LAST DAY

Winston-Salem’s collective fucked-upedness had us waking in a strange mood only encouraged by the threatening gaze of the drug-dealer who pulled up into the parking lot as we packed our car. We noticed this in other towns a lack of integration and blending of cultures which all too often seems to result in a diminished community, and mostly in the larger cities. Glad we didn’t get shot we tried to find a place to eat, but Sundays in the South can be pointless it seems, with Jesus running the show. We decided to leave the sadness and make towards Raleigh, ending up in some small town with an honest-to-god local diner, which have been as hard to find as skeptical inquiry in these parts.

So much to choose from and so inexpensive, so I ordered everything. A basket of five fresh buttermilk biscuits came with the eggs which was honestly a little overkill, but they were kind of evil in that once you ate one you pretty much gave into their plan to get you fat.

Too many carbs and hotter than the days before I felt like shit and later had trouble breathing putting on my shoes when we returned the car. Probably a mix of the heat and food, but I felt awful all the way home. The heat wave in the West started to come East. Can’t say I was delighted to back. A haze hung in the air—a welcome home.

SO, ASHEVILLE

With one day left it and four hours to Raleigh that we didn’t want to drive the next morning we had to make a hard decision to leave today for Winston-Salem, which seemed like a good halfway point. We still needed to see some more stuff and Cara had read about a rock slide about an hour away that we thought we could visit on the way out.

We found the downtown YMCA, delightfully free of inspirational materials and with a rather nice indoor pool that was typically underused. The one other lap swimmer in the pool took some time to talk to us, explaining she’d moved there recently from Indianapolis and found the lack of outdoor swimming in the area a bit daunting but that overall she really loved living there even if it was hard to make a living. That seemed to be the obvious concern about moving to a small town, making a living. The median income for Asheville is rather small, somewhere in the 24K region, which seems a bit harsh if you were working on a career in some kind of field. In my line of work I can freelance and usually get enough contract jobs to do fine, but you never know. The whole idea of living somewhere like this would be to live within your means, something I’m pretty familiar with these days.

After some coffee we heading out on the Blue Ridge Parkway, the direct route to the Smokey Mountains National Park we’d driven through earlier. As we climbed further into the hills the weather started to cloud over and get increasingly chilly, dropping a good twenty degrees from the 80s we’d just left in town. Like most of this area, it’s incredibly lush and fertile and some of the loveliest country I’ve seen outside of the Northwest. In less that an hour you can be hiking in this, which is a big plus for wherever I want to live, the NYC proximity thing is a little ridiculous in regards to getting out and away.

Passing through tunnels on a road with little traffic we started to drive through actual cloud cover around 5,000 feet when it started to rain, soon reaching the summit of the mountains at around 6,000 feet. Somehow we’d missed the turnout for the rock slide, which was just as well since we would have frozen our asses off. I had to take a leak so we stopped in one of the many trailhead lots that lined the road and I darted off into the woods immediately mesmerized by the stillness of the forest and the sound of heavy rain falling through the canopy. I miss this.

Back in town we had a delicious southern-style dinner the Tupelo Honey Cafe, a place we wanted to eat breakfast but couldn’t endure the long wait. This place is so popular it’s open until 3am on Friday and Saturday. The fried chicken with home-made gravy, mashed sweet potatoes, fried okra and fried green tomatoes was to die for.

KNOXVILLE TO ASHEVILLE

We essentially stayed here to say we went to Tennessee, and did nothing more than find an covered outdoor pool (with directions that included the duck pond) in a YMCA filled with the most overtly religious message I’d ever seen in a Y, which is after all a religiously-based institution. It was a great swim, and afterwards I decided to take some photos of from the parking lot of the pool only to have some alarmed woman run out and wonder what I was doing because after all, I could have been taking photos of the kids and god knows any strange male taking photos is most definitely suspect. I had to explain I swim all over the country and internationally as well, which went right over her head. She then asked it I was a member after I’d just spent almost two hours using the facility. I hate being mistaken for a potential child molester, it really pisses me off.

We left the fear and Jesus of Knoxville for a short drive to Asheville and lo, we were very pleased indeed.

Essentially everything we hoped Athens would be, Asheville sits nestled in the hills and is an enclave of liberal living that even with a just a wee bit too much of the New Age, encompasses enough of a spectrum that just about anything goes; from extreme wealth and golfing hell, to great food, great coffee and a choice location for outdoor sports. In other words we both agreed we could live here in about five minutes after arriving.

Hungry as usual, we drove around town getting lost, veering from art studio locations in old factory buildings near the French Broad River, up into the hills and into the heart of downtown, where what else, a huge drum circle converged in the downtown park whilst foodies lined up on sidewalks all around. After finding a crash pad we headed downtown where the streets were absolutely filled with the nighttime crowd. We asked some locals what the story was and were informed a few things: it’s always jamming on the weekends, the weather is mild all year, the town only has 70,000 residents, lots of bluegrass. Lots of Deadheads too, but on that note we passed saw at least half a dozen clubs with enough good music that indicated Asheville was a serious touring stop. Smashing Pumpkins was in town recently recording their new album and had played a few small shows.

After dinner we walked around, impressed that the quality of the boutiques and services offered. Coming from Manhattan it was plenty to live on. Overall great vibe.

ONTO KNOXVILLE

After days of searching we finally found an outdoor pool at the Athens YMCA. No surprise the lanes were empty, as we have come to believe hardly anyone in the south actually exercises, much less swims for fitness. Afterwards and after lunch at one of the many excellent coffeehouses in town (gotta give kudos for that), we decide to leave after ice cream.

