It’s festival and summer event season in the greater Asheville area! Since the Inn on Mill Creek B&B is situated halfway between Old Fort and Black Mountain with Asheville and Marion nearby, you have plenty of opportunities to attend a local event this summer.
As we move closer to the summer season, our May feature in our 12 Months of Birding series is one to listen and look for at the Inn on Mill Creek B&B, the aptly-named Summer Tanager.
This year, we’ve put together Our Favorite Things: a short list of places near the Inn on Mill Creek B&B where you can find the stuff that brings joy in 2023. This month, we feature the fabulous farm stands and tailgate/farmers markets where you can grab a snack during your trip or an edible souvenir (local honey is always a winner), and you can often also find jewelry and craftwork from local artisans:
Near the southern end of the property, adjacent to Pisgah National Forest and just beyond our pond, lies a half acre of wetlands, or as they call it in the mountains, a high elevation bog.
![[photo credit: William H. Majoros]](https://www.innonmillcreek.com/wp-content/uploads/chestnutsided-warbler-wiki-commons-william-majoros-200x200.jpg)
Keep an eye out, especially during spring and fall migration, for our September 2016 pick in our 12 Months of Birding at the Inn blog series: The Chestnut-sided Warbler. And guess what color its sides are. Let’s learn more, shall we?
Each month this summer, we’re featuring one of the four North Carolina State Parks closest to the Inn on Mill Creek, and August is reserved for a guest favorite: Grandfather Mountain. Let’s learn a little bit about this special place.
If water gardens are your thing, look no further than the Italian Garden at Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. This garden next to Biltmore House has not one, not two, but three large water gardens to admire up close.
During the summer months, we’re profiling the four state parks near Asheville, NC, as part of Inn on Mill Creek’s nod to the 100th birthday of the North Carolina State Park System in 2016. Our July feature is Chimney Rock State Park and its iconic 315-foot granite namesake. Currently, the way to get to the top of Chimney Rock is a set of 499 steps. So…up, up, up, we go. Let’s do this.
We’ve chosen a decidedly American bird for our July 2016 pick in our 12 Months of Birding at the Inn blog series: The American Redstart. Not only does this feathered fellow have “American” in its name, but you can find it in nearly every state in the continental U.S. during the summer or migration period in spring and fall.
The year 2016 is the 100th anniversary of the North Carolina State Park System and NC State Parks are celebrating in a big way with events throughout the year. There are nine state parks in the mountains of western North Carolina, and we’re fortunate to have four nearby, which we’ll profile for the next four months. This month, we take a look at Mount Mitchell State Park.
