Luv That Asheville Experience

We did indeed go to Asheville on Friday after Holly got home from work. The poor girlfriend had a hard day and has a talk she has to give on Sept 16th. So she worked on her computer putting her presentation together during the trip over and back to Asheville. We went to our favorite pizza place Friday night. I enjoyed their spinach burger and french fries while Holly had a big ole pizza to herself.

Saturday was a perfect day. We ate pecan sticky buns and chocolate croissants then went hiking at Graveyard fields on the Parkway. It was one of those ideal weather days with low humidity and cool temperatures (63F at the top). The clouds were those fluffy white puffballs that are so nice on a clear day. We hiked for about 2 hours then did some scouting for the Team Event we are planning for April with folks. We want to hike the Shut -In trail that goes from Mt Pisgah to the Bent Creek/Arboretum area. So we looked at the trailheads for both the start and the finish checking on parking and planning logistics a bit for April. The Graveyard fields trail has water falls at both ends of the trail, so we saw it all. The views were very scenic up on Mt Pisgah because of the low humidity and lack of haze.

Then we met up with Susan and Donna to go try out the new tasting room at the Wedge brewery. Asheville has really become a microbrew beer town with 5 locations to tour a brewery and taste their recipes. This one is in the River District, an area that has been reclaimed for artist studios. After that we went to dinner at that fabulous Cuban fusion place, Salsas, that always gets written up in magazines. Yummy food as always. We walked by the Goombay festival downtown then went to the Hop ice cream place near the house for ice cream sundaes. Of course, the best part of all was getting to spend the evening with Susan and Donna. It was such an unexpected treat.

Sunday morning Holly and I walked up the hill that we usually do as our run together. I was out of breath but happy to be doing our regular thing. Then I met Billie for a walk and lunch. It was so good to catch up and to see her Mom doing so well too. Again Holly had to do the work thing and put that talk together for her conference coming up. We headed back after cleaning up the house a bit.

I'm in the clinic now just waiting on a copy of my labs. All of the counts are doing great- my white cells are up to 1200 from 400, the platelets are now normal at 155,000, and my hemoglobin is 10.3. I won't have to return to the clinic until Thursday. They are tentatively planning to put me back in the hospital next week on Tuesday Sept 2nd for the next 5 days of chemo.
Hopefully we'll head to Asheville again this w-e and celebrate labor day there.

Todays photo-this was waiting for me spelled out on the kitchen counter when I went to fix my morning beverage. Jelly beans of all things!