Slouching Towards Nashville (1/3)

William Eggleston - Untitled (Gingham Woman, Albers Wall)

 

Ain’t travel grand? Let me unpack. The plan: a group of friends independently squirrel away a few bob, on the regular, over several years. Once a modest fund has been accumulated, start discussing potential destinations and themes etc. Kick off a Google doc. Give the adventure a name. Ask permission from the various ministers of the interior, review calendars and book flights. Then obsess for months about the content of the soundtrack / playlist. Simple in theory eh? The group of friends got whittled down to Marc and I. Original plan was an old-school US road trip: DC to New Orleans. The old road-boat “Ulysses Grant” got as far as Nashville and it was plenty. Big thanks to Siamak for planting the seed for the overall idea. 

 

These posts were built and the adventure was had to the soundtrack of the Ulysses Grant playlist. Listen while you read. It's a banger. 

"Are you a vegetarian, Ira?" someone asks idly. "Yes. Yes, I am." "Tell them, Ira," Joan Baez says. "It's nice." He leans back and looks toward the ceiling. "I was in the Sierra once." He pauses, and Joan Baez smiles approvingly.  "I saw this magnificent tree growing out of bare rock, thrusting itself . . . and I thought all right, tree, if you want to live that much, all right! All right! O.K.! I won't chop you!  I won't eat you! The one thing we all have in common is that we all want to live!" Where The Kissing Never Stops - Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Except for one rainy afternoon in DC, we were absolutely blessed with the weather. Interesting though, in a worrying trend continued from Athens, locals throughout our trip were concerned with the unseasonably warm weather. A guide in the mountains of North Carolina was telling us they’d usually we’d have 2-3 Winter snowfalls by now (early March) and had yet to have even one. It was unseasonably warm in Boone NC, Asheville NC (both high elevation towns) and Nashville TN. A scary trend with scarier outcomes to come no doubt. Someone said "Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get." I guess we were mostly getting weather on this trip. Despite the complexity of the combined itinerary where Marc was traveling from Tokyo to meet me in DC there were no major hitches, few minor glitches, lots of brainfood, foodfood and plenty of memories.

The next couple of posts feature random notes taken on my phone, photos, plus follow up notes written after the trip. My goal as always is merely to capture the chronological. Coherency is an unintended side effect. Turns out, for quick emphasis when taking notes on the phone, the notes contain some ineloquent swearing, so apologies in advance where I've let sleeping ineloquence lie. Any quotes are likely lyrics from songs on the playlist. Have fun tune spotting. 

Eggie Pockets

 

Wednesday (12.8k Steps): Travel. Unravel. 1447 Safe. Big conversations outdoors. “While I’m alive I’ll make tiny changes to Earth” Exhausted on an early morning table top @ Burger King in T2 Dublin Airport.  Greasy, unclean. Infected into my marrow with tiredness. Nina asks what have I got? Why am I alive anyway? Going the distance. Chunky French plaits, sweat pants and perspex spectacles a la mode. The rocking back and forth of early boarding. The Thinkpad is the Snickers work wear for the knowledge worker. Everyone on wheels. Radiohead’s National Anthem all shard and sway. Cliché Cliché. Clenched ends. Neurosis. Exoskeletons in high footfall infrastructure terrify me. An entire infrastructure built on timeslicing. US immigration pre-clearance. “Is that how you pronounce your surname? I’ve been pronouncing that pub's name wrong all along!” Egg pittas and Bombay Mix. Shit (shit!) airline food. It’s OK to be hungry – even in America. Especially in America. DC: Holiday Inn checkin. Located overlooking the Hungarian embassy and within the Embassy belt. Neighbours with Serbian and Kasakh embassies. I guess this city has a second tier embassy belt and our Holiday Inn was smack in the middle of it. Definitely the least salubrious place we stayed, although nowhere near the cheapest. Absolutely the smallest bathroom I’ve ever seen, including Japan – knees knocking door from the dunny. After a couple of days walking the city, my overriding impression is that DC is ditch-dull, a horribly careerist town with mostly ignored, mostly black, social issues. I got an insight into what grinding poverty might be like in the Verizon store I went to for a SIM (best advice ever). Some day, free access to Internet connectivity will be available to all. It's as necessary as oxygen over here. “All of my role models were murdered by the government” – on a hoodie seen in DC. Two (why not?) ragged old flags  flapping on the roof of a building I could see from my bed through the 8th floor hotel window. 

Embattled FBI HQ

I had a strong feeling, seeded no doubt by media we've all been consuming over the past few years but re-enforced early and often on this trip, that America's current state is is a bit raggedy, slightly unraveling, coming undone – and this in the seat of its power. America seems at war with itself and finds itself in a phase of its history where any individual citizen's “freedoms” take precedence over any general good. While other experiences elsewhere gave hope, this feeling persisted for me throughout the trip. 

Speaking of Athens...  and identity. I've never seen a people so desperate for a depth of history that just isn't there. The architecture which dominates Civic and Federal government buildings in DC borrows heavily from Classical architecture, ancient Greek in particular. It also feels like there's an attempt to compensate with scale what the country lacks in history. It's impressive, no doubt, but not wholly convincing. I loved this bendy marble staircase at the National Art Gallery though. 

