Winter towards spring

The weather today here in Asheville was clear and lovely, with promises of spring.  Folks sat outside at local restaurants and brewpubs, braving the still chilly wind, just to soak in the sunshine after a rainy winter.

I don't really have a good photo to illustrate this, but here's the sky from yesterday.

a wonderful afternoon sky

Tourists, here for the weekend, were thick downtown, not just regional day-trippers, but weekenders from places who wear clothes that mark them as non-Asheville folks, whether from Florida, Atlanta, or New York, or somewhere totally different.

We enjoyed our afternoon walk, looping through downtown, visiting our city as "tourists"-even if we didn't go into any shops or stop for coffee.  We were hoping to see the "Spoon Lady" -- to send an image to our friends in Quebec as they'd heard of her, but no luck today.

This morning, walking back from the YMCA, I stopped at the Asheville City Market indoor incarnation at the Masonic Temple downtown. It was packed with folks (and I hope, shoppers), all of whom looked very Asheville-like.

I bought a dozen eggs and two bunches of "Japanese spinach" from a couple of 2nd generation Hmong growers from Old Fort.  They had an impressive array of Asian vegetables for sale -- I wish I'd asked them about whether they were growing them under high hoops or row covers.  The greens were beautiful.

But I was also mindful about the contrast that we had yesterday from the image our neighbor in Quebec sent us of where our parking space used to be, after the last big snowfall.  It's now blocked by a wall of snow from the snowplow that comes by 2-3 times a day, even on our small road.

After the last big snow since we left

Hmm, what a contrast!  But we loved our snowy two-months.  It was great.