Category Archives: Asheville Attractions

Parkway section in Asheville closed

Published in Asheville Attractions on October 9, 2013

ASHEVILLE — The Blue Ridge Parkway is not having the best year.

A road failure forced the closure Monday of a popular commuter stretch between Brevard and Hendersonville roads, parkway officials said.

Engineers planned to get a closer look today of erosion damage at the south end of a bridge carrying the parkway over Interstate 26, Parkway Ranger Steve Stinnett said.

“There was already a plan to go forward with some repairs,” Stinnett said. “The road is undercut there, about a quarter of the way under the southbound lane.”

Work to repair that damage should take about two weeks, he said, and will be done by Federal Highway Administration. The agency is considered essential personnel and is still on the job despite the shutdown, Stinnett said

The four-mile closure is unrelated to the federal government shutdown, and the rest of the Blue Ridge Parkway is still open to motor vehicle traffic.

A giant crack that was first noticed July 12 running down the center line of the parkway north of Asheville near Tanbark Ridge Tunnel caused a 20-mile closure for a couple of months between Asheville and Mount Mitchell State

Article source: http://www.blackmountainnews.com/article/20131008/NEWS01/310080034/ If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

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Inn’s workers weigh options as shutdown lingers

Published in Asheville Attractions on October 8, 2013

Near MOUNT PISGAH, N.C. — Marc Robinson spent part of Tuesday throwing his hard work in the garbage.

As executive chef at the Pisgah Inn, forced to shut down because of the budget impasse in Congress, he’s responsible for prepping all the food guests would normally eat during the busy fall season.

STORY: Inn’s act of defiance lasts about 2 hours
STORY: Blue Ridge lodge caves on shutdown order

But

Article source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/08/blue-ridge-parkway-pisgah-inn/2946407/ If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

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NC inn defies shutdown orders for a while

Published in Asheville Attractions on October 8, 2013


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Near MOUNT PISGAH, N.C. (USA TODAY) – At a spot 5,000 feet above sea level and 20 miles from the nearest town, an innkeeper decided Friday to defy the federal government and reopen his lodge.

That stand lasted about two hours as National Park Service rangers blocked the entrances to the privately run Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway after owner Bruce O’Connell decided to reopen his dining room, gift shop and country store at noon Friday for lunch. The federal government had forced the inn, in a leased building on federal land, to shut down at 6 p.m. ET Thursday at the height of fall foliage – and tourism – season.

The inn normally is open April 1 to

Article source: http://www.wzzm13.com/news/article/270023/2/NC-inn-defies-shutdown-orders-for-a-while If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

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Rangers enforce shutdown of private hotel on Blue Ridge Parkway that rents …

Published in Asheville Attractions on October 8, 2013

Conservative activists protested Saturday outside a private hotel and restaurant forced to close during the partial federal government shutdown because it leases a federal government building on federally owned land.

Protesters gathered on the shoulder of the Blue Ridge Parkway to protest Friday’s forced closure of the Pisgah Inn, owner Bruce O’Connell said in an interview. The Asheville Citizen-Times reported (http://avlne.ws/15SS44e ) the crowd numbered fewer than three dozen. One of the demonstrators handed him a card claiming membership in a tea party group based in Asheville, about 30 miles east, O’Connell said.

“They’re up there making a statement I guess — that they’re not happy with the state of things and wanted to make a point,” O’Connell said.

Park rangers began blocking the inn’s three entrances off the parkway at lunchtime Friday, stayed through the night and remained there Saturday to make sure the inn didn’t reopen, O’Connell said.

Parkway Chief Ranger Steve Stinnett said park service managers in Washington directed him to block access to the inn.

The 470-mile federal road that winds through the North Carolina and Virginia mountains remains open to traffic but National Park Service visitor centers, campgrounds, picnic areas and restrooms are shuttered because of the budget dispute on

Article source: http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2013/10/05/rangers-enforce-shutdown-private-hotel-on-blue-ridge-parkway-that-rents-federal/ If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

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Air Force Academy Narrowly Avoids Toilet Paper Shortage During Government …

Published in Asheville Attractions on October 7, 2013

The Air Force Academy has faced one of the most uncomfortable consequences of the government shutdown: a toilet paper shortage.

Fortunately, the problem was fixed, but it renews the debate over who exactly the “non-essential” employees are during a government shutdown.

“We’re not always aware at a high level who has the contracts with the toilet paper but we found out pretty fast and we fixed it,” said Superintendent of the Air Force Academy Lt. Gen. Michelle Johnson during a press conference.

Johnson added that some 20 percent of courses at the Academy had been suspended because of furloughed teachers.

“It’s unfortunate that there’s a bureaucratic term for our colleagues of ‘non-essential,’ because it couldn’t be more wrong about what we rely on. And, it’s an accounting term that we’ve used, but it certainly does not apply to the worth of our colleagues, from very basic things to even grander things,” Johnson said.

Similar to the almost-toilet-paper-crisis, Saturday’s Air Force-Navy football game was nearly cancelled, but the game went on after a private donation from the USAA.

Colorado Springs is home to the USAA and was identified as the city that would be most affected by the

Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/07/air-force-academy-toilet-_n_4058491.html If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

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Rob Neufeld on Lee Smith’s new novel, ‘Guests on Earth’

Published in Asheville Attractions on October 7, 2013

Not surprisingly, given Lee Smith’s body of work, her new novel, “Guests on Earth,” is much more than advertised.

Greatly anticipated as a look into Zelda Fitzgerald’s fire-consumed stay at Highland Hospital in Asheville, it resonates most of all as a cry of love for society’s misfits.

The book’s first epigraph is a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald to his and Zelda’s daughter, Scottie: “The insane are always mere guests on earth, eternal strangers carrying around broken decalogues that they cannot read.”

In this era of defunded mental health facilities, people’s hearts need to be prompted to ache.

The first of the book’s innocent unfortunates is the narrator, Evalina Toussaint, whose story of how she came to Highland fills the first chapter, and is an example of Smith’s distinctive, fertile, life-inventing imagination.

Smith presents her novel at Malaprop’s Bookstore at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Un-put-downable

When Evalina, as a child, refuses to eat and burns her arm with matches, it does not seem like an over-reaction. Her mother, an exotic dancer in New Orleans’ French Quarter, has committed suicide after a baby born to her and her aristocratic lover died; and, subsequently,

Article source: http://www.blackmountainnews.com/article/20131006/COLUMNISTS19/310060042/This-Zelda-in-Asheville-novel-cries-love If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

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Published in Asheville Attractions on October 7, 2013
by Shane Tourtellotte
October 06, 2013

The schedule throttles back from yesterday’s overdrive, leaving us time to ponder a question of practicality. If the baseball playoffs are going to have a couple of days with four games, wouldn’t it make sense to juggle the schedule so that one of them falls on a weekend? As it stands, we got a quad-header on Friday, and will get one on Monday. It would be nice for today’s kids (and I mean the East Coast kids) to be able to watch a postseason game or two through to the end. Not to mention those of us with work.

Game       1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9    F
Rays       0   1   0   0   2   1   0   0   0    4
Red Sox    2   0   2   1   1 
Article source: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/wps-recap-alds-1052013/
If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com
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