Books: All small tomes.

Thursday [38k Steps]: Slept in to 6am (11am) despite being wide awake @ 3 for an hour. An amazing cortado at the excellent Aussie Coffee Bar to kickstart my day. This kickstart (with chaser) became a feature of the trip. Ozzie Barista: “Perfection is worth waiting for.” Eggs for Breakfast from the Eggie Rockets diner that doubled as the Holiday Inn hotel restaurant (see photos above and below). Decent, although the eggs may have been either powdered or inflated with a bicycle pump. 

Foyer, National Gallery Of Art, West Building

Not sure when I decided to go the NationalGallery Of Art but it was the best idea I’ve ever had. Art was afoot and it was inspirational. I made my way directly to the Modern Art building. The Philip Guston retrospective was a huge highlight of the entire trip. Probably the best curated exhibit I’ve ever attended. I went from never having heard of him, to spending hours immersed in a huge collection of his life's work. I highly recommend the documentary Philip Guston– A Life Lived  which was shown at the end of the exhibition. There’s also this BBC documentary  (shorter and not as good but still worth a watch.) 

Bombardment - Guston's Guernica

Fantastic inspiration and food for thought at the start of a cross-state trip through modern America, with Charlottesville as our first stop (for reasons mostly unrelated to Confederate symbols.) His life story is fascinating. A Russian Jew (originally from Odessa in modern day Ukraine), emigrated with his family to Montreal very early in the 20^th century to escape the pogroms. This left him at an early age with a lifelong hatred of any form of oppression. He had early brushes with the Ku Klux Klan in LA in the 1920s after he painted his response to the Scottsboro Boys case. He was vocally critical of Fascism in the 20s and 30s and themes of political violence and symbols of hooded figures dominate his work. His paintings… “frequently depicted racism, antisemitism, fascism and American identity, as well as, especially in his later most cartoonish and mocking work, the banality of evil.”

City Limits

Marc arrived into DC around 11pm having taken the metro from the airport to a stop 8 blocks away from the hotel. Good job his luggage had wheels. I vastly over-packed and my luggage had no wheels – a mistake I won't make again. He made some friends as he tried to get a steer towards the hotel without phone signal. One thing I learned from Marc on this trip…. for recommendations, I look to crowd-sourced review data (multiple sites) from the Internet which works well most of the time. Marc takes the old-school, yet somehow novel approach of chasing on the ground information from actual humans. When you get an in person recommendation like that the information is generally far superior and more current e.g. CiCi’s (the Kimpton valet) Midtown Cafe breakfast recommendation in Nashville. 

Asheville

Marc’s sister Cecelia had forwarded a care package to the hotel in DC. It consisted of many, many, many things from Cowboy cookies to rolls of quarters for tolls / parking, from an emergency stars 'n' stripes bandana, to a large consignment of high quality homemade granola, sunscreen, peanut butter, protein bars, butter knives…. The list goes on. Very sweet and very well received. I learned that not only are myself and Marc highly compatible travel companions, we’re very similar. At one point I noticed that we’re both walking down the street in DC with large cameras, the same unbranded and comfortable shoes and clothing, layers of quality outdoor gear and a wooly hat each. We spoke again about never having an argument in all the times and all the different accommodations where we lived together. And so it was on this trip.  Now, were there any patterns of behaviour which got on each other’s nerves? Absolutely there was, but we flowed, we floated. It worked and it’s something special. “Dragged me far enough to know.” 

Smithsonian African American History Museum

  

Friday [22k Steps]: Mam’s birthday. Breakfast at Eggies. Grand. Then a walk in the cold DC air for 45mins to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. I got very little out of the exhibition. It was both curated and presented poorly. Lots of exhibits belching out noise simultaneously from different directions and it jarred me to my bones. Marc was the same. I was disappointed, as in theory at least this museum was why we were here. In retrospect though, DC played a key function: to provide contrast to the warmth and unpredictability of Dixie / the Sunbelt itself. We were exhausted by the time we’d “done” the four floors. Plan was, based on my experience the day before, for Marc to do the Guston exhibition. Well, we walked 10 blocks in the rain to have lunch at the Art museum (for consistency of experience the African American museum's only eating place had an airport-esque cordoned, winding queue for entry which went on for at least 30 mins.) So we noped out of there even though we needed “a cup of tea?” (Marc’s euphemism throughout the trip for a time out / sit down.) My plan was to head off to the Smithsonian Museum of American Art for the afternoon. So many high quality museums in this town. We had lunch and both of us are still exhausted and it’s raining and howling cold outside. I mentioned going back to the hotel for a kip. I’d slept extremely poorly so I was both exhausted from the morning’s activities and I’d had no sleep. He said he might do the same and even suggested a cheeky taxi which we jumped into immediately outside the museum lest we change our minds. Ended up reading booooks Crow, Didion on a dull DC afternoon and getting a snooze in before dinner. Perfect. Dinner was a pre-booked, pricy kip with no physical menus. We were seated in an ante-room off the main room – no idea what purpose that served. We were told to scan a QR code for the menu. My data mining allergy kicked in so I asked for a physical menu and was given an iPad. The food menu was a link to their website. The drinks menu contained on an app in the iPad. Turns out the linked food menu was not the menu for that evening so we had to choose twice. Can’t even remember what I had. A white bean soup, some artichokes, some other stuff, definitely some wine. “We have a different stomach for Dessert” - waitress in Asheville. Later we discovered the “Take Me Home Country Roads” song is about West Virginia and our road trip assiduously avoided that state completely. Mountain Mama indeed. 

History Vs Banality

Almost Heaven (Just Like Heaven), West Virginia (Jr.)/ Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River / Life is old there, older than the trees / Younger than the mountains, growing like a breeze

Lesser Spotted Red Yellow Cab

Saturday [12.5k Steps] The taxi we took to the car hire place for 9am to properly commence the roadtrip was a red Yellow cab. The receptionist at the Holiday Inn desk who checked us out and ordered our cab (“No Uber?”) had the most kind and beautiful soul. She became completely distracted by a cute puppy being led through the lobby. And why wouldn’t she when the alternative is an endless stream of soul-crushing admin. Crazy amazing Eritrean eyes. May the bottom rungs of the hospitality industry ladder be kind to her. 

The Compact Traveler (featuring wheels!)

The Avis staff only allowed one customer per teller into the office. This with a howling gale blowing outside on our luggage… and Marc :) I struggle with transitions on the best of days so this was a frustrating start. Renting a car these days is usually a multi-person endeavor - so much swapping of documents to complete the validations. Same circus with a group beside us. The only goal seemed to be keeping the counter area as quiet and uncluttered as possible for the staff.  We got some bogan, obnoxious white Toyota Sienna instead of the bastion of German engineering (Passat) which I’d booked. We also had to deal with a dysfunctional external navigation device which caused us no end of trouble through the trip. The car worked OK (can i haz wheels?) and got us to where we needed to go, but the "take it or leave it" attitude of the staff and the poor logistics which got them to the point where they were offering us a pick up truck for a 1000 mile trip was a poor customer experience. Anyways - most importantly, we figured the tunes out. Apple Play refused to work so we hard-patched my new, red, Plan B phone into the Sienna's mainframe with a fiery red USB cable and we were in fucking business. The shittest set of speakers I’ve come across in a long time. They had the dynamic range of a spring doorstop. Everything about this car was sub-par with hidden annoyances which we'd discover at inopportune times. But we couldn’t complain because we had TUNES! Ulysses Grant playlist played hard for the entire trip and it was good. 215 songs was perfect 😊 Marc was introduced to Big Star. The Replacements taught me that you can’t go far without Big Star. Advice to keep in mind for all road trips.

Fugazi - In On The Kill Taker

As we’d settled in to the decision to skip the Washington Monument due to time constraints, Last Chance For A Slow dance from Fugazi’s In on the Kill-taker featuring the self same monument (albeit blurred) on its cover came on the playlist. I'm a big believer in signs. Under normal circumstances I would have heeded the sign. But in this instance we needed to keep moving. Agreed we’d take day on / day off driving and the driver would deal with whatever came including fill ups flat tires etc. With assistance of course. That's kinda how it ended up being until right towards the end. So, DC into Virginia. Marc had suggested a visit to Monticello. We hit Monticello for one-ish and booked straight onto a tour. 

Monticello

(Notes plundered, supplemented and re-edited from Wikipedia) Located outside Charlottesville, Virginia, Monticello was the primary slave labor plantation of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson (3rd president of the US). He began designing Monticello in 1769 after inheriting land from his father at age 26. As the eldest son, it was expected that he would inherit his father’s entire estate. Instead, Jefferson was given his choice of building site and adjacent fields and the task of dividing up the remaining land between the other sons. Jefferson designed the main house himself and he reworked the design through his presidency. 

Outbuilding at Monticello

Situated on the summit of an 850 ft (260 m)-high peak in the Southwest Mountains, the name Monticello means "little mountain" in Italian. Jefferson used a combination of free workers, indentured servants and slaves to build (and then re-build) the home. The working plantation was originally 5000 acres and used the labour of slaves for tobacco growing. 

SO much PHOTO!

 The house (including grounds) is a National Historic Landmark and is the only private home in the US to be designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.The US nickel features Monticello on its reverse side. Monticello is also depicted on the reverse of the 1953 $2 bill. At Jefferson's direction, he was buried on the grounds, in an area now designated as the Monticello Cemetery. Jefferson's gravestone features an epitaph he wrote himself and interestingly makes no reference to his Presidency. Culinary factoid of dubious provenance: Monticello is also known as the birthplace of macaroni and cheese in the United States....! It’s more likely that it was merely made popular there. Jefferson's slave and cook James Hemings brother of Sally Hemings, Jefferson’s mistress, perfected the dish and made it similar to the way it served today. 

Our guided tour was fun, informative and interesting. As much of a polymath as the guy was I get the impression that TJ may have been painful to be around. The idea of a piece of land and a dream home built from the ground up and only from ideas tugged at the heart strings a little given our own disappointments but this should be treated purely as an inspiration. 

