Tour, Tour of the South(east)

In early March, Mike and I traveled to Asheville, North Carolina for Mike to attend a Southeast Regional ICMA conference. Mike had been a member of the International City/County Manager's Association (ICMA) for several years now and the organization has provided him with countless networking opportunities. He was even awarded a scholarship during graduate school to attend the annual conference in San Jose (and of course I tagged along!).

The SE Regional Conference coincided with the ICMA Young Professionals conference, which Mike attended 3 years ago. So much has changed since his last visit to Asheville -- he went from being a graduate student to a City Manager and he brought his wife along! It's funny, I'm the one that forced him paid for him to attend the conference when we were in grad school, I thought it was a great opportunity for him to meet city managers and other young people in his field. Little did I know that, at that conference, Mike would meet the Clifton City Manager and we would wind up here three years later. When push comes to shove, I guess I'm the one to blame for our new life in rural Tennessee! ;)


We left Clifton on Tuesday and drove to Alcoa (just south of Knoxville) to stay with my Aunt Mary before heading through to Asheville. It's wonderful to have family in Tennessee, especially a fellow Yankee that found herself in the deep South thanks to the man she married! She knows exactly how I feel and it's so nice to hear her stories about living in the middle of nowhere. We had a great, but sadly short visit with her and my cousin Shelagh before heading out early in the morning to beat an impending snowstorm.

I'm a nervous passenger, so the ride through the TN/NC mountains in the snow did not serve me well. We arrived in Asheville at the Grove Park Inn safe and sound -- and so began my relaxing week of hotel lounging and teleworking!

I didn't enjoy the Inn as much as I'd hoped, it's not as pretty as it looks on the internet. But Asheville is a quaint city with an artsy organic vibe. It's whimsically weird and we had fun walking around downtown and exploring local shops.

Downtown Asheville

They had a large grassy mall and an obelisk that reminded me of DC

As you can see above and below, Mike made some friends downtown, haha

The Asheville Art Museum decorated with basketballs and nets to look like grape vines!

Pretty flowers!

While we were at the conference we were asked by our county chamber of commerce to attend an organic growers conference to pick up some information for our local farmers and artisans. That led to another night's stay in Asheville and an opportunity to extend the weekend. We went to the organic conference on Saturday morning (I in my *non-organic* boots and leather COACH purse -- the hippies gave me dirty looks) and headed out to Chattanooga on the way home.

We drove along the scenic route to Chattanooga taking in the magnificent views on the Great Smoky Mountain Expressway and winding through the Nantahala National Forest.

So many pretty views along the way! 

Chattanooga is OFFICIALLY my favorite city in Tennessee. It has that on-the-river appeal that we're used to, it's downtown area is filled with nightlife and activities and there's an aquarium. We explored the city and feasted at a brewery to (belatedly) honor my 26th birthday. It was the most fun either of us had the whole week, haha!

Obviously, this is in Downtown Chattanooga

Mellow Mushroom statue haha

Top of the Aquarium

Awesome pedestrian bridges near the waterfront

The Tennessee Aquarium was really neat -- we have become connoisseurs of aquariums between frequent visits to the one in Newport, KY, Baltimore and the big-daddy of aquariums in Atlanta. I'm obsessed with jellyfish and I love taking photos of them, so there are TONS of jelly photos.

Stingrays!

I thought this sign was so funny. 

We saw lots of pretty butterflies in one of the exhibits. I was panicking about their unpredictable flight pattern, I spent the whole 5 minutes ducking before high-tailing it out of there, haha. 

Can you spot the fish in this picture?! 

Me and some penguins (fake, of course)

Shaaaaaaaarrrrrrkkkkkk!

We named these two after me and Mike haha

SUCH PRETTY JELLIES!!!!!!! 

Hello, little shrimpie!

This little girl was so cute. Her family was behind us the whole time and she kept saying, "Oh, wow! Look at this one daddy!" in the cutest little voice. 

Nemo!

A close up of some friendly Koi

Pissed off turtle. This thing was actually only a few inches long but he looked pretty mean. 

Mike petting a large fishy

Curiosity killed the Catfish... ha ha ha

All-in-all it was a long and enjoyable week of adventures. It still amazes me that Mike and I can spend every waking minute with each other and we never get bored or run out of things to talk about and, as in all marriages I suppose, we grow closer and closer everyday. We've had so many incredible experiences in our almost five years together and our lives just keep getting better and better. At least someday our kids can look back and see how adventurous we were -- I'm sure they'll think we're super boring old weirdos that won't stop embarrassing them by laughing hysterically at each other's jokes.

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