Saturday 4/6 Pisgah Natl Forest, NC – Chattahoochee Natl Forest, GA
No matter how you live, some days are hard and some are easy. I know this is not a novel or exciting idea but, somehow, people forget. Anyway, this day, the sweet sweet sixth, was one of the easiest.
Drawn to Asheville by hip reviews (from hip kids who know it’s hip to be blue), we rolled down those smokies into the BattleCat cafe, on the edge of Asheville’s downtown (I think anyone from there would contest this locational description, but I don’t know what the neighborhood was called…I suppose I could make up a name to make it more overt but that somehow seems more dishonest).
The BattleCat was what any hip kid hopes to find in their corner coffee shop. The walls were lined with local art (available for purchase), liberal quotations, and free tampons. Each menu item was available in a vegan option, and they housed powder kegs full of matcha. All the baristas had edgy haircuts, artistic tattoos, and tasteful piercings, in addition to being blatantly attractive.
Though we were immediately drawn to it, we ruminated on how hard it would be to be hip all the time, wondering if we could really live somewhere like this. Luckily, we would find pockets of squares in Asheville later in the day, so it remains liveable.
We brushed our teeth and changed in the Battle Cat Cafe parking lot, while the pierced pigeons smoked cigarettes in graffiti reflecting puddles. I was stung or bit by something fucking nasty in that parking lot. The raised flesh and minuscule scab remain, but I don’t know what the fuck it was. Obviously this was a sign so, if you can read it, let me know.
We drove into the downtown and parked in an alley behind the fire station. We wandered through some central square, enamored with the cute court house and town hall, how deceptive. Lukas was attracted to the purple roof (no one is surprised) and I’m attracted to everything around me, when the weather permits, as it did that easy day.
We wandered through the downtown, passing enough buskers to make the town “feel musical”, a recent criterion for our place of residence. Despite my intense discomfort interacting with vendors and not purchasing anything, we slithered through galleries and marveled at garbage and glared at price tags.
Truth be told, we found a lot to love, mutually. If you have money and you like art, I’d recommend these places. Unfortunately all the people I know who have money and like art don’t have any walls left. I read somewhere that most people don’t discover new music after age thirty, that they sort of cap out, run out of love for new things, I don’t know. I fear that. I wonder if we all just run out of wall space.
We ambled into a lovely local bookstore and spent more time there than we’d anticipated, as one would expect. Such are well curated bookstores. I spent most of my time in a “regional” section. Shelves upon shelves of appalachian tales, past and recent past. I often forget that culture, that it’s a world unto itself. I suppose most do.
I read a lot of first pages and couldn’t bring myself to purchase anything. Lukas read a first chapter and made a purchase. He reads it out loud in the tent while I embroider. It’s disgusting, really.
After scarfing some crepes at what appeared to be a Honduran creperie, we headed to Wolf Creek, the final gift of the day, From freecampsites.net To these fools. The most beautiful and private campsite we’ve experienced thus far. We cooked unidentifiable sausage from the unidentifiable local grocery store and read our books while the guitar listened, leaning against a tree.
It was easy.
Van-ish 