 

Vegetable Garden At Monticello Álainn

 

Virginia into North Carolina.....After a cup of tea at Monticello, we hit the road later than we’d planned for the 4.5 hour drive to Boone. The sunset-lit drive to Boone, North Carolina was our first taste of the wilds of Appalachia and the Blue Stack Mountains and it was intoxicating. It was also our first of many sunset drives to "the next place." The route was sprinkled with farming communities nestled deep in the hills, fully isolated, fully self-contained, the independence of the pioneers and frontiersmen still woven deep into their fabric. Marc was fascinated by these remote communities and by their viability challenges coming as he now does from the Great Metropolis. He made the excellent observation that the vast majority of the homes we passed at twilight were unlit and appeared empty. I made the half joking comment that they were all at mass. I may have been half right. First In Flight – Wright Brothers were from Ohio and designed and built the "first flight" plane there. Maiden flight took off from North Carolina – hence the “First In Flight” on the majority of NC license plates. The argument continues, but Marc’s choice of Blackalicious First In Flight for the playlist was great synchronicity. I heart synchronicity.

 

 

Wheels, making traveling everywhere easier

 

Checked in to our spacious hotel in Boone and straight to the Red Onion for dinner, Marc as diligent co-pilot having rang ahead from the road to say we’d be late and to hold our place in what turned out to be an empty restaurant. Ah me. My bowel soon found out why it was empty (the restaurant that is.) I stupidly chose sea fish in a hopelessly inland mountain town. The fish exhibited symptoms of very recent temperature trauma (frozen to microwaved in 6 minutes) and the myriad of highly processed flavourings it was reheated in (think Chinese 5 spice) fucked me up 5 times. Big zero for Red Onion, Boone. It was in Boone after the reality of driving the distances we’d itinerised that the decision was made to skip Memphis – and that was a good decision. I reckon Memphis almost needs its own trip and I loved TN and NC so a revisit is definitely on the list. Anyways, I sat at the laptop and re-routed us, calling the hotel in Nashville to extend by one night. No Bueno as they wanted a 50% premium on the same room for 1 night extra. So extended in Asheville by one night where we managed to get the room for 20% LESS for the second night. 

 

Towns we met on the road during the first day on the road: Troutville, Rutherwood, Crumpler, Shatley Springs, Mouth Of Wilson, Troutdale, Sugar Grove, Christiansburg, Buchanan, Mechanicsville, Jolivue, Ladd, Yancey Mills.

Slouching Closer To Nashville (2/3)

Dawn Blinds, Boone Hotel Room

Sunday 15k Steps Woke early in the small mountain town of Boone, NC (elevation: 3363 feet) with frost on the car roofs. We’re in the mountains now boy! Went for “breakfast” before Marc woke. Really wasn’t breakfast. Grim, “attended” bar-style breakfast with fuck all in it. A limited selection of sweetened frankenfood out on the counter chaperoned by staff available to promptly answer any questions you might have on the complete absence of fresh favourite breakfast staples. A conversation ensued between the Floridian waitress and the vocally gay waffle dude (or even the waffly vocal gay dude.) He's interested in flowers but he can't grow any as there's no natural light in his apartment. The tragedy was hard for me to bear first thing in the morning, but things lifted when he mentioned that his partner bought him flowers for Valentine’s day. I had a machine coffee to settle my nerves.

Interior Design Shivers

Marc mentioned that I’d been driving too fast down the switchbacks last night. Noted, will do better. We'd had a couple of near misses with deer in our headlights on some of the mountain roads. Packed up, checked out and went looking for actual coffee. Coffee and cinnamon roll for me at Kovu’s Coffee, Boone which also had a highly random collection of secondhand vinyl records for sale in a room off the café. Ordered a Cortado and pastry, the display was swiveled towards me for a tip – 15%. 5mins later ordered an Americano for the road (telling myself that my addictions do not define me), display swiveled, no-tip. 

Everybody be cool this is a robbery...

 

For breakfast proper (my heroic THIRD attempt), we circled back to a diner Marc had spotted on the road earlier. I had eggs, hash browns, toast and drip coffee. I asked for an Americano and got a perplexed “drip, that’s it.” Strange enough spot (Waffle House franchise) but an earthier, more locally wholesome experience than the franchise hotel counter for sure. And the breakfast put much needed wood in the hole. 

Condiments. Stacked for dyspraxia

 

We walked around Boone on a beautifully sunny Spring Sunday morning absorbing the Appalachian University (“App State”) town vibes and some fairly underwhelming Appalachian Architecture. 

Appalachian Graphic Design

Sticker potential - but not a sticker

I'm a gluten free patriot myself

Doc Watson bronze statue in Boone. JC's version.

Some excellent brunchy eateries along main street Boone, but all with queues out the ying yang and packed picnic benches inside and out. Visited an excellent second hand store (stickers!) and an old General store Mast General Store - Since 1883 (brown check shirt, 3 bracelets and stickers!). Vinyl sticker browsing and purchasing was a theme / compulsion for me on this trip. North Dakota much? Also the trip where I started photographing chairs and chair shadows again. 

