Updates & Downtown Asheville - Day 430 (Yr 2, Day 63)

Asheville, NC

Sorry I haven't written all week, but I hate to write the "same old, same old," and there wasn't much to report on that was different or out of the ordinary or that I haven't already written about.  Although I can see this is going to be a very long post!

We're still enjoying the lifestyle.  We both especially love spending time outside in the "back yard" overlooking the river.  A few times this week I set my laptop up at the picnic bench and worked outside.  We even made a campfire one evening.

We did meet a few interesting folks as well.  In general, there seems to be a huge turnover here - people generally come in just for a few days.  For instance, we met a lovely couple - Joe and Chris - who live in Spring Hill, FL.  They've done a lot of traveling in their Keystone Cougar (with rear entrance).  They were planning to spend about a week here (never been to Asheville before), but there is a potential hurricane heading to FL and they wanted to be home, just in case.

Another extremely interesting couple arrived in their bus conversion - a 1948 Greyhound!  If you look closely, you can still see the words and the dog in the metal.  But let me tell you - this is as much a hippie bus as the 60s Volkswagens!  Mark is the owner and he invited me in to take a peek (ok, I invited myself).  Again -total hippiedom!  He said he bought it about 9 years ago specifically for the purpose of Burning Man, and has traveled the entire country 7 times since then.  He's in Asheville, actually, for a meetup with a bunch of Burning Man friends.  They've rented a huge house in the mountains, but the bus won't fit up those hills so he's leaving it at the campground.

Another interesting couple who pulled in yesterday, Kurt and ?? (I didn't get to meet his wife yet) own a 1970s Airstream - one of the originals.  It's quite a beauty, even though I'm not sure I'd be happy living in it.  They just started full timing a few months ago (from this area).  His wife is an occupational therapist.  They'll be here until mid-Sept. so I'm hopeful we'll get to know each other better.

Now to the updates... we did have an mobile tech come and look at the freezer and a/c - which, by the way, haven't been leaking again.  The a/c is probably better because of the diversion Mitch created.  The tech said it was a gasket that needed replacing, which is covered by the warranty, so we'll get that done next week (I'm sure it's something Mitch can do, but since it involves removing the a/c unit, he'd rather pay the deductible and have a professional do it).  Regarding the frig leak, it all seems to be fine since we shut off the water supply to the ice maker.  That's not something the tech wants to do because he doesn't feel there's enough space to remove the unit and he doesn't want to cause any damage to the counter.  He suggested that if it's still a problem, to take it to a shop that will have more liability.  For now, we're grateful that we had a year of luxury of an automatic ice maker, but decided to invest $5.00 in a few ice cube trays and a small container to hold the cubes.

And now for today - the first time since we arrived here (on Aug. 3rd) that we actually went out and did something besides shopping and chores.  The plan was to go to the downtown area and walk around a bit.  There were 2 things that seemed enticing: the pinball museum (play old fashioned pinball and video games for a flat admission fee) or a music & beer tour (Asheville is known for its many, many craft breweries).  Mitch really wasn't interested in the standard historical trolley tour, and neither of us are interested in the haunted tour.  There was also a comedy tour and a few different beer tours.  Anyway, we figured we'd just play it by ear when we got there.

As expected, it was very difficult to find a parking spot.  After riding around the city a few times, we finally found a lot that had 1 space in the back corner that would accommodate our truck.  I think next time we'll take a bus and our urb-e's (http://www.urb-e.com) (which, by the way, are finally starting to ship, so with any luck, maybe we'll have ours by the end of September)  Don't freak at the price -- we bought ours when it was part of the Indigogo campaign so it was about half the price.  It folds up real compact and can be put in the back seat of the truck or taken on a bus or train.

Got off the subject there.... anyway, we parked and found we were just a few blocks from Pack Square Park - a large park in the center of the city where they hold a lot of events.  It turned out that this week was the "Organicfest" - loads of vendors with green or organic products -- everything from handmade fabrics and soaps, to farm grown shitake mushrooms and honey (one vendor brought a hive), to lots of awesome vegetarian / vegan foods. Best of all, all of the vendors are local.  I didn't realize just how health conscious a town this is, although initially I did observe it was a very hipster town, thus a healthy lifestyle would make a lot of sense.  Our take-aways (purchases) from the fair were:  dark chocolate coconut, shitake mushrooms, 5 different styles of homemade tempeh, and sesame and smoked sea salt.  We also sampled pear and bourbon based hard cider, shared a thai tempeh veggie wrap for lunch and a delicious goat milk gelato for dessert.  It was a blast and I was in heaven sampling all this good stuff.  We learned of about 5 vegetarian & vegan restaurants in the area as well; can't wait to try them.  I noticed that the area really doesn't have a focus on southern food which is mostly BBQ joints.  I'm sure that's easily found outside of Asheville.

One thing I noticed -- I don't know if I'm just so out of the fashion world and don't see these things, or if it's limited to Asheville, but watching people I felt like we were in the 60's with all the tie-dyed prints and psychedelic colors.

The city itself is very quaint.  Although not the River Arts District (a tour for another day), it is a very creative town with a lot of painted murals all over the place.  Even the graffiti is very artistic.  Stores are very mom & pop.  I don't know the history of the architecture, but some of the buildings are very beautiful.

And now, the photo tour:


This is a 3D mural directly across the street from where we parked.

Sample graffiti:

A very interesting diner:

I never heard of this before today - the "Before I Die" wall (http://beforeidie.cc/site/about/).  After reading about this, it was great to have participated in something so much bigger than myself.  This was awesome!  We actually met the man who maintains it daily (sadly, he says that some kids come and write nasty things or draw mean pictures).  Basically you fill in the blank next to "before I die I want to...."

I posted my message:  "Before I die I want to do more to help others."  How very interesting that within about 1-2 minutes after I wrote that, a homeless woman approached me and asked if I could help her buy something to eat (of course we gave her a generous donation).  I think the Universe heard me!

Some examples of how "hippie" the town is.  These 2 stores are very typical of most of the ones we passed:

Another thing going on in Asheville is a brass sculpture collection (http://www.ashevillenc.gov/Departments/ParksRecreation/CulturalArts/CulturalArts-PublicArttheUrbanTrail/UrbanTrailWalkingTour.aspx)  We didn't do the whole tour but we did come across one small park (Pack Square Park).  The placque tells of how this area was a crossroads for drovers of turkeys and hogs.

Monument to a Confederate war hero:

Some views of buildings and streets.

There was never a lack of entertainment and street performers.  Here are guitar players, a mime statue (I really thought it was a statue until he moved) and some hula dancers.  I took a video of them dancing, but it didn't come out very well.

And now for some of the things we saw at the Organicfest fair:

Bike race.  Participants were treated to a free massage!

Live entertainment

 Even something for the kids:

This one for Jessica (I was thinking about you when I saw this.  We didn't go inside for fear that we might buy something, or a lot - that we don't have room for.

Closer look at logo on truck: