Last Day of Vacation

We woke up....I drove to Black Mountain to pick up brunch for the three of us at the Morning Glory Cafe. I got Dad's Famous Fish Tacos...I'm a sucker for good fish tacos. We ate on the deck, the mountain wind blew...and then Megs friend came to pick her up to take her off to Wellspring Camp were Meg will be the Field Staff Supervisor for the summer. It was her first day and she had a lot of work to do so we said our good byes....and then she left. Heavy Heart.

Lark and I putzed around the house for a bit and headed off to the airport. On the way we stopped and bought a bucket of fresh picked strawberries from the sweetest old man on the side of the road.


I could barely understand what he was saying between his southern drawl and the wet ball of chew in his lip....but Lark seemed to understand him and we left with a big bucket of sweet tender strawberries and headed into town for one last stop.

Mmmmm. I had been eyeing this place the entire trip but we never seemed to find the time to stop. I was determined to enjoy a treat before leaving...so we stopped in and I slipped in to bliss with a Coconut Cream Cupcake from The Sisters McMullen Cupcake Corner. Sweet Mother Of Pastry Heaven. Lark and I enjoyed our treats and drove peacefully to the airport. I hugged her goodbye...I grabbed my luggage...and with a full tummy and a fulfilled heart...I flew home to Chicago with cherished memories and time spent with some very special people in a very special place.

Day 4 of Vacation!

This day, we drove a few hours to The Nantahala River, rented a boat from the Nantahala Outdoors Center, and went whitewater rafting! Lark, Meg's lady, is an Outward Bound instructor and Meg and I both have had skads of outdoor education...so we felt pretty comfortable on our own. I say "pretty", because it's been almost 5 years since the last time I whitewater rafted in Alaska...and I'm not the most comfortable in fast moving water. But, I adapted and had a great time. The day started out mellow, then we stopped for a picnic lunch that Lark packed, and then we finished the day in a downpour of rain...but it felt good to have rain pelt my face while on a river, surrounded by The Smokies. It was beautiful....just what the doctor ordered. (of course, with a dry boot on my foot to protect my fresh tattoo. After, I peeled the boot off and hobbled over to bathrooms and received my first "stranger" tattoo compliment...I must say, it felt really good, even though that's not why I got it)

We finished the river in 3 hours, changed into warm clothes and snuggled up in the car for the hour drive back to Asheville. We ate carrot sticks & Reese's Pieces, listened to The Postal Service, and enjoyed the Mountain scenery.

After a warm shower at Meg's house we headed to her friend Maggie's for Maggie's 30th Birthday celebration. We ate poodle cakes,



played Root Ball & cards, drank good beer, and sat on the porch with friends on teal Adirondack chairs and enjoyed good conversation. I met some folks who went to Prescott College at the same time I did...we had fun reminiscing...everyone was so friendly, I never felt like a stranger.

We headed home...got into our jammies...and slept.
A long hard sleep.

Day 3 of Vacation

Meg woke me up with a delicious breakfast of eggs, veggie sausage patties, bagels, and rosemary potatoes. We drank french press coffee and slowly woke for the day.

We drove into downtown Asheville, did some shopping at Malaprop's Bookstore, and drank lattes. It was a beautiful day for a casual city stroll and good conversation. She is one of my most genuine and favorite friends....writing this makes me feel a little sad that we can't be together more often. Then I was introduced to the wonderful world of Amazing Savings: "One of Asheville's best kept secrets. Organic and natural foods at 50% to 80% off because they are either almost out of date or they are out of date or just overstocked." Can you even believe this? We bought stuff there for $.99 that you would buy at the regular grocery for $5.00!! They had my cereal, luna bars, organic fruits, veg, spices!!! It was insane the discounts to be found there! I would be SET FOR LIFE if I had one around my house. Can you imagine..Trader Joes AND Amazing Savings?!

After I was all riled up from money saving we decided to wind the hell down with some drinks and sunshine at the Root Bar and played Root Ball, a game I had heard a lot about from Meg but had never played. It's a super fun and easy outdoor game. The day was true blue summer....with sand between our toes on the court, dogs frolicking under foot, good beer in hand and lots of friendly folks.

