Asheville Day 1 - Okie Dokie
Editor’s note: welcome to the new Crescent Sun Travelers webpage! Our previous blog platform had not kept up with the times, and was especially poor at rendering on a phone, so we invested the time to upgrade. We have migrated all our past trips to the site, so feel free to click around and let me know what you think. This is our first trip that will be fully created on the website, and we’d appreciate any feedback or suggestions for improvement.
For some reason, the alarm went off at 2:55am. Turns out, that reason is because we still haven’t learned that 6am flights suck. Maybe one of these days we’ll learn, but today ain’t that day, and we’re at PHL a little before 5. Only about an hour and a half in the air and we touch down in Charlotte. Asheville has been on Mandy’s list for a long time, and she started planning a trip in 2024, but Hurricane Helene had different plans for us, and far different plans for Western North Carolina. The devastation was enormous, the flooding unimaginable, the losses incalculable. But the people are resilient, quietly determined to recover, rebuild and preserve the unique culture of the area. Mandy has been following the progress and booked us for October of 2026.
It’s a beautiful autumn drive from Charlotte to Asheville, and about halfway between is the Pisgah National Forest. Many roads here are still closed or under construction so we navigate around the detours to the Catawba Falls Trailhead for the first hike of the trip. All about a good waterfall, we follow the River Trail loop with the falls at the apex. The weather is great, the air is clean, the path steeper then I expected. Even here in the woods the signs of the storm damage are visible (and sometimes are literally signs). This fall has been dry, so the falls themselves are made up of dozens of small spouts that splash down into one another, coalescing into a shallow pool halfway down. We tip rock to rock to the middle of the pool for a few fun pix.
There’s a newly re-constructed stair tower to the top of the falls with some beautiful views of the valley from the top. From there we pick up the Ridge Trail to complete the 3.5 mile loop back to the car.
We’re feeling the effects of the early morning and trek. We AI “best BBQ near me” and are directed to Okie Dokies Smokehouse in Swannanoa. Pulling up we notice how nice the building looks, then walking in we see the tagline on the sign “Est. 2007 🌀Re-Est. 2025.” Inside the 2 women at the counter could not have been nicer, making spot-on suggestions for both food and local beer. A little web searching while waiting for our lunch, we realize this little burg took some of the worst damage of the hurricane. Swannanoa was originally a factory town, home to Beacon Manufacturing. As was typical in the day, the company built employee housing and that area of town became known as Beacon Village. The factory long-since gone, the village became the historic heart of the town. When the Swannanoa River swelled to 21.6 feet (5 feet higher then the previously measured record), this narrow valley was eviscerated. All but 7 of the Beacon Villages cottages were literally washed away. When Okie Dokies reopened in 2025, it was an important psychological boost to the town, signaling that real recovery was not just possible, but actual.
And the barbecue was fantastic! Homemade fried pickles to start. One platter with brisket, collards, black eyed peas and hush puppies. The other with pulled pork, fried okra, red slaw and jalapeno hush puppies. Our server spends a few minutes just hanging out and talking to us like we’re old friends. It’s a culture of engaging kindness and full bellies.
The Aloft Downtown is a swank affair, modern vibes, cool public spaces and a half-block long balcony overlooking the comings and goings on Biltmore Avenue. Checked in, it’s directly to the sack for a power nap.
Recharged-ish, we set out to explore the surroundings. At the first corner, sits a bright red London double-decker bus in a delightfully incongruous sort of way. Lucky for us, this one has been decked out as a coffee bar so we grab a couple cups to power our second wind. We wander the downtown streets, popping in and out of the shops and do a bit of the Urban Trail to see some public art and notable architecture.
Around 5:30 we hit Jack of the Wood, a respectably authentic Irish pub, even if it is owned by a couple from Philly. This afternoon features their long-running Old-Time Jam, local Western North Carolina musicians playing traditional Appalachian mountain music. We grab two bar seats and are greeted by Jesse who will be our bartender tonight. She suggests a Green Man Porter for me and a local apple and pear cider for Mandy, both winners. It doesn’t take more than a few sips to realize the parallels between the Trad music we saw in the pubs in Ireland and this mountain music. The setup is even the same… the musicians sit in a corner of the room, in a circle facing each other, playing like they learned in the living rooms with their families during the long cold winters. It’s easy pick out additional influences such as country, bluegrass, blues and jazz. We chat with the other patrons, and the consensus is that we’re all lucky to be here.
Time to move on, next stop is the 5 Walnut Wine Bar, a suggestion made by the proprietor of a men’s shop we were in earlier in the day. There’s a lively blues-jazz trio covering everything from Cole Porter to Katy Perry in their own fun style. We get a nice bottle of Albariño and spend the rest of out night taking in the scene.