feel like home; most likely because we have visited often.
Our first stop in Asheville was the Barnes and Noble Bookstore. What a better place to go right after a meditation retreat, am I right? After checking in at the Holiday Inn Express, we headed to Olive Garden for some delicious Italian food. While the retreat food was excellent, I was craving some good, old fashioned Italian food. Back to the hotel for some serious R&R. One thing we lacked during the retreat, surprisingly, was sleep. With days packed full of morning yoga, sessions with teachers, and late night kirtan, sleep took a back seat.
Downtown Asheville
The next morning, we woke rested and ready to explore downtown Asheville. We last visited Asheville in April 2021, when the culture was still very protective around COVID, and it was kind of desolate with some shops closed or only open to NC residents. During this visit, you can still see the effects of the COVID pandemic; especially restaurants that didn’t survive. However, for the most part, the city is alive again. Lots of people moving about and businesses thriving. Observing the activity of the city brought feelings of joy and gratitude.
Woolworth Walk
Downtown Asheville has some really cool architectural nods to the retail businesses of the past. We started our journey at the Woolworth Walk. It’s an original Woolworth retail store with a restored soda fountain serving lunch. The Walk is now an art gallery that displays the work of 175 local artists; paintings, photography, jewelry, pottery, textiles, etc. It’s an awesome experience to see such a range of styles. There’s something for everyone’s taste. I didn’t take any pictures inside, as I didn’t want to give off the impression I was taking pictures of someone’s art. Some artists frown on that behavior and I didn’t want to be disrespectful. The building itself is a piece of history. The restored soda fountain and original flooring make me feel like I just walked back into my childhood of the 1970s and early 1980’s.
Finding Our Tara
Our next stop was the Himalayas Import retail shop. This was the perfect place to shop after our Mountain Retreat. We shopped here in 2021 and were excited to return. It’s a shop small in size and completely filled with so many Buddhist and Hindu treasures. We picked out a couple of small figurines that spoke to us. While talking with the woman who owns the shop, she answered questions about mudras and where to place certain statues, our attention fell on a beautiful White Tara statue. The more she told us about it; its spiritual properties, was hand made in Nepal, the quality and detail was made for a temple, the more thoughtful we became about owning her. She told us about her trips to Nepal, where she is from and places orders with the artists. She said she ordered the White Tara statue during her last visit in January and the statue had just arrived. The shop owner took our information as we were looking for a specific Buddha statue. She said she would be in touch and we left the shop.
As we continued exploring Asheville, the White Tara statue marinated in our minds. Before leaving downtown, my husband and I had a serious conversation about giving the White Tara a good home. We have the perfect place for her to give us blessings of health, healing, and longevity. We returned to the Himalayas Import to make our purchase. The shop owner seemed pleased to see us return and when we told her we want to purchase the White Tara statue, she warmly looked in my eyes and said she had a feeling this would happen. Now, some people reading this may think we got manipulated into making this purchase and you’re welcome to your opinion. Our experience with this shop owner, and owners of other shops similar, was very genuine. She spent time with us sharing information and allowing us to relate to her on a spiritual level. It’s a beautiful, heartfelt experience one must have for themselves.
Malaprops!!!
I finally made it to Malaprops independent bookstore! The bookshop and cafe are absolutely adorable!! I loved browsing the books and felt right at home here.
Downtown Shopping
We then browsed some other shops that were really cool. I especially liked Indigo Sun. This store offered clothing for men and women in a boho style. The clothes were of good quality and very reasonably priced. A shop next door, We’re Off to See the Wizard, was wild! It was heavily decorated in a beautiful way with lots of sparkle. They offered home decor for a lot of styles and holidays. They not only offered Halloween decorations, they had a Christmas section in the back. The Pepper Palace is a must visit for my husband who is addicted to hot sauce. I found a couple of salsas I like too.
The Asheville Mall is a truly unique mall. It’s huge in regards to square feet and has lots of popular retail stores and food options. We like walking through the mall just to browse. It’s kind of weird that large sections of the mall are unoccupied as those formerly popular anchor stores have gone away. Sears, for example. I think It helps the mall that this is where the Barnes and Noble is located. It’s a really nice, two-story bookstore.
Putt-Putt Golf
My husband is obsessed with playing putt-putt golf when we travel to North Carolina. I knew this trip to Asheville would not be complete without playing at Tropical Gardens Mini-Golf. It’s a nice facility that the owners take good care of and keep it maintained. They have a cute theme with elephants, giraffes, zebras, tigers, and flamingos. Of course, it rained for a few minutes and caused us to take shelter before finishing our game. It was a great time and our final score was tied. LOL
We devoured a delicious dinner at Outback Steakhouse and wrapped up our evening relaxing in the hotel room. It was a great trip from start to finish and we were excited to pick up our four-legged kid, Nikolette. I sure missed my other half to this blog. It’s time to put her back to work!
Speaking of Nikolette, we drove through Weaverville, a small town just outside of Asheville and saw the cutest place ever…Wag Bar! It’s a bar for adults and a place you can bring your dog!! I started following them on Instagram. I love how this area is so pet friendly.
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