Such North Dakota, Asheville, NC

Despite planning a proper Blue Ridge Mountain hike, we ended up getting a take-away picnic of Jimmy Johns, mostly to avoid the brunch queues and the more arcane online ordering protocols of some of the busier establishments. We drove to Blowing Rock, a touristy, non-hike whose biggest feature was its gift store (albeit with great stickers). Exit through the gift store y’all. The must-do Blue Ridge parkway drive trumped the chance of doing a proper hike.

Tanawha Trail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We struggled to find the Parkway like the archetypal-tourists-in-an-obnoxious-hire-car that we were. Ended up doubling back after some good advice at a gas station (which featured our first experience of the Polaris Slingshot in the wild.) Lovely Sunday driving afternoon along the Parkway. Stopped to do a short section of the Tanawha Trail which brought us deep down into a valley under the Parkway. Onwards towards Asheville through twilight and dusk for the second evening in a row, a full moon to accompany us as it got fully dark. 

Sunset Moonrise over the Parkway

Bit of a scare when the lovely lady from Google maps started routing us down impassable gravel tracks from high up on the ridge as darkness fell. She was obviously concerned enough for our safety to take some significant risks. Turns out a section of the Parkway had been closed, and in its wisdom (Artificial Intelligence = Real Stupidity) the navigation software was silently trying to re-route us back towards civilisation. We were in the wilds and our navigation was obviously out of her depth. We kept our nerve and kept driving until we came across a blacktop route to bring us back towards an interstate. 

On The Road

Hit Asheville just in time to make our 8pm reservation at the wonderful Jargon restaurant – our first taste of “Asheville Vibes” and I fell in love on sight. An old 40s or 50s shop front and doorway, same inside – very little changed to accommodate a super characterful eatery. Photos show us yawning and road weary. Sublime spot, for my money the best overall meal of our trip. The vibes were excellent, the food was transcendental, the cocktails kitschy and delicious, the staff friendly and we were in the MOOD FOR FOOD after our day of driving. The menu was one of those eclectic and well curated ones where everyone, regardless of your tastes or dietary constraints, struggles to choose in a good way. Example: "Koji Fried Brussels Sprouts (V) umeboshi glaze, puffed quinoa furikake, dancing bonito flakes" Huge portions with the brussel sprouts taking the crown. Ah, those brussel sprouts.

Marc's spot on real time feedback

The dinner was squeezed in before hotel check-in. The exotically named “River Arts District” neighbourhood where our hotel was located is actually a strip mall on the side of a multi lane interstate. While the promo might tell you it’s a 4min ride to down town (it is), that journey will force you through multiple multi-lane intersections, flyovers and roundabouts. On check-in I asked how long of a walk it was to downtown. “We do not recommend walking at all sir” and they were right. Another great example of why the car culture is so dominant in the states. The infrastructure was built for cars. Now the infrastructure dictates how you’ll get to the mall and dramatically minimises independent transport options. Marc was driving us from the restaurant to check-in and was forced to navigate the aforementioned asphalt spaghetti with one or two swift lane changes to accommodate the 2 second lag of the lady in the navigation device. It was late, she’d had to reroute us hundreds of times in the past couple of hundred miles, so we understood. By necessity, last minute, on the lag lady's orders, we (diplomatic we. Of course I mean Marc) swerved right into the path of an oversized truck merging into the lane we needed to exit from. Much honky tonkin' ensued.

Almost There, NC

Potentially a sign of how close we came to a collision was our manic laughter when we survived unscathed, mimicking the directions from the GPS and making our own suggestions in her characterless drawl “In a quarter mile, prepare to be sacrificed on the altar of a large pickup truck.” “In a mile and a half, pick your battles wisely….” etc. Fun times. We parked up outside a cookie store in the lot (seemingly a location for all manner of nefarious local activity and car-dwelling nefarious activity activists) and checked in for a couple of nights. 

A Thirsty Monk

Monday 30k Steps: “Be a Buddhist boy & let it go” Passengers de-planing. Don’t know what to say. Morning after some excellent Old Fashioneds and purple punch @ Asheville. We drank in architecture. The Thirsty Monk is a main street bar over a 1920's frontier building, granite and redbrick with big windows and curved surrounds. 10mins to make an incredible old fashioned “Sexy Old Fashioned” as it was called on the menu.What incredible fun. The Vibes of Asheville might have ended up trumping the Strings of Nashville. Beautiful mild weather. An elegant old regional town embedded in nature. Folks on the street smile and almost say hello to you when you meet them. Blessed to be visiting in Spring. Big, open conversations over hard liquor. Then we did what we always do, we anaesthetised with manic laughter. I just went in to buy stickers (leave space for stickers!) The pretty sound of music as she flies. Kings of Nashville. Skin split on multiple finger tips. An AC nightmare I wasn’t even aware I was having. 

Sunrise at Asheville

Woke up at 530ish and immediately made my way out to take some photos of a strip mall sunrise. Several homeless people had set up shop out the back and they too were making first movements to get on with their day. The thrift stores had window displays set up for the next holiday, which was Easter, maybe 6 weeks away. Rhinestone Prom Dresses glittering in the intense yellow of sunlight just born. I made the decision looking upwards towards the dawnlit, treelined mountains that we would absolutely have to do a hike there before we left. French Broad River (a river I’d never heard of, and I've heard of many rivers, more rivers than you'd ever believe possible) dominated the vista from the parking lot. Apparently there’s another river, the Swannanoa (nope, hadn't heard of that one either) which intersects near Ashville. 

