i partied too much in asheville and forgot to take a picture.
Tragedy strikes! No I am not referring to the fact that I left my tub o' peanut butter in a fridge at The Farm. I got my first flat tire, due to a carelessly strewn drywall screw somewhere between Summertown and Knoxville in Tennessee. Was it you throwing screws around? WAS IT?!? No matter, $7.35 later I was on my way with a fresh patch, thanks to the fellas at Donoho's Muffler Shop in Carthage, TN. I made it all the way to North Carolina, where I spent the night atop Pisgah Mountain off the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Great Smoky Mountain range was very pretty, but I was feeling kind of lonely and was anxious to get back to civilization. So after one night I packed it out and headed to Asheville, just a few minutes away.
Asheville: man, for a hippie town there is not a lot of stuff you can do there that's free! I ended up paying a homeless one-armed guy a dollar to show me where free parking was (he led me there on his bicycle, it was mighty nice of him) so not even that was truly free. Later I enjoyed tasty coffee with 50 cent refills (again, not free) and a pleasant atmosphere at the Dripolator Coffeehouse on Biltmore Avenue. Another spot I enjoyed hanging out at that also serves coffee was
Malaprops Bookstore on Haywood Street, who are celebrating their 25th anniversary this year. They have a very wide selection for such a small space and their section titles were extremely specific in a very helpful sort of way. "Chick Lit" is not usually my cup of tea but they had a huge section dedicated to it for anyone who's interested. I picked up a copy of The Odyssey to inspire me in my travels. Hopefully I won't have to deal with the whole coming back from the afterlife thing though. If I do I'll be prepared!
After the bookstore I started hanging out with lots of boys who are in bands in Asheville, and the rest of the trip is kind of a blur. They have lots of bands, I couldn't even begin to name them for you. I'm pretty sure I had fun. I drank a lot of PBR and ate guacamole.
One part my stay in Asheville that I do remember vividly is when I got covered in ticks. A new Asheville friend took me for a walk with his doggies (yes I need to be walked and fed too) in this abandoned golf course outside of town. It's been shut down for about 7 years, so the area is lush with growth and there are lots of honeysuckles and whatnot there. Pretty! Now I'm not sure if there is such a thing as a ticks' nest or evil lair or something, but if there is we definitely walked through one because afterwards we looked down and saw that the entire lower halves of our bodies were crawling with ticks. I probably pulled about 60 ticks off of myself right then, and about a dozen more after we got back to his house. It was very, very gross! I think I handled the situation pretty calmly, mostly because I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of my new friend who I didn't know that well, but I was still pretty dang freaked out. Especially because during my stay at The Farm in TN I made a new friend who had just found 6 ticks on her vagina, one of which was so far up that it had to be removed by one of the resident midwives. All I have to stay to that is "yipes."