Then. Then! The grand finale of the day: we went to Empire Tattoo (the birthplace of several of Meg's gorgeous tattoos) and I got this delightful treat with my sweet husbands blessing from across the country. It was kind of a spur of the moment...but not really. I had wanted this tattoo for a long time, but with a peony bloom. However, I'll soon be getting a larger piece with peonies and I didn't want to be the incredible peony tattoo lady. So, I changed the flower to a branch of the Tulip Poplar tree, a beautiful sight I had only seen in Asheville. The day before I went a little nuts and took a million pictures of one on campus. In memory of this great trip: the branch and bloom. And the quote: from memories of a childhood filled with Cat Stevens records, a line from my all time favorite song in life, "The Wind". (not great quality sound in this link, but the best I could do).

Big Happy Smiles.

Day Two Of Vacation

Meg had to be up at 7:45am to start checking out the freshmen that she manages as a Resident Director. I was allowed to sleep in a woke to hear a familiar voice in the living room...it was Peter, a long time friend of Meg's. He and I had a met a few years back when I was at WWC for a visit. The three of us went to breakfast, caught up on each others lives, and then Meg and I packed up her car with some of her stuff and headed to out the her summer destination, Wellspring Adventure Camp (WAC), where she'll be the Field Director. On the way we stopped a Filo, a wonderful little Greek cafe with homemade morning treats, breads, and espresso. We bought some Black Bottom Macaroons and iced lattes and headed up the Blue Ridge Parkway for a magnificent drive to camp. The Smokey Mountains have some of the most beautiful views that I've seen to date, no matter how many times I drive this Parkway, I am always breathless. Meg told me the story of the young Native American boy Falling Rock, and we arrived at camp. When we pulled up, our EMT training kicked in and our adrenaline started pumping. There was a firetruck, news vands, and a helicopter. We were sure there had been a terrible accident with the staff at WAC. Luckily that wasn't the case, however something just as tragic had a occured. The previous Tuesday a man and his son crash their small plane in the mountains above camp. Their bodies had been removed the day before and this day they were removing the wreckage. The helicopter was to fly up to the crash site, tether up the plane, and then fly it to the field at camp where it would be placed on a truck bed and sent to Atlanta for investigation. We watched the helicopter take off into the mountainside, but he returned emptied handed as it was too windy and dangerous to complete.

Meg and I took her dog, Stella, for a swim in the river with some other dogs, chatted with her fellow staff for the summer, and unloaded some of her stuff in their room. Ahhh..to be a transient hippie outdoor educator once again. What a life.
We left camp, headed back to Asheville a different way, through some old towns that we had explored the first time we were ever in NC together on a road trip to her college to check it out. It was a trip of a lifetime.

When we arrived back home we were beat. We ate some lunch and proceeded to watch trashy TV for a few hours, including Keeping Up With The Kardashians and American Gladiator. Our plan was to wait until her partner, Lark arrived home from her latest Outward Bound trip (she's and instructor) and then head out to see a local band. Plans changed, as Lark got home late and we were all pooped, so Meg and I made a trip to the grocery store for Movie Food and we settled in for the night to watch Superbad and drink beer under snugly quilts with Reese's Pieces and popcorn.

Nice.

Stop the Bullshit

I'm sitting home, watching the snow fall...AGAIN, and relaxing by a warm fire in the fireplace, on a day off from nursing (the BEST job in the world BTW), reading blogs. Through my WWW exploration today I found the You Tube clip below of Anne Hathaway excepting and award from the Human Rights Campaign for her support of the LGBT community. It moved me so much because I have a very dear and best friend, Meg, who is a lesbian. She is in a loving relationship with a cute little potter. I used to always talk about planning their vegan hippie mountain top wedding..and say when you get married this and when you get married that, until one day Meg said, "Kristin, we CAN'T get married". And I just rambled on, "Oh, that whole no gay marriage thing? That's so stupid, don't listen to them. You can get married, it's just a piece of paper. Don't be silly". After saying that I looked up and saw her face...and then realized the seriousness of what she had said...she can not, BY LAW, marry the one person in this world who she would give anything to marry. She is not allowed to do that. It's so easy for me to say it's just a piece of paper, because I am, in the eyes of our government, more civilized in my heterosexual relationship than she is. Over the years she has told me how people will look at her and her girlfriend when they hold hands in public...how she has been treated as a gay woman. It makes me SICK to think of some asshole passing judgment on her...thinking she is less of a human being than they are. I could go on and on...

I have a Lesbian Best Friend. She is kind, loving, hyper-intelligent, in love, revolutionary, inspirational, strong, hysterical, and amazing. She deserves the same amount of respect that you do. Treat her as you would want to be treated. Embrace her as a fellow human being.
Let's stop the bullshit.