2009 National Gingerbread House Competition Display

The National Gingerbread House Competition was November 16, right here in our neck of the woods -- Asheville, North Carolina. What better way to welcome the holiday season than with gingerbread houses? And these aren't just any gingerbread houses; they're culinary works of art. The photo above is the winner of the Grand Prize standing next to her entry. And the photo below is a closeup of one of the other entries...amazing work!

You can see photos of all the entries at http://peakdefinition.com.

If you want to see first-hand the entries that were in the 2009 National Gingerbread House Competition, they are on display for the public's enjoyment in two Asheville locations, the Grove Park Inn and the Grove Arcade, from now through January 3, 2010. The Grovepark Inn has public viewings of its display Monday through Thursday; behind-the-scenes specialty guided tours are also available. The Grove Arcade in downtown Asheville has 35 of the competition's entries on display from 10am to 6pm Monday through Saturday and noon to 5pm on Sundays.

White Garden Planting for Spring 2010

Apologies for the short break in blog posts. We've been fortunate to have family visiting from out of town over the Thanksgiving holiday. (And you know what it means when Brigette's mom comes to town...details of another fun Biltmore Estate visit will be posted later this week!)

We took advantage of some beautiful Carolina blue sky and nice weather after a very windy couple of days -- the changing of the seasons is becoming more evident -- to do some planting in our newest garden, the White Garden. Specifically, we planted Spring blooming bulbs and now we are (well, Brigette is) going to find it very hard to wait out winter because we found some beautiful bulbs. Snowdrops, spring starflowers, white daffodils, fragrant giant white hyacinths and tall Ice Princess tulips will all be coming up in Spring of 2010. Plus, earlier this fall, we planted two types of white peonies and crisp white Joan Senior daylilies.

Below are photos of two sections of our White Garden taken this past weekend after the bulbs were planted and mulched over, along with photos we superimposed of the flowers that will be arriving in...OK, yes, Brigette is counting down...113 days.

This photo shows a concrete bench that Dave made (white, of course!). We planted tulips next to it. Just to the right of those tulips out of frame is a white bleeding heart bush planted this past year. This area is along the walkway facing the north side of the Lake House where the Mountain Laurel Room is located.

This photo shows our white butterfly bush in the middle (flowers in summer), and white yarrow (tiny little flowers in summertime) on the far right, with a dusty miller in the upper right corner. White daffodils with flame-colored centers and white peonies will contribute the springtime white blooms in this section. This part of the garden faces toward the Main House and the solarium.

Pre-Thanksgiving Tasting at Merry Wine Market

The Merry Wine Market in Black Mountain

When cool fall weather arrives, a nice glass of wine can help warm your spirits. That's why we think it's fantastic that the Merry Wine Market in downtown Black Mountain (about 10 minutes from the Inn on Mill Creek), holds casual and complimentary wine tastings every Saturday from 5pm to 7pm at this time of year.

What we like about the Merry Wine Market is that the owners and their staff are incredibly knowledegable about wine and incredibly friendly when they share that knowledge with you. They represent the quintessential Black Mountain genuine hospitality and helpfulness that we love.

For its pre-Thanksgiving tasting, the Merry Wine Market has picked some wines that can be paired with a holiday feast. They'll have an Italian Prosecco, a German Riesling, a Spanish Tempranillo and a new California Merlot. Plus, they tell us they'll finish with a "surprise blend that is perfect for setting the mood for the holiday." Can't wait!

Another Cloudy Leonids Year

Just like last year, Mother Nature rolled her blanket of clouds over the night skies and kept us from checking out the Leonids meteor shower. And just like last year, Brigette said, "No worries," and took her galaxy gazing to the internet for some galaxy identification with Galaxy Zoo 2.

Formerly Galaxy Zoo (without the "2"), the newest Galaxy Zoo site has amateur astronomers focused on classifying "the nearest, brightest and most beautiful galaxies."


Bright...


