September rocks in Asheville, N.C. Great stuff going on all month long. Concerts, craft festivals, bluegrass and beer, organic and apple fests, a fair that celebrates farming and gardening, sustainable energy and healthy living and more. And yes, with the start of autumn in September, you may feel that nip in the air here, too.
At Lovers’ Loop Retreat, our Asheville bed and breakfast alternative, we’ve made some enhancements this summer. In addition to exploring all that the Asheville area offers, some of our guests enjoy hanging out at our vacation rental, playing pingpong or just relaxing in a private, peaceful place. In addition to Wireless, our guest suite has lots of information about attractions, restaurants and events to help visitors sort through all of the possibilities.
Many of the activities in September are FREE. Visit our Web site at http://www.loversloopretreat.com/ to see a list of events we update regularly. We’ve posted events through December and into 2010, so you can see what’s going on whenever you plan your trip to Asheville and Lovers’ Loop Retreat.
One of our favorite annual events is LAAFF, the Lexington Avenue Arts and Fun Festival, on Sept. 6 in downtown Asheville. This is a free, funky street fair that really gives a flavor of Asheville’s brand of quirkiness. Many locals, including us, turn out for this fair. You’ll find a great diversity of live music, belly dancing and other dance performances, poetry, sketch comedy, drumming groups, bicycle jousting, unusual vendors. It’s a real circus.
The annual North Carolina Apple Festival is Sept. 4-7. The Asheville area is the state’s largest apple-producing region, and this popular festival is just south of Asheville.
Another fun, free fair is the annual Organicfest in downtown Asheville on Sept. 13. Live music, unusual vendors and crafts, good food. A great opportunity to expand your organic mind in a very organic-minded city.
One of our favorite bands, the Indigo Girls, will play Sept. 17 at the Orange Peel in downtown Asheville. This area loves the Indigos, whom we’ve seen perform several times here in recent years. They always give Asheville a good show. The Orange Peel is a great, intimate venue for them.
The Brewgrass Festival on Sept. 19 in Asheville mixes bluegrass with beers from the area’s many local microbreweries. Beer is big business in Asheville, and at the festival you’ll understand why.
Heritage Weekend Sept. 19 and Sept. 20 is a big deal at the Folk Art Center on the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway. The parkway – and the center – are just around the corner from Lovers’ Loop Retreat, and we go to this free event every year. It’s sponsored by the Southern Highland Craft Guild with traditional mountain music, dance, storytelling and crafts. You’ll also see demonstrations about beekeeping, canning and preserving, whittling, toy-making and other things. The highlight is the World Gee Haw Whimmy Diddle Competition, (the whimmy diddle is an old-timey mountain toy) which you’ve got to see to understand.
On Sept. 25 and Sept. 26, the very popular and entertaining Womansong, an Asheville choral group, will perform in the area. People come from out of town to see this group, which gives polished, high-energy concerts with humor mixed in.
On Sept. 26 and Sept. 27, there’s another opportunity to see cool crafts at the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville. Also on Sept. 26 and Sept. 27, the True Nature Country Fair a bit north of Asheville focuses on health and healing, social issues and politics, sustainable energy, gardening and farming.
All of these events and more are listed on our Web site. Please pass along our muse-letter to your friends. And join us at Lovers’ Loop Retreat. See you in Asheville!
