Blog
It’s getting to be that special time of the year in the western part of North Carolina. Fall is one of the best seasons to be in the mountains. For families in the Asheville area, autumn signifies the time to enjoy pumpkin patches, apple cider, football, and bundling up by the fireplace.
Before you get too wrapped up in all the fun fall activities, it is important to prepare your vehicle for the fall and the colder months ahead. Just like students going back to school, vehicles have to get ready for the months ahead.
When it comes to driving, western North Carolina is a great place to be. Tens of millions of people visit the area each year just to drive on some of the famous mountain roads and passes. Roads like the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Tail of the Dragon twist and turn their way through the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains, providing drivers with incredible views of stunning mountain vistas, waterfalls, and more.
For area residents, even the commute to work and school through the French Broad River Valley is surrounded by the tallest mountains on the East Coast.
Of course, driving isn’t always fun in the Asheville area. With the rapid growth our area has experienced in recent decades accelerating in the past twelve to eighteen months, the roads can get quite crowded during rush hour. Being a tourism destination, there are seasons when we experience even heavier traffic.
The weather can turn on drivers as well. From spring through fall, thunderstorms with high wind, heavy rain, and hail are common, often striking just at the height of the evening rush. During winter, snow and ice can make conditions slippery, leading to dangerous travel throughout the region. With the dramatically different elevations in the region, the same road might be wet in one place and covered in a sheet of ice just a few miles down the road.
All of the challenges of driving in the mountains are compounded when traveling at night. Weather, traffic, and twisty roads are all more difficult to deal with when the sun drops below the horizon. For drivers in our area, you need to take every step to ensure you can see as well as possible when you’re driving at night.
Over time you may notice your headlights are getting seemingly dimmer. Even when you replace the bulbs, you just aren’t seeing as well as you once did.
If you need to find a way to make your headlights brighter, you may be due for headlight restoration services.
There is a lot to love about life in western North Carolina. We have the highest mountains east of the Mississippi River. Those mountains provide endless miles to beautiful forests and landscapes to explore. From DuPont to Bent Creek, to Kanuga, to Tsali, to all of the other trail systems and bike parks, we have the highest collection of world-class mountain biking on the East Coast.
However, it is not just land activities that attract millions of visitors to our area.
When it comes to vehicles, there are few things more annoying than having a cracked windshield. It's inconvenient, while not necessarily affecting your car's performance. It is unsightly but not necessarily the cause for an immediate, emergency trip to the body shop. It can seem like an expensive repair without any measurable change to how your car handles.
Many drivers have questions about when and how to have their windshields repaired or replaced. Here is what you need to know about windshield repair and replacement.
Western North Carolina is certainly a busy place, especially in the last 30 years. Our region has grown substantially and exponentially in that time. Every small town and city in Buncombe, Henderson, and surrounding counties has increased in population. We have also seen substantial increases in tourism. Asheville welcomes about ten million visitors each year. At any given time, there are more cars on the roads than what they were built to handle.