Asheville, NC- The Blue Ridge Mountains

To be honest, North Carolina was never a destination for me; I had seen it as a state I needed to go through in my effort to visit all 50 states, but that all changed about two years ago when I started following this amazing blog called Be Love Live.  I was instantly drawn to the inspiring photos and words of Liz, and we soon became what Liz lovingly calls “blogging buddies”.  When I decided to do this trip through the American Southeast, I asked Liz if she wanted to meet up, and she amazingly asked me to stay at her cozy apartment with her, her wife Lina, and their cat, and I of course was so excited to do that!

I don’t know that I could describe the amazing and instantaneous connection that I felt with Liz, Lina and Nick, but Liz  did a really amazing job in her blog post: The Power of Blogging.  Or the Day That Paige Came to Town.  We all just clicked and felt like we had been lifelong friends (which I’m now completely confident we will be- in fact, as I’m writing this I’m sitting in Liz and Lina’s apartment on my second trip to Asheville).  I am so thankful to have had this amazing opportunity to connect with this city and group of people and it’s all thanks to Liz, her inspiring words, and blogging.

The first photo of our friendship- Borrowed from Liz’s Blog: Be Love Live

I have about a million wonderful things to say about Asheville, North Carolina and even more than that, about three amazing people that I got to spend four days with in Asheville, so I’m just going to jump right in (WARNING: there will be several Asheville posts!)

I’ve been having a difficult time deciding where to start, so I thought I would start with one of my favorite Asheville moments- the girls mini-road-trip through The Blue Ridge Mountains.  We started out on this surprisingly warm day in January set on doing part of the Blue Ridge Parkway since it runs right through Asheville.  However that was short-lived, as only a few miles of the Parkway was open, but we really enjoyed the parts we got to explore:

When we got about as far as we could go, we walked through the woods for a bit and had fun hiking around, laughing and making memories:

Borrowed from Liz’s Blog: Be Love Live

Since a vast majority of the actual Blue Ridge Parkway was closed, Liz took us on a off-the-beaten-path mountain road tour, that was really incredible, and the views of these majestic blue, smoky mountains took my breath away and stuck with me:

Thanks to Liz, for taking this awesome shot of me!

“Great things are done when men and mountains meet.”

-William Blake-

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