Downtown Asheville, North Carolina

The day after we toured Biltmore Estate, we moseyed around downtown Asheville.  If you park at the Visitors Center it's a short walk to downtown.  One of the first things you come to is this mall.  It's just a building in the middle of the block that might have originally been an office building.  Tourism being what it is, I'm thinkin' the owners found retail tenants easier to find.  I think it was called The Grove.  There were such cool shops in here - especially the first one we came to.  If we weren't conscious of every inch of space for packing I'm afraid we would have bought the place out!

One of the neat things we found up here in Virginia and North Carolina is the raw wool for spinning into yarn.  One could buy a full size spinning wheel or a hand-held spinner.  I'd love to try my hand at it!

 

 

 

As we were leaving the building we found some of the National Gingerbread entries.  I love these mushrooms made out of pinched up marshmellows.  (100% of Gingerbread entries must be edible.)

 Below is a more traditional Gingerbread House.  I like the jelly bean cobblestone walkway!

 Whoever thought of making a teapot and teacups out of gingerbread?

 This "music box" gingerbread presentation was another clever idea.  Remember, it has to all be edible.