And so we drive north towards Knoxville and into the Smokey Mountains, but not without first having to endure the horror of the town of Cherokee which we must pass through before entering the National Park. Imagine whatever respect you had for the tribe that shares the town’s namesake (on their reservation land) pretty much erased by an onslaught of souvenir stands, interactive gold panning, tribal dancing and any other activity reduced to an embarrassing modicum of banality for the masses of inane tourists gobbling this shit up because they can’t be bothered to develop even a smidgen of taste. We sped on into the park itself at dusk, which in its crepuscular glory managed to erase the horror we had previous endured. Our twisty road led us through cathedrals of vernal pleasure, soothing us and bringing on the road fatigue and dreaded white line fever.

But wait, as we exit the park we enter something we’d never even heard of before, much less been prepared for—the horror that is the town of Pigeon Forge, the gateway to the Smokey Mountains, where mile after mile after mile of miniature golf, gargantuan souvenir stands, t-shirt stores, pancake houses, floors shows and thrill rides of every conceivable kind to assault the senses until submission, so removed from the natural beauty we had just left it takes a herculean feat of idiocy to tie the two together. But alas, here was also DollyWood, and since Cara is a Dolly Parton fan we drove up to the entrance of the now-closed park (it was 9p when we go there) and make our way to the entrance through the most acreage of parking ever seen. We could have literally driven into the service gate and walked around since there wasn’t a single person around to bother, much less secure the area.

We sped on bleary eyed and arrived in Knoxville in time for a torrential downpour while eating breakfast foods at Sonic drive in. It took almost an hour to find a motel and were given directions involving a duck pond that seemed to figure prominently in the local landmark.

ATHENS, GA

Growing up in California, the first time I heard of Athens was by way of an EP called Chronic Town from a then rather obscure indie band known as REM that had a profound effect on my psyche. Later while living and attending college in the Northern California town of Chico, I grew more obsessed with Athens since most of the bands I loved seemed to have some sort of connection via with or located somewhere near it. I loyally belonged to the REM fan club and would recieve flyers or information about events in that town that made me think my sleepy college town shared a unique kinship in quirky character since it was also filled with oddball artists and its own great bands like 28th Day and Vomit Launch (of which Larry Crane went on to open Jackpot studios in Portland, recording the likes of Sleater Kinney and Elliot Smith). Sometime in the mid 80s a haunting documentary was released entitled Athens GA: Inside Out, that cemented this mysterious idea of the South as being some sort of iconic blueprint melding individualism and a deeply rooted regional history; a general philsophy I still vividly ascribe to my own way of relating to Place now more than ever.

Later I would move to Seattle and there find out Peter Buck married the woman who owned the Crocodile Cafe, now divorced from. Over the years I’d see him in my neighborhood and come to know and meet some of the other players in REMs later incarnation like Kevin Stringfellow and Scott McCaughey (who knew the brother of one of my dearest friends Beth from college). Other people I knew in Seattle came to know the REM people and my friend David Belisle ended up becoming Michael Stipes’ personal assistant. So in one strange way or another the band remained connected to me, though I never really knew any of its core members personall and the band doesn’t really touch me know the way they used to. Stipe was a role model for me. Now he’s just another celebrity who lives in NYC. Times change.

Athens was sadly not at all what I hoped it would be. 20+ years is a long time and things have changed. Like most cities in the USA it has reached that kind of general state of homegeny with new ugly architecture and icky subdivisions springing up like so much cancer on the face of our country. I felt lucky to have been in Chico, as Cara did Olympia for her college experience. We were probably the last people to really get a taste of the best of our locations before the great sprawl occured, so our times where we were had been truly precious and unique.

Cara and I toured the downtown core on the holiday, and it being a college town was typically dead for this time of year. Bars seemed to be in abundance and most of the places I’d about like the 40 Watt club and Wuxtry’s records were closed. We left to take a nap and then headed out for a longer walk, stumbling upon by accident The Tree That Owns Itself, and wandering in and out of the projects past monumental Kudzu overgrowth (prominent all over the south actually) and onto the campus, which was so much like UW’s back in Seattle. We headed back to our motel, and uninspired to watch fireworks that night, we went to the movies and saw Ratatouille, which was just about perfect.

MORE SAVANNAH

Hesitant to leave too soon we decided to visit the beach and do some ocean swimming at Tybee Beach, a mere 15 minutes from downtown.

Located on an adjacent island, link by causeways and surrounded by waterways, Tybee Beach seemed empty by usual beach standards. The surf was rough from the recent storm but the water was warm (80 degrees) and perfect for wave diving and playing in the surf.

On the way back we stopped at Fort Pulaski National Monument and toured this incredible architectural reminant of the Civil War, complete with cannonball-pocked walls and alligators swimming in the moat that surrounded the fortress. A strange sense of peace pervades this place where a battle once raged; a seemingly feral racoon makes an unusual daytime appearance and a few tourists flock to take it’s photo which seems to confuse the animal and encourage a potentially dangerous reaction. I fucking love this place.

Returning to Savannah and our favorite coffee house The Sentient Bean, we ruminate on what we should do next and decide to leave for Athens, driving into the hinterlands. Past the open fields of the forever South and Confederate flags proudly hung we make a stop in Statesboro for a mediocre meal consumed on a curb in a a parking lot. Night falls, and we pass through towns where dogs wander freely, no one has chilled seltzer, and people seem to be consistently large in girth. We stop to piss on a pitch-black two lane highway and hear a the sad rumble of a train in the distance. Bleary eyed we can only go so far as Thomson, finding that motels are considerably less expensive the further one gets away from culture.