Dear Friends,
Grace and I had a great visit to Asheville, NC to see the eclipse. As it is with most of our motorcycle trips it is usually the journey that is the adventure rather than the destination. This time, however, we visited our friend Jen Mayer (no relation) who owns an Apple Premier Partner in Asheville. Jen used to work at Small Dog and if you are not going to come to Small Dog Electronics for your Mac needs, Charlotte Street Computers is a world-class resource in Asheville.
We stayed with Jen for three days and fell in love with Asheville. Maybe it was Jen’s tours of downtown, maybe it was the journey to the eclipse, maybe it was the Blue Ridge Parkway but Asheville felt like home. We arrived on Sunday and most of the morning on the day of the eclipse we debated whether the 99% coverage at Jen’s house was good enough or whether we should brave the expected traffic to head to 100% totality. Fortunately, Hapy was in Oregon at the time and he and I were texting and he said the 98.2% he experienced was just not good enough. So, we piled into Jen’s car and drove to totality. We did not encounter any significant traffic and pulled into a rest area off the highway just in time to see the sun disappear and for it to get dark. Well worth it!
The trip on the Blue Ridge was so incredible. If you have not driven down the Skyline Drive which starts near Washington, DC and connects to the Blue Ridge Parkway – you have not seen one of the most beautiful roads in the world. It is over 500 miles of non-commercialized roadway with hundreds of turn-outs, hiking trails and vistas all along the spine of the Blue Mountains. It is well worth the time. We saw bears, deer, eagles and lots of beautiful views. Before we got to the mountains, I had a little encounter with Bambi who ran out and committed suicide on my motorcycle. Luckily (for me) she hit me broadside so no damage other than feeling bad for the fawn.
This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive features the Apple Factory Refurbished 27-inch iMac bundled with AppleCare Plus. This iMac features the amazing 5K Retina display and the 3.2GHz processor. It has 8GB of RAM and a 1 TB Fusion drive. Just like new Macs it has a 1-year Apple warranty but we are bundling it with AppleCare Plus that covers it for 3-years, provides you with 3-years of Apple technical support and covers 2 incidents of accidental damage (for a deductible). This iMac with AppleCare Plus is over $100 off for Kibbles & Bytes readers this week at $1499.99!