The best and worst named rivers award goes to….. respectively.....

Bosca Bruscair In The Golden Dawn, Asheville

The multi-track railway running alongside it through the industrial area. Such vast industry. Some of the construction equipment we saw on the road was of a scale we're just not used to, insanely huge and powerful. The dominance of American engineering in the late 19th and early 20th century – necessity being the mother of the invention required to get the upper hand on the geography and physicality of the place – was a key component of the global dominance of the United States through the remainder of the 20th century. Smart, curious engineers and entrepreneurs designing and building powerful and intuitive monster machines which could be used effectively by unskilled labour to make meaningful dents in the geography. Something which has always impressed me. When there is so much space to spare, boundaries are less important. And the next thing is more visible on the horizon and becomes your next challenge. You’ll regularly see vast lots with houses built on them where there is no separation between driveway, parking area, playground, back yard etc. Because there doesn’t need to be. This surplus of space drives a certain flexibility or versatility in how the inhabitants live. It also drives the potential for bigger and bigger personal vehicles. 

Large European Car > Large American Car

Asheville is a liberal town as the omnipresent bumper stickers, campaign stickers and t-shirts will attest. Everyone has an opinion and bumper stickers are the introverts' megaphone and the extroverts' middle finger. “Fuck Trump” “Sore Loser 2020” “Asheville Yoga and Gun Club” “It’s Way Too Peopley Outside” “Hike Barefoot” “Minivans are tangible evidence of Evil” “Paddle Faster – I Hear Banjos” “Easy Does It” "Let That Shit Go"etc. This civilisation’s most admirable characteristic, insistence on the singular, on the freedom to be the outlier at any point on the spectrum, may just be the thing that finally unravels them. Godspeed.

Dogwoods & a Bronco, Asheville, NC

Asheville vibes are highly laid back and creative. It’s a picturesque town, full of character with the Dogwood trees in full bloom and the old town architecture preserved impeccably where it was allowed stand. 

Sunlit Liminality, Asheville, NC

We checked out of our hotel, drove into Asheville proper and wandered the downtown area for an hour, dropping first into Old Europe Pastries for a cracking Cortado and a sweet cheese filled croissant. Hommena. Then further wandering to look for a sandwich place to p-pick up a picnic for our hike. Goes without saying that we ate well on the trip. The “female Barry Murphy” barista behind the bar recommended The Gourmet Chip Company up the street which turned out to be great. It’s a place that makes their own incredibly good, outsized chips (rale big crisps baby, rale big crisps) I had Salt & Black Pepper flavour.The place only does paninis but they're crazy good. 

My 4-foot selfie stick was confiscated by Homeland Security. Improvising here.

We did the Moogseum thing. I bought stickers, played a Theremin and learned about oscillators on analogue synths. Further wandering around Asheville and into Malaprop’s an excellent community bookstore and Café typical of the US where, despite the country's current difficulties fulfilling the basic definition of the "United" part of its name, community and a point of view are still highly valued. Malaprop’s gorgeously idyllic bookstore package came complete with a banjo playing busker out front in a straw hat banging out melodic Americana. Bought some high-end Blackwing pencils for my stationery fanatic ladies at home. Overpacking as egregiously as I had done had some traumatic side effects. I had to leave this bookstore early as I knew I had no room or spare weight capacity to buy even 1 book. "What kind of God gives you a rod and says you can't go fishing?"

Have five dollars my man

It was in the hallowed aisles of Malaprop's bookstore where I overheard a young lady, quite indiscreetly, utter the immortal words to her friends nearby “.... then he sneezed into my vagina!” A male friend, males always wishing to make it about them, immediately responded: “I’m so glad I’m not into guys so I don’t have to put up with that shit” – presumably speaking about the fairly remote possibility of someone sneezing into his ass without his consent. The girl told her dad about it and he did fake dramatic sneezes at inopportune moments thereafter for sport – as dads do. Eavesdropping Zoomers is a perilous but not unrewarding pursuit. 

Disturbance At The Waffle House

Note on phone re Asheville: Fuck me, Asheville is magical. Food, freakiness, beauty on the left hand side, incense, sunshine. Waves. Wave... I texted a few people at home that I was going to move to Asheville. I'll definitely go back for a visit at least. With picnic provisions procured we drove towards the Balsam trail 50mins from Asheville, back up the Blue Ridge Parkway. A beautiful drive up, again through rural communities with all of the mechanics, props and detritus of their lives on show on their spacious properties. We got about 10mins away from the trail head and we ran into another Parkway road closure. Fuck sake. The nature of the Parkway (think the Ring of Kerry) is that it's a single route through difficult terrain. If a section is closed, it blocks onward progress and in most cases forces you to turn back. Looked like we wouldn’t be doing that trail today after all. I was disappointed, particularly after my golden dawn mountain vision in the strip mall car park that morning. And this would technically be our last opportunity to do any hiking in North Carolina. We pulled in and had our Chip Company paninis as a couple of cars whizzed by us, rubber necking and almost colliding with the highly unanticipated Road Closed barrier. 

