Asheville:
A melting pot of real hippies, rich wannabe hippies, old money/new money, true granola heads, rich pretend granola heads, outward bound types and various derivatives thereof . . . the downtown area is pretty nice; lots of interesting shops with high end items intermingled with "natural" clothing stores, lots of good restaurants, a number of brew pubs and various other locally owned eateries, with a fairly thriving artist community filled with vegans/potheads/and star children.
The surrounding hills in the town are teaming with million dollar plus homes, and multiple high end resorts. Then you drive down the road a little ways and you're in the the Southern Bible Belt again. The Smokey Mountains are nice, we drove on about 25 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