...and beautiful

Click here for background on the Galaxy Zoo project

The biggest change in the new classification system, Galaxy Zoo 2, is that instead of just being asked whether a galaxy is spiral or elliptical, and what direction a spiral galaxy's arms are going, we're now asked specific questions. Classifiers indicate whether galaxies have certain features, such as a bar through the center of the galaxy, or whether a bulge in the center of a galaxy is round or square. There's also the fun question, "Is there anything odd?" with options that include a ring, a dust lane or a merger with another galaxy.

Personally, Brigette's favorite new feature of Galaxy Zoo 2 is "galaxy wars", where classifiers are asked to pick the winner between two galaxies in terms of specific features, for example, which galaxy has the most prominent spiral arms. It can be tough sometimes to pick a winner. (Click the pic to enlarge)



With more in-depth questions, the classification process is a bit more involved, meaning Brigette has only classified 92 galaxies so far. Millions more to go...thanks, Mother Nature, for a cloudy night. :)

The Latest from Davidson's Fort

The Betsy Ross flag flies over Davidson's Fort construction this summer

As we celebrated and honored our nation's brave veterans this week, we were impressed to read the latest progress report from the Davidson's Fort project. Davidson's Fort was built by North Carolina colonial soldiers in their fight to gain independence from Britain during the American Revolution. It was the westernmost outpost and a base for a large battle against the Cherokee, who sided with the British. Davidson's Fort is a significant piece of this area's history and it gave the town of Old Fort, North Carolina, its name.

The original fort no longer exists, but a replica fort is being built by dedicated volunteers as an educational venue and as a way to preserve the historical significance of Old Fort during early American history. The Fort is located about 15 minutes from the Inn on Mill Creek.

The construction of the Davidson's Fort Welcome Center/Block House has been a big focus for the past several weeks. Volunteers have been working diligently every Saturday to get the Welcome Center finished; the Davidson's Fort folks hope to be able to have a community-wide Thanksgiving weekend celebration there, weather permitting.

The skill and speed used on this project has been amazing to see. Here's one of the latest photos from November 2:



For anyone who will be in Old Fort this Saturday, November 14, the volunteers are having a "chinking" party on Saturday starting at 9am. The Welcome Center is ready to be sealed by chinking in between the logs. No experience is necessary.

For more information about the history of Davidson's Fort (including a list of soldiers known to have served at the fort) and to read all the progress going on at the fort, visit www.davidsonsfort.com.

Our eighth Kiva loan for 2009

At the beginning of the year, we made a promise to fund 10 small business owners in developing nations through Kiva in celebration of the Inn on Mill Creek's 10th birthday celebration. Kiva allows us to help a small business entrepreneur to lift himself or herself out of poverty by contributing to the success of his or her business. Once the business owner has repaid the loan, we get the money back and we can reinvest in helping someone else.

One characteristic we like about Kiva is their map feature, which shows on a large scale how lenders from several countries impact one business owner across the globe. Last month, we and 112 other regular folks from all over the world contributed money toward a microloan to Babken Hovhannisyan in Armenia. Babken's lenders and the lender location map can be found on Babken's Kiva page. The map is on the right side, under the About the Country heading.

Babken, 22, is studying at a teacher training college in Yerevan, Armenia. Additionally, he runs a bakery with his father out of their home. He wants to use his loan to buy wholesale flour in order to increase sales of the lavash (Armenian bread) that he makes so that he can pay for his studies.

Babken's story inspired us because he is a young and determined individual who, at 22 years old, has a good business mind and wants to improve his life through higher education. We wish Babken all the best! Check our Inn Turns 10! page to read about our other microloans and stay tuned as we share our final two loans for 2009.

White Horse Black Mountain Turns One

White Horse Black Mountain, a performance venue in downtown Black Mountain near the Inn on Mill Creek, is inviting everyone to enjoy great live music on Saturday, November 7, in celebration of White Horse's first anniversary.

