Posted on March 27, 2011

What nicer way to treat Mom than to take her to a nice B&B, and tour another dozen B&Bs while you’re there?

That’s why we decided to offer an Almost Mothers Day special the weekend of the Asheville Bed and Breakfast Association Spring Tour of Inns, April 16 and 17. Stay two nights at the Inn on Main Street that weekend and we’ll provide free tour tickets for you and your mother, a $50 value. If you book online, just write in the notes area that you want the free tour tickets and where you learned about the Almost Mothers Day special.

You can’t come that weekend? Book any two nights until the real Mothers Day on May 8, and we’ll give Mom a seasonal bouquet in a take-home handmade mug instead. She’s worth a little pampering.

Now comes the announcement that another zip line course is being added in downtown Asheville at the Crowne Plaza resort, on what had been part of the golf course. Our guests who enjoy extreme sports and adventure can now try an assortment of zip lines, plus rafting, rock climbing and even hot air balloon rides.

Each B&B on the tour has a restaurant sponsor that will provide small bites during your visit. We were excited that Jack and Patty agreed to feed at Inn on Main Street. Their cafe is one of our favorite places to refer guests. It appears so understated that we have to assure guests that this is NOT a biscuit-and-gravy joint. Jack is a fantastic chef, and Patty oversees the friendliest and most efficient front-end of a restaurant that you’ve ever seen.

Inns in Weaverville and Barnardsville will be on Sunday’s tour. Tickets for both days of the tour, featuring 14 B&Bs and their restaurant partners, cost $25 per person, or $40 per couple online. Folks taking the tour will also have the opportunity to buy raffle tickets for a $250 gift certificate at any ABBA inn. Some of the proceeds benefit Manna Food Bank.

If you’d like to visit and go on the tour while you’re here, we have a special deal for you. Stay two nights that weekend at Inn on Main Street and we’ll throw in the tour tickets for half price and buy your raffle ticket. Just mention that you saw the offer on our blog or Facebook page.

So please forgive me for not recognizing the University of Georgia Bulldogs’ head football coach, one of the winningest coaches in the country. I thought Mark Richt and his lovely wife, Katharyn, were just folks, another handsome couple from Georgia like we get every weekend as Inn on Main Street guests.

It took guest John Parker to reveal we had the Top Dawg at the breakfast table. John’s all the sports fan I’m not, and recognized Mark. We got photos of John and the Richts, but no inside looks at the playbook. Mark was even noncommittal about the coming season.
One thing Mark and Katharyn were happy to share was their pride in their kids, one of whom is quarterback for Mars Hill College, just a Hail Mary up the road from here. Two others joined them on this trip. We hope Mark and Katharyn will be back often to see their son play.

We just had an actor, Jeffrey Woodman, stay with us at Inn on Main Street. With him were his partner, Melvin Bernhardt, and Jeff’s parents, Ruth and Charlie. Talking with Jeffrey, we learned that he had worked with Kevin Bacon, finally whittling our list to one degree. In the course of chatting with this down-to-earth family, we also learned that Jeffrey has acted on Broadway and in regional theatre all over the country, and that quiet Melvin is a Tony Award-winning director. His Broadway credits include “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds,” “Da,” and “Crimes of the Heart.” We probably would never know all that if we hadn’t had the it’s-a-small-world conversation.

Now for the most fun part of the name-dropping. Jeff is the voice of Watson, the supercomputer that beat out the competition on Jeopardy. One of his lines of works is recording books for those of us who like to take in literature without actually reading. His voice is in such high demand, apparently, that IBM asked Jeff to provide the voice for Watson. He was asked to read some passages, from which IBM engineers isolated snippets that could be combined into any word in the English language. His voice has played everything from a cartoon gopher to the all-time Jeopardy champ. And we couldn’t get enough of it.