So, with the building AC off here, my wife and I went to Asheville for two nights. We've been there twice before together, but stayed near downtown and went to dinner there. Call me unimpressed, probably won't go back. I've never seen so many homeless wondering about begging. (I've seen more out west of course, but in tent cities etc., not really begging.) We had dinner at a place called Tupelo Honey which had good "ratings", to me it's a tourist trap with so so food. My wife said she liked it. She also told me she was uncomfortable several time with where we parked and walked about. Bear in mind we walk about midtown ATL daily. It was pretty bad, in my opinion. But we had AC and stayed in a new Cambridge suites which was still a nice motel. (They tend to Walmart in a few years.)
The AC here was not fixed so I made a reservation in Helen, GA mostly so we could drive about in the mountains some. Helen is not our cup of tea, but when you know it's going to be hypertouristy it's not so bad. Stayed in a HI Express which was quite nice also, had a deck and jacuzzi. The area around Helen is nice enough. The day was pretty cloudy, foggy at higher elevations, we drove around and stopped in Dahlonega which is still fairly nice. She loves antique shops. I ended up buying books at one of them. She laughed. We had a decent lunch there. The gold museum is pretty neat but we'd done that before. Drove back yesterday, pretty heavy traffic on GA 400, a major interchange rebuild is underway at I-285.
Regular gas in GA is around $4.20, I saw $3.83 at Costco heading out. Gas tax holiday helps. Car was getting 36-7 mpg on the trip which I count as a win, a lot of mountain driving in there. Went up Mount Mitchell which I had not done in ages, she had never been there.