The espy experience: Day 7 Smokey Mountains and Luella BBQ

Day 7 started in Greenville, South Carolina, home to some of the nicest people we have met. What are they putting in the water there? Happy juice? We started with coffee at Liquid Highway on Main and they suggested that we hit Mary Beth's for a great breakfast, and they were right! James got eggs, cornbeef hash, hashbrowns and toast and tried a new hot sauce "texas pete" that we stopped after breakfast to pick up at the local grocery. And I tried lemon curd and ricotta pancakes and a few eggs. (I have to remember that I like "over medium" in the USA, just the yolks runny, otherwise I get runny whites. . . eeew) It was delicious once I got the eggs cooked a little more and we then headed out of town on our way to Asheville, North Carolina checking out some of the Greenville neighbourhoods on the way out of town.

We took the scenic route as usual and ended up climbing mountains for an hour in the car on crazy switchback type ski roads that had potholes bigger than Montreal! We know now why they want to keep us on the Interstate! We ended at the top, a National park called Caesar's head with smokey views through brushy trees and interesting houses that have been in the park since the 1800's and have grandfathered rights there.

After we entered North Carolina we stopped for a coffee and little snack and to steal internet in Brevard, NC in Transylvania County. Cute small town of about 5000 but not much going on. . . although the local knitting club was meeting at the coffee shop we were at. . .LOL

More hilly roads and forests on our way to Asheville and as we got in we noticed how lovely the city was, older buildings and a fairly dense and interesting downtown with a really conscious mindset. We noticed all the buy local signs on every local business and the community really does stick together and support its own. It does have a bit of a hippie feel as we had been warned but there was only a few places were the incense was over powering and we of course chose not to partake in the tofu/vegan special and the local pub.

pretty buildings everywhere in Asheville

Buy local campaign everywhere in Asheville

more local "pork art"

We of course headed right for the local favourite BBQ spot that uses local and organic meat (told you it was a little hippie, but we loved this part of it!) and there was absolutely no tofu on this menu! A little more "upscale" than some of the BBQ we have eaten, Luella's had a full bar, music on the weekends and a much more complete menu than we had seen up till now at a BBQ joint. I tried their dirty bloody Mary with olive juice, nice, and James had a local beer. (Asheville is also called Beertown USA as there are 17 microbreweries in town with great beer.) I ordered a salad to try and eat some veggies with my meat but the veggies were probably canceled out by the deep fried okra (not bad), hushpuppies, cheese, brisket and smoked turkey. . . and that was on the salad! We "hooked it up with more cowbell" with a 2 meat plate of pulled pork, brisket, collard greens, vinegar slaw, and hush puppies. Luella's had the best pulled and chopped pork we had tried so far and the brisket was delicious with side sauces all homemade in "Carolina style" their scooter vinegar sauce was the perfect compliment to the pork and their "hot flash" bbq sauce was so good we wanted to take home a mason jar of it. We'd highly recommend Luella's to anyone visiting Asheville!

Off to Tennessee tomorrow and more BBQ and hopefully some Memphis blues!