Zebloos Tax

A great lunch in the mountain sunshine hit the spot and we became more comfortably resigned to not walking that day. Then came a blessing from God in a pickup truck, a park ranger drove past and lifted the Road Closed barrier just as we finished lunch. Bad weather over the weekend required some cleanup work. So we were set for our hike again after all! Jubilation. 

 

On A Clear Day You Can See New Zealand

 As we were getting ready at the trailhead, I mentioned that Maeve had warned me about cats and bears – even though, honestly this hike was a simple loop walk about as challenging as Glending on a Sunday morning. We’re technically very remote, there’s no one else around, I hadn’t even thought about wildlife. That said, I wasn’t super concerned. In fact I was more concerned with the microscopic, spyrochetal wildflife. A real *sighing* take-it-all-in moment on a wooden bench on the way down with a glorious view across the mountains – the blue blue mountains against the hyper-blue sky. Felt truly lucky and blessed that we had made it and that we were there together.

New Zealand (GREAT zoom lens on the new iPhone)

Marc drove the descent to give him more control over his motion sickness. Great sunset coming back into Asheville. Got back to the hotel showered and called the desk to ask them to book a taxi. They introduced us to Wes and his FREE shuttlebus so we grabbed that instead. Wes was on drugs, no doubt about it, bemoaning the discontinuation of Moogfest where he’d seen Orbital and others over the years. Bemoaning also the fact that Asheville was growing. Worked hard conversationally for a tip which did not materialise. I told him the mascot for his favourite local Irish bar “Jack Of The Wood” looked like a sex sprite. He was pushing those Irish bars hard, like it was his job – perhaps it was, this is America after all where one can hold down multiple jobs at once, usually after hours. He was keen to get our Irish adjudication on their respective "authenticity." He took the sex sprite observation as well as could be expected.

Our goal with the visit to downtown was to catch a standup comedy gig. Marc pulled up a place online which looked promising but when we got there it was all shuttered up. It was a Monday night. So we headed for a nice looking bar – The Times Bar and Café on Patton Avenue. I had an Old Fashioned and Marc had a G&T after a conversation with the barman on ingredients. We left after one as the vibe was Monday night-ish. Onwards around the town and we spied some welcoming light coming from a first floor gable wall window in an old building on Patton Avenue. Turned out it was a place called the Thirsty Monk Bar & Brewery. I had a thing called the Sexy Old Fashioned and it was incredibly good – best drink of the trip - it needed to be for $17.

Modern Old Fashioned

Then I had another. Marc had the beer from the in house brewery and enjoyed it muchly. As things continued and Marc said he didn’t need another, I said I was going to buy him something random which he’d have to drink so he might as well choose. Which he did. Conversation was deep and cathartic. We were kicked out at last orders and wandered across the street to the Apotheca CBD store. Marc…. who said he was just curious…. proceeded to get in a long discussion with the shop assistant trying to understand the offerings – and there were a lot. Basically, it came down to personal preference, whether he wanted "a head vibe, a body vibe or an ALL OVER vibe." All of this delivered in a comical, heroically stoned, heavily southern-accented drawl. Strange getting a sales pitch about weed and an informed one at that. Things have definitely moved along quickly with the de-criminalisation and the accompanying commercialisation All the while I’d been browsing through the sticker collection drawn initially by a Goo sticker (4 for a dollar so great value!) When I was done with that I went over to the counter where the conversation was being had, asked 1 or 2 questions myself then said – that one, we’ll take that one and purchased a scientifically advanced Purple Punch to go with a load of stickers. Long story short my friends - we walked across the street to a little park and anaesthetised. And it was good. Such a floating-walk down memory lane. Neither of us had partaken, nevermind together, for years and to pick up where we left off was just beautiful. Like gliding a bike. 

Giggles started immediately when we realised we were marooned downtown. Walking back via the interstate was not an option and we’d need to score a cab. I was drawn to the welcoming vibe of some red neon across the street. I approached 2 road maintenance dudes in a truck, taking their night-shift lunch/smoke break nearby. I introduced myself as someone very important, working for the government. Notwithstanding this piece of unsolicited information, I also needed help getting a taxi… This cracked them up. But they helpfully shared a couple of cab company phone numbers which I got onto immediately. Marc made the observation that our social superpowers swapped when inebriated. Sober, he was the one who worked the room, got conversations going, got things moving as I hung back. Inebriated, the social momentum shifted to me as I brought a surfeit of craic, bordering on chaos, to proceedings. But still managed to get us home in one piece. One of those interesting insights from a trusted source which gives pause for thought. As we were loitering passive aggressively waiting for the cab to pick us up, Wes, the scuttlebus-shuttlebusdriver from our hotel spotted us and astutely detected we may need a vehicular intervention. He shouted at us through his driver’s window and we praised him vocally from the other side of the street as if he was the second coming of Christ. He encouraged us to take the next logical step and actually board his bus. 

