May 8, 2008 - Asheville, NC

Read an article about Hendersonville and it sounded like an interesting town to visit and it was only 20 miles south of Asheville. It was all freeway driving so it didn’t take us long. We found the Henderson County Curb Market. It is an unique farmers market requiring sellers to be residents of Henderson County and all items sold at the market must be either hand-made or locally grown. They had crafts, baked goods, jellies, plants, toys and fresh flowers. We took our time strolling through the building and Larry bought a jar of vegetable soup starter.

We drove to main street and parked the car so we could walk the six blocks each way. When we drove into town we saw statues of goats all decorated differently. The statues were bought by the merchants to raise money for different charities. Very similar to the statues of horses on the Outer Banks. The goats were used because Mrs. Carl Sandburg, who lived in the next town of Flat Rock, raised prize winning goats. There were so many cute and interesting shops and we took pictures of almost every goat. We also saw the McClintock Chime Clock which is about 65 years old. We had lunch at an Irish Pub that was excellent. Then we drove to the Oakdale Cemetery in town where we took pictures of a carved marble angel statue that Thomas Wolfe made constant references to in his first novel, “Look Homeward, Angel“. The angel is holding a lily in her left hand and extending her right hand upward. Thomas Wolfe’s father sold the statue to the Johnson family to mark the family plot in the cemetery.

We left Hendersonville and drove to Flat Rock. Flat Rock began when affluent Charlestonians, Europeans and prominent plantation owners of the South’s low country built large summer estates in the English manner. They came to escape the heat and the epidemic of yellow fever and malaria. They affectionately called Flat Rock, “The Little Charleston of the Mountains.“ We took a picture of Carl Sandburg’s house where he spent the last 22 years of his life. The house was built in 1838 on 264 acres where the family had a working farm which they called Conemara. Not much more to see so we drove back to our campground in Asheville.