Our friends at White Horse feel strongly about creating a community atmosphere, where you can relax, engage in good conversation and enjoy fantastic local singers, musicians and performers. As a way of giving back to the community, White Horse Black Mountain's Anniversary Party will be a benefit party to raise funds for WNCW FM 88.7 in honor of WNCW's 20th year of bringing great music broadcasts to our region. Tickets are $15 and 100% of the funds raised at the event will go directly to WNCW 88.7.

Learn more about the Anniversary Party and Benefit Bash on November 7, at http://whitehorseanniversary.blogspot.com/.

Happy First Birthday, White Horse Black Mountain!

Beautiful October Day at Point Lookout Trail

Your innkeepers and innpugs spent a late October afternoon soaking in the remaining fall foliage on Point Lookout Trail, a 3.5-mile greenway biking/walking trail that opened to the public in October of 2008. (Pictured above is Dave relaxing on our favorite part of the trail while Csaba and Bugsy frolic -- yes, our lazy Csaba frolics!)

One end of Point Lookout Trail, which used to be old Highway 70, is near the towns of Ridgecrest and Black Mountain, where you start on our road through Pisgah National Forest. The other end is in Old Fort, just down the road from the Allison Miniature Horse Farm, the Old Fort Picnic Grounds and a picturesque little church.


The Allison farm


One of the prettiest little churches we've seen

We started at the end closest to the little church and headed up about a mile. Three nice aspects of Point Lookout Trail: it's paved so it's a great trail in both rainy and sunny weather (we had sunshine that day), it meanders through a beautiful forest and along Swannanoa Creek and at times feels truly magical in terms of scenery, and finally, the trail isn't heavily trafficked on a regular basis, so you can be out for an hour or two, like we were, and see one, maybe two people (maybe none!) and perhaps a couple of innpugs.



Below we share some photos of Fall's finale during our late Autumn afternoon on Point Lookout Trail. Enjoy!

Week 7: North Carolina Mountains Fall Color Report

This final fall color report for our area of the North Carolina mountains brings us to the end of the leaf peeping season at our elevation (2,300), where the fall colors are fading fast. Late-changing oaks and maples are doing much of the work now, albeit we still see some yellows, like the tree above. Evidence of the fall foliage season finale in our neck of the woods: the leaves now make that fantastic crunching sound under your feet.

The sun shining on the copper-tinted ridge above our apple orchard this morning was beautiful and we knew we wanted to get out and see more fall foliage, so we headed 30 minutes south, to Chimney Rock Park, where the fall colors are most brilliant later in the season. Elevations vary from somewhere around 1,000 feet to the highest point -- the appropriately-named Exclamation Point -- 2,480 feet.

Driving up the road through Chimney Rock Park reminded us of our trip to Grandfather Mountain a few weeks ago. Plenty of yellows, oranges and reds line the Hickory Nut Gorge around Chimney Rock Park; we bet the color show will last at least another week there. Here's the view from one of the parking areas of Lake Lure peaking out through colorful trees:



And a view of the Chimney from the parking area (we love that there are trees growing on the Chimney top!):



One item to note: the elevator to the Chimney is undergoing improvements and is currently closed as of November 2. You can access the Chimney via the Outcroppings trail, a set of stairs and boardwalks with unique points of interest along the way. Since the innpugs were with us, namely, Csaba "I don't do stairs" Pugga, we decided to take the Hickory Nut Falls trail to the bottom of the falls.

The Hickory Nut Falls trail is 1.5 miles (roundtrip) and leads to the foot of a 404-foot waterfall. The well marked trail through hardwood forests surrounded by cool rock formations is perfect for people and pugs.


Beautiful trail...


...through beautiful forest


Innkeeper Dave checks out the views across the trail


Rocks do make good benches

Along the trail, we could look over and see the rocky faces and impressive fall foliage of the mountains:



After a leisurely hike of three-quarters of a mile, we made it to the bridge that leads to the base of Hickory Nut Falls.



Looking up over 400 feet along the enormously-wide rock wall to the top of Hickory Nut Falls, we remembered that large portions of scenes from Last of the Mohicans were filmed here, including the last half hour of the movie, right along this area. We can see why someone would want to shoot a movie here...it's picture perfect.