Tractor antics. Beautiful tractor in fairness

 

He was supposed to have finished at 2145 but here he was driving around town after 11pm Samaratining  impaired Samaritanees. Good chats with him and another hotel resident he was in town to pick up, a golfer who’d just been to DonEagle in Ireland with his sons. He was in town for a sporting event and slightly the worse for wear. We were dropped to the hotel, I gave Wes a $20 tip and encouraged him to come to Ireland to experience a kind of authentic he wouldn’t get in any Irish bars in town. Then back to a fire pit at the back of the hotel for a night cap. Ultimately went off to bed late and fell asleep quickly. But so much fun connecting with Marc again on a cosmic, old-school neon-assisted level.  

Skipping ahead to Nashville, TN for this one

Post Script: I read this NYT article with interest. The comments, all current (March 17th 2023), are relevant in the context of overall impressions on this trip. One in particular, from Judy in Asheville (!) NC, jumped out though: 

Judy, Asheville, NC: If I were younger I would leave the US as well.  Not because of affordability, but because this country is depressing.  The news is horrible, the polarization is only getting worse.  We can't seem to see anything eye to eye and I fear things won't improve in this atmosphere.  I have friends who have moved to Portugal and love it.  It is really scary and sad to witness what is going on in our country.

Grass is greener etc. I'd still like to move to Asheville :) 

Other sample comments which speak more eloquently on issues I've raised here:

Son Of Liberty, NYC: The reason Americans head to Europe is that here the richest 0.1 percent now own more wealth than the bottom 90%, mass shootings are now part of the American way of life, children are more likely to be judged by their skin color rather than the content of their character, the state now controls the insides of young women's bodies, and because in 2024 America may no longer be a democracy but could become an authoritarian state.
MontanaDawg, Columbia Falls, MT:  No surprise here. Since Trump's election in 2016, I have seriously considered moving to a foreign country. I know several other friends that have already made the move. My research is ongoing.  We have SO many problems in this country - high poverty, unaffordable housing, gun violence, mass incarceration, ruthless & untenable politics, unaffordable medical care (including bankruptcies), climate change backlash, and rising inequality - problems that we don't seem willing or wanting to really solve. Our "great" nation is falling apart, and at this point I am embarrassed to be an American. If Trump, DeSantis, or any other crazy GOP candidate wins in 2024, expect more mass migration to the exits. It's easier than ever now to make the move.
Maria, Atlanta: I have heard this from many friends with young children or planning to start a family: they are trying to move to Europe. One of their biggest concerns is the regularity and alarming frequency of school shootings here in the US, which does not happen in other parts of the world.
No name, earth: Americans gentrified out of America are gentrifying other people on other countries out of their countries, because capitalism.
Anonymous, NY: Wealthy Americans aren't leaving the US because houses are cheaper in South Europe.... They are leaving because they're tired of the political turmoil we've been experiencing since 2016, the rise in violent crime that began in 2020, the non-stop gun violence that they don't want to risk having their kids become victims of, and, in some cases, societal conflict over issues such as whether or not to allow biological men, who later become transgender, to compete in sports against biological women.
Will, NYC, NYC: Many parts of Europe are wonderful places to live. Very few people have guns, so that ugly, demented culture doesn’t surround you. Food is better. Train travel is easy so your life isn’t stuck in endless traffic. The pace is slower. Work doesn’t consume your thoughts. I get it.
LS-Thomas, VA: It’s next to impossible to find cheap cities in the US that are walkable and you don’t have to own a car, don’t have crime problems.... Crime is rampant everywhere as is gun violence and most places are impossible to live in without a car which drives up the cost of living considerably. Europe has hundreds upon hundreds of years of history..... the walkability of most European cities, the excellent mass transit most have, the beautiful and varied architecture (with some dating back hundreds and hundreds of years), the excellent top quality medical services available at a fraction of what anyone in the US must pay, the lack of gun violence and utter lack of mass shootings, the more laid back style of living, the cultural history with world class museums, the wide variety of architecture from castles to quaint cottages are a feast for the eyes....
Alex, West Palm Beach: It would really be nice to live somewhere where you don’t have to be hyper vigilant about being shot just going to the grocery store. I’ll have to think seriously on this.
Deborah: Suffolk UK: I moved back to UK after 38 years in the US...I just hit a wall with America…the constant gun violence, reversal of Roe, the worshipping of the constitution and the political division. There’s no way I could imagine retiring in the US. My healthcare is free and I don’t need a car so I walk everywhere or take the bus/train.... The US is a good place to earn money, save then live your real life elsewhere.
Expat For Life: Netherlands: My family left the US nearly two years ago for the Netherlands for these reasons. The division, gun violence, and transactional nature that has taken over the society, were all too much for us.  I don’t see us ever returning to live there again.
factsonly, NY, USA: Yesterday's poll showing (apparently) that something like 45% of Americans will STILL vote for Donald Trump, greatest malefactor in American history, in 2024, is enough reason to make this idea an appealing one to any sane citizen.
Justice Holmes, Charleston: I love America.  It is my home but what Republicans and rapacious corporations are doing to it makes me understand why young people would want to leave.  It saddens and sickens me.