LOCATION: Weaverville, outside of Asheville, NC

WEATHER: Cloudy and cool; Highs in 40s

We have been taking it easy in our tiny house in Mission, Texas. On our last evening, we played a game of chess…

We had a nice dinner out with our neighbors. Then, the next morning, the kind neighbors took us to our local McAllen airport at 5:30 AM for an early flight. We flew to Houston, then to Charlotte, NC. There, we picked up a rental car and drove 2 hours to Asheville.

Asheville had just had a whopper of a blizzard, but the snow has now been cleared. An army of about 100 utility trucks were returning to Charlotte after having restored power to a lot of Asheville customers.

The first thing we did was to hug our daughter who works at the Grand Bohemian Hotel in Asheville, in the Biltmore Village.

It is a beautiful hotel, now decorated for the holidays.

We got situated in our hotel (not the expensive Grand Bohemian). The next day we spent helping our daughter get situated in her new apartment.

Now we are at our latest housesitting assignment, through Trusted Housesitters. Our charges are a rescue dog (quite cute) and a big cat (one that someone dropped off along their road). We are in a darling mountain cabin, with fireplaces upstairs and down. I’m going to try out the hot tub (a la natural) soon.

We spent today watching the beautiful cardinals in awe. They throng to the bird feeding stations on the deck that overlooks the mountains.

We stocked up at the grocery store for our two weeks here.

DINNER: Rotiserrie chicken, baked potatoes, and peas.