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Small Plates Detroit, on Broadway St. in Detroit
J and I were in Detroit last night. The evening started at Small Plates Detroit, a restaurant our friends Ann and Jeff introduced us to. The idea is to have several different small dishes, and share them between you, rather than buying one big entree for each person.
Then it was on to the Fox Theater to see Steve Martin and Martin Short in their two-man show, "A Very Stupid Conversation". The two comedians talked about their careers, telling funny stories of their encounters with other celebrities like Frank Sinatra, and about their lives growing up, and odd experiences they've had. Martin Short sang a song and danced, and Steve Martin played several bluegrass songs with his band, The Steep Canyon Rangers, who were set up on the side of the stage during part of the show.
A view of the Fox Theater's lobby from the balcony hallway.
For an encore, they announced that they were contractually obligated to do an encore, then performed a musical number that counted down the time until they were allowed to leave the stage ("...one more minute...").
We walked back to our car past Comerica Park, where the Tigers were, unfortunately, losing badly to the Cleveland Indians.
A fun date night for J and me. We should do it again soon.
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Be sure to choose the correct rhyming city name when driving south...
Easter Sunday
We left Ann Arbor around 8:30, and headed south on 23 to I-75. The weather was good and the drive was uneventful, fortunately. We hit Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina. (Tennessee is known as "The Volunteer State", but it should be known as "The No Rest Stops on I-75 State".) The scenery got better the farther south we drove. I wasn't able to enjoy it as much as I would have liked, but the rest of the family was able to. The roads got more twisty in North Carolina, going through the mountains. We arrived in Asheville around 6:30 pm.
Monday: Biltmore Day The front of the Biltmore.
We headed to the Biltmore, a giant "house" built by the Vanderbilt family. It's really quite ridiculous - they had train cars full of money and didn't know what to do with it. They were a nice family, though - instead of just burning their cash for warmth, they hired hundreds of people to build this house and live and work there. There were so many people working on the house (and in it), the Vanderbilts built a nearby village (Biltmore Village) for them to live, shop, and go to school. Biltmore Village is still there, and now that the house and grounds are a tourist attraction, there are still plenty of people working there. No one lives in the house any more, but some of the extended Vanderbilt family still live in the Asheville area.
The home itself is opulent to the third degree, and after a while I tired of seeing one incredibly decorated room after another. The house was basically a huge hotel in which the Vanderbilts entertained and lodged family members and guests. Guests often stayed for months at a time. Our favorite part of the house was the "Upstairs Downstairs" tour, where they showed how the other half lived and worked. Employees often had up to 100 people to serve at meals, and had several kitchens and pantries to prepare those meals. There were large rooms full of china and glassware, as well as refrigerated cabinets and rooms for fruits and vegetables. We took this tour after the regular walk-through of the house and its over-the-top decorations and furniture, and it was a welcome contrast. The Vanderbilts were good to their employees, and made the house a safe and inviting place to work. At least that's what the tour guide said.
After visiting the house, we went to nearby Antler Village, which included a winery, an overpriced bar and grill, and a BBQ place that we were looking forward to ordering from until we discovered it was closed. If the kids were younger, they might have wanted to go to the petting zoo, but alas, there was little for us in Antler Village, so we ate a quick lunch in Biltmore Village and headed into the mountains to visit Chimney Rock.
Chimney Rock
Chimney Rock is a tall rock formation that juts out from the mountain. You take an elevator from the parking lot to the top, or you can climb stairs if that's your thing. There are stairways leading to several areas of the chimney and the nearby mountain, which we explored to the extent that we could climb without getting sore legs. The kids saw the highest point, while J and I enjoyed the lower areas.
Chimney Rock - the chimney part.
Chimney Rock - the chimney part from one of the higher observation decks. Photo by M.
Some advice about driving to Chimney Rock: make sure your life insurance is up to date, and get your affairs in order. The drive goes up and down and around in circles, repeatedly, dozens of times, with S shapes and hairpin turns. There are no shoulders on the roads. The highest speed you'll likely achieve is 30 miles per hour, which means the 20 miles to get there and back from the main roads takes about 40 minutes. When we got to the park, my first stop was the gift shop, where (mercifully) they sold Dramamine. I was not the first person that day to buy some. The kids and J, who were reading or looking out the windows at the scenery, were not affected by the drive in the least, while I was three shades of green.
The whole family on the Chimney at Chimney Rock, mere steps away from a sheer drop of hundreds of feet.
J and I had been to Chimney Rock before, on our honeymoon, as we made our way to Hilton Head. J correctly deduced that we had been to Chimney Rock exactly 22 years ago that day, which would have been April 6, 1993. Who would have guessed we'd be back with our two boys in 2015? Not us.
K and M show how high Chimney Rock is.
When we returned to Asheville, we had salad and pizza at Ianucci's. We all really enjoyed the meal, partly because it was good pizza, and partly because we were starved.
Day Three
M and K engage in a brain battle at Mast General Store in Asheville.
We walked around downtown Asheville, hit a few shops, and grabbed lunch at a restaurant in the Grove Arcade building. There are a lot of restaurants, art shops, and studios there.
I normally don't take pictures of my food at restaurants, but I had to take one of this Tomato Goat Cheese Bisque, served with a tiny grilled cheese sandwich on the side.
We wanted to see more of North Carolina's natural beauty, so we hit the Blue Ridge Parkway. Unfortunately, it was raining, so we didn't get the good views one would normally get on a clear day, but we still had plenty to see. There were tunnels along the way, and going through them was different from the tunnels we saw on the highways: the car's headlights, and the road's reflective paint, were the only source of light when not at the ends of the tunnel. As we got higher, it started to get foggy, and we weren't comfortable continuing up because we couldn't see. We turned around and pulled over before heading back. At this point, as responsible parents who are only interested in the safety and security of our children on a twisty, rainy, and foggy mountain road, we agreed the best way to proceed was to hand the keys to M and let him drive us back down. He did a good job in the tunnels and around all the curves. Here's a video of him navigating a tunnel.
Disco-ball pig at Luella's BBQ.
For dinner, we went to the north end of Asheville to Luella's BBQ, a small local restaurant we were encouraged to try by some friends. Apparently, the word is out that this place is good, because even though it was not very big, we saw license plates from seven different states in the parking lot.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Biltmore Village McDonald's. It's decorated to fit the Biltmore Theme with woodwork, a player grand piano, and fancy light fixtures. The food is the same as a regular McDonald's, though. Since I was full, I didn't have anything, but the kids were interested in dessert so they had something or other.
The ceiling in the McDonald's in Biltmore Village.
Day Four
The drive home took a little longer than the drive up - we had some traffic snarls around Cincinnati and Dayton. We got a snack and filled up with gas at a quaint Tennessee town, where one local was heard to say to another local "have a good'n!". M drove the final stretch home (this time without any tunnels) and we were reunited with our cats once again.
