Mark knows a gal named Cindy who used to work for TLA but whose husband got moved back to a job in Illinois, so they left California and moved back into their Tennessee house, and he got an apartment or something up in Illinois. Sounds like a tough commute, but they really love their Tennessee property, which they had bought just before he got moved to California (he gets moved around a lot). They have two horses and ten acres for them to run on. We were driving right by on our way to Asheville, so she invited us to have lunch with her and ride on Bucky, their gentler horse (the other is an ex-racehorse). I'm allergic to horses, so I passed on riding Bucky, but Mark wanted to, and so did Katie. I was excited for Katie to get to do this.
Bucky is a buckskin colored five-year-old that was bought for Cindy's son to ride, because of the horse's nice disposition. Cindy had a hard time getting the bit into Bucky's mouth, and she told me that she'd only had Bucky for a year--they were new to owning horses. She rode him a little bit before giving him over to Mark. Bucky was irritated by a neighbor's dog on the ride, so Cindy tied up the dog before handing the reins to Mark. Then she explained how Mark should ride him, since Bucky is used to riding English, and Mark (who hasn't been on a horse since he was young) rides Western style. I was starting to wonder if something bad wasn't about to happen. But Mark had a nice little ride, Bucky accepted him and lowered his head and relaxed. Here are pictures:
So Cindy swung Katie up onto Bucky, and they got her little stirrups adjusted and off they went.
I guess they rode about two minutes, out into the pasture, when something spooked Bucky. It wasn't the dogs, they were tied up. We never knew what it was, but he started turning counter-clockwise, and Katie and Mark slid right off of him. Jesus! Bucky is a tall horse and if Mark landed on Katie's arm or something, the whole way across the field I was thinking, "okay, now we're going to the hospital." They were so far away that I couldn't tell if anyone was hurt, but they were fine. Walking back, Mark said he wouldn't mind getting back up on Bucky if Katie wanted to again. She didn't. I was fine with that!
Here is our spot at the East Asheville KOA, just off Hwy 40.
Asheville is on our list of places we could see ourselves living, along with Portland, Oregon. The town itself is about 70,000, but outside city limits there are another 140,000, so it's a good-size town, a city I guess. But it feels like a town: the downtown area buildings are circa 1900s - 1930s, and there are streets and streets of them, interesting shops and yummy local restaurants. It's located in the Smokey Mtns right along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and has a very college-town feel. I guess there are colleges here, someone said five of them. Here is their 1926 "mall" (I forget the name of the building), which had pretty spiral staircases and old-timey phone booths:
We ate lunch at the Early Girl Restaurant, which had excellent vegetarian food but also meat too. I had a great tofu scramble; Katie had a pancake and bacon, and Mark had a bean burger, after helping Katie practice writing her name:
We chatted with the owner of a toy store downtown, who had moved here from Brooklyn, after travelling the country for years in his work. He loves it here and talked to us about the charter schools and the cool climate (they only get a few inches of snow, but summers are cool, highs in the 80s). After walking around, we drove around looking at the old Victorian homes, and then I pored over real estate listings and started getting all excited about how reasonable the prices are. The next day (Sunday), Mark worked and Katie and I went to the Folk Art Center along the Blue Ridge Parkway (a beautiful road, I'll write about it in a minute) and then spent the afternoon at the children's museum while a very peaceful peace rally took place nearby.
A woman took this one of me and Katie at the folk art center. They were selling high end art made by Appalachian artists; baby quilts for $450... no garage sale deals here, but lots of beautiful things to see.
The Blue Ridge Parkway is a pretty road constructed starting in the 1930s, to help connect the people here to the rest of the world. This area had been settled in the early 1800s, but by the late 1800s, the soil was depleted for farming, the area was overpopulated for what it could produce, and no new money was coming in (people were moving West instead). Poverty was the norm, and by the 1920s, there were 13 relief organizations trying to help the starving, so someone lobbied for a road, and it was granted. The Blue Ridge Parkway was the first highway, started in the 1930s, using mason immigrants to do the pretty stone bridges and many tunnels. Work stopped during WWII, and the road wasn't finished until 1984, but much of it was finished by the 1950s. Poverty clung in Appalachia for a long time, but things are better now, and Asheville is now the priciest town (for real estate) in North Carolina. But by California prices, this place is a steal. Up for sale is a Victorian mansion (5 or 6 bedrooms, wraparound porches, turrets, it could become a B&B) for under $600,000.
well, we're leaving Asheville today, because we've got to get all the way to D.C. by the 26th, and we want to see Williamsburg, Virginia first. So today we drive about 230 miles to the Durham area of NC, to a state park there, and then on Wednesday we drive to Williamsburg. I'll be excited to see it again--it's been probably 25 years since I've been there.