The weather seems to have gotten back to “Fall normal” as we move through the month of October in the North Carolina mountains around Asheville. Cool nights are back, as are sunny days. And it looks like the color that we do have will be lovely for Week 4 of our fall season.
Entering mid-October, elevations above 4,500 feet around Asheville sparkle as the tops of the mountains are crowned in gold tones, with orange and red splashes of color as well. It’s Week 3 of the beautiful fall season in western North Carolina and we’re just getting started! Let’s explore!
It’s been a lovely start to the fall season so far, with pleasant days and cool nights, but a warm end to the first week of October and some rain forecast for the following week may keep color from dashing out of the starting gate at elevations under 5,000 feet. So let’s see where the fall color will shine over the next week or so.
Our fall color reports for 2017 have officially begun! Autumn is a spectacular season in the North Carolina mountains. Find out how to maximize your leaf peeping in the Asheville area each week with our fall foliage reports. It’s Week One. Let’s begin!
Looking for a unique garden to tour, a free and fabulous flower fix as we say? Then the Lake Lure Flowering Bridge is for you.
As you may have heard, the continental U.S. will see a total solar eclipse for the first time in 38 years on August 21, 2017. The path of totality will run from Oregon to South Carolina, and our little neck of the woods is about 35 miles from the path of totality in western North Carolina. Here at the Inn on Mill Creek, 98.9% of the sun will be blocked during the eclipse.
The Black Mountain Sourwood Festival is 40 years old this year! Presented by the Black Mountain-Swannanoa Chamber of Commerce, this annual free festival features hundreds of art and craft vendors, festival food, live local music, kids’ activities and more. The dates for this year’s festival are August 12 and August 13, 2017.
While the winter of 2017 has been rather kind to us (just one snow day so far…and our daffodils are peeking out at the end of January… whaaaaaat!?), wintertime in the mountains of Western North Carolina can often be a teensy bit unpredictable. For those chilly days when you don’t want to go outside or you’re getting antsy for spring, we suggest a little indoor “green” therapy at Biltmore Estate’s Conservatory. Inside we go!
![Chipping Sparrow By Vkulikov (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://www.innonmillcreek.com/wp-content/uploads/chipping-sparrow-wiki-commons-200x200.jpg)
Look high up in the trees or on top of the high evergreen shrubs (and sometimes on the ground) near the birdfeeders at the Inn on Mill Creek and you may spot the Chipping Sparrow, our January 2017 pick in our 12 Months of Birding at the Inn series on the blog.
Two of our popular rooms, the Mountain Laurel Room and the Maple Tree Room, got recent floor upgrades. Buh-bye carpet, hellooooo bamboo! We picked bamboo because of its durability and because it looks beautiful. Innkeeper Dave had the bamboo shipped to the Inn and installed the floor himself from start to finish.
