We started our time in California. Jennifer's brother Dwight and his wife Lorena gave us a wonderful reception in San Francisco. From there we headed to Lake Tahoe, where we enjoyed a relaxing week at the Marriott Timber Lodge, courtesy of Patrick's parents, who generously shared another timeshare week with us.
Tahoe was gorgeous -- the weather was beautiful and the tourists were sparse, so we took advantage of the opportunity to enjoy some quiet and get out into nature ... something we can't do easily from Bangkok. We took a number of day hikes on both the California and the Nevada sides of the lake.
Mid-October is the season for the salmon to spawn in the northern California mountains.
We were told of a trail just off of a main road were the U.S. Forest Service has set up a stream profile chamber for Taylor Creek. The stream profile chamber is basically an aquarium window below the surface level of the creek, allowing visitors to get a fish's-eye view of the creek.
A trail leads from the stream profile chamber into the woods. Not more than 100 feet from the chamber, we -- along with about 30 other stunned people -- saw this:
This mother bear and her cub couldn't be bothered by all of the excited tourists taking their pictures. They were too busy packing in the fish, preparing for winter. We've never been this close to wild bear -- at her closest, the mother was about seven feet away.
After a great Oktoberfest party with Dwight and Lorena back in San Francisco, we flew to Asheville, NC, our future hometown. We were so happy to be back in Asheville, and especially to be back in the fall. We hadn't had an American fall in six years, so we were eager to see what the Blue Ridge Mountains had in store for us during our two weeks there. The Romantic Asheville website did a great job of tracking peak color throughout the mountains.
We were also eager to see our house again. When we bought the house two years ago, we had exactly one day after the closing to walk around inside before we had to leave. Since then the house has been rented out ... but as luck would have it, it happened to be vacant for the first time in two years while we were there. So we actually got to live in our own house! It was wonderful -- cozy, quiet and comfortable, even without any furniture. We are already making plans for our life there after all of our globetrotting is done.
During our time there we had multiple chances to get to know our neighbors better. We enjoyed catching up with our B&B neighbors, who always seem to know the latest Asheville news. We had fun chats with Cecil, our elderly neighbor, who told of his good luck at the Cherokee casinos. He even invited Jennifer along to play his favorite slot machines, but there was no time in the schedule (and no padding in the wallet) for a gambling outing.
Our first week in Asheville was full of family visits. It made us very happy that everyone was able to make the time to visit us there, and we were extremely proud to show them around our town ... even if they'd seen it all before. We visited the Grove Park Inn and Biltmore Village, and enjoyed the colors of the season on drives and walks about town. With our current home so far away, we're thankful that our families made the trip to visit our future home.
Two of Patrick's closest friends, Eric and Tom, and Jennifer's grad school roommates, Diana and Katina, came to visit during our second week in the mountains. Eric drove down from Richmond, Virginia, while Tom flew in from Los Angeles. Katina flew from Chicago with her husband Brian, and Diana and her boyfriend Jonathan came in a private plane from Atlanta. Tom and Eric were our first-ever houseguests, and Diana and Katina made themselves comfortable at our neighboring B&Bs, the Lion & the Rose and the Black Walnut. We were honored that they would all make such an effort to see us and were determined to show them a great time.
After hikes in the Blue Ridge and shopping downtown, we could walk 15 minutes from our house down to one of Asheville's great pubs, cafes or restaurants: Barley's, LAB, the Thirsty Monk, Sazerac, the French Broad Chocolate Lounge, Bouchon.... Of course, we made many stops at our favorite pub in Asheville, certainly the best British Isles-style pub in the South, Jack of the Wood. It was so much fun to spend time in our future hometown, and we're feeling a little more like locals now.
One of our best moments came when Patrick was walking downtown by himself to reserve seats at Barley's. He stopped behind a corner behind a group of partying tourists who were already feeling no pain. One of them stumbled off the curb, almost falling into traffic, prompting another to turn to Patrick and say, "Hey, keep these guys in line, would ya?"
"Well, it's tough, you know," Patrick replied.
The stumbler said what he thought was on Patrick's mind, shouting, "Damn tourists -- get out of our town!"
"No, don't do that," Patrick said, "we need the money" -- as another voice chimed in behind him, saying exactly the same thing at the same moment. Patrick turned to see a homeless man standing behind him, grinning through a matted beard. As the drunk tourists staggered across the street, Patrick and the homeless guy shared a huge laugh and a hug.
Diana and Jonathan had a surprise for us when we drove them to the Asheville airport to fly back to Atlanta: they wanted to take us for a spin around in the private plane they'd brought! It was a four-seater Cirrus with all of the bells and whistles, including its own parachute. After a few minutes in the air, Jonathan asked Patrick if he'd like to "get some stick time in." Jonathan was a great instructor, guiding Patrick through turns around the Biltmore Estate and the choppy air coming off of the Blue Ridge. It was thrilling!
Once all of our guests were gone, we had to clean up the house for our new renters, who were moving in on 1 November. It was Hallowe'en night. The denizens of Asheville go all out for the season, and our neighborhood of Montford is ground zero. Lori and Peter, our neighbors at the Black Walnut, had bought 650 full-size candy bars to give out to trick-or-treaters. By 8:00pm, they'd run out. The streets were overrun with ghosts and goblins, princesses and superheroes -- and sadly, we missed it all. We're definitely planning to come back at Hallowe'en again, and next time, we plan to be in the thick of it.
We left Asheville with heavy hearts, but friends along the way brightened our moods quickly. We drove to Atlanta to visit Allan, the priest who performed our wedding ceremony in Frankfurt-am-Main back in 2003. We spent one wonderful night with him and his family. From there we drove to Charleston for a spectacular weekend with our friends the Bealls. We even went to the Coastal Carolina Fair and rode rollercoasters with Jack and Sara!
The rest of the trip seemed to go by very quickly from that point, with brief stops in Columbia, SC, Cary, NC, and Prince George, VA to visit with family and friends. We caught up with Geoff and Heather, and Tina, Mark and Charlotte in Raleigh and we saw various members of the Johnson clan in Williamsburg, Richmond, and Fairfax, VA. We finished our home leave with a week at work in Washington, DC. Patrick made the rounds with his HQ contacts and Jennifer joined a high-profile visit of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights to DC, including a stop with senior staffers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We did have some social fun in DC as well, catching up with our close Bangkok friends, Chuck and Heather, who have both now joined the State Department as Foreign Service Officers.
All told, it was a great home leave. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who made it such a fantastic time!
