French Broad Greenway: Hominy Creek Park to Carrier Park

The Grunwald family had an enjoyable day today exploring some of western North Carolina. We started out by heading over to Marshall, NC to cash a check at the closest branch of our bank and eat some lunch at the wonderful Zuma Coffee Shop. From Marshall we headed over to Asheville. The purpose of our trip was to take some seldom camping gear to sell at the wonderful Second Gear, outdoor gear consignment shop. The staff there seemed excited to sell our stuff and we are pretty excited to make some money. If they sell it for what they say they will, we should make about 100 dollars for a tent, sleeping bag, unused hydration bladder, and Trails Illustrated map that I found while hiking.

From Second Gear we decided that we wanted to go for a little hike and so we headed to the nearby Hominy Creek Park to walk along the French Broad Greenway.

We hiked along a section of river that was not the most scenic I've seen,

but it was still a pleasant walk. There was a lot of aster in bloom and an interesting cellar that sat right along the trail.

We ended up at the interesting Carrier Park. There is a nice playground with a swing that we were able to push Sierra in. Carrier Park is also home to the Mellowdrome, a bicycle velodrome that was created from the remains of an old stock car race track.

We walked the track and had it pretty much all to ourselves,

except for a lone bicyclist who zipped around the track.

From Carrier Park we took the greenway back to the car at Hominy Creek Park. We fed Sierra a little picnic lunch on the grass while a brave squirrel got ever closer to beg for (or try to steal) food.

Sierra thought the squirrel was hilarious.

Noelle and I got a little nervous when it got too close for comfort. I scolded the squirrel and chased it away. After that Sierra seemed to yell at it in baby talk when it got close.