Adventures in Asheville

Asheville, NC is one of those places Bryan has always wanted to visit but never got around to it. A couple weeks ago Molly’s parents called to see if we would be willing to attend a business meeting for them in Asheville. They would cover the rental car, hotel, and would even pay us for our time. They said you don’t have to know anything about electricity, wiring, etc. so even Bryan could attend it. We decided we could fit it into our schedule. We flew into Greenville/Spartanburg, SC and drove 1.5 hours to our hotel in Asheville, NC.

Eaton is the name of the company that was putting this training session on. The next day from 8am – 5pm was the meeting and Bryan volunteered to go while Molly watched Brooklyn. The meeting was at the Eaton factory not far from the hotel. At this particular factory, Eaton makes charging stations for electric vehicles (EV’s) like the Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, etc. Molly’s parents want to start selling them around southern California to cities (to put downtown at parking spaces), malls (so people can charge their car while they shop), and even individuals (gotta have one at your house). As EV’s become more and more common, there are going to have to be places to charge them around town or people won’t buy the cars.

The meeting was actually very fascinating. There were about 25 other professionals from all over the country who owned their own electrical contracting business. I had to introduce myself as being an employee of Skelly Electric all the way from San Diego, CA. The hard part was acting like I knew what I was talking about with all these electricians during the breaks as they asked what kind of work we did and all. I think I did pretty well and nobody had a clue how clueless I actually was. Anyways, during the day we talked about everything from marketing, troubleshooting, customer service, and we took a tour of the plant itself. I really enjoyed it.

My stress level shot up at the end however when they announced that because this is a certification course, there is a 25 question test that we had to take before we left if we wanted to get certified. My heart stopped as I thought of the trust and money my in-laws were investing in me and now I have to take a test!!!! I was sure this was the end of my short marriage to their daughter. Fourtunately it was open book and after several days they haven’t called asking for the patch back that shows I am a Certified Eaton Installer of EV Chargers.

That evening we drove around town. We went past the Biltmore Estate (the largest home in America built by the Vanderbuilts), walked around downtown Asheville where we ate at a phenomenal crepe shop for dinner, and drove along the famous Blue Ridge Parkway (very scenic).

The next day we woke up and drove back to the airport. Little did we know the adventure awaiting us there. Our flight to Atlanta was delayed for 3 hours (surprise, surprise). When we finally got to Atlanta, all flights to IND were overbooked. We tried to fly to Washington DC, Raleigh-Durham, Detroit to connect to IND but we couldn’t get on any of those flights. We wanted to fly to Fort Wayne or Dayton but they were all full as well. Finally we got the last two seats on the flight to Evansville, IN and rented a car for the 3.5 hour drive to Indianapolis. So we left our hotel in Asheville at 6:40am and arrived to our house in IND at 11:30pm - flight benefits are nice but things can go downhill fast. Brooklyn actually was great and enjoyed all the people who came to see her around the airport.