This morning I'm in a supermarket Starbucks on the outskirts of Asheville, North Carolina, about to begin the Blue Ridge Parkway portion of my drive. And so a heads-up: from what I've been able to gather about the scenic little byway that wends through scenic little towns, this may be the last Internet connection I see for a while. I'll be on the Parkway for several days (I don't know exactly how many, or how far I'll get per day), and the idea is to stay at campgrounds along the way, so it's possible that the blog will be staticky at best for a good while. I'll check in when and as I can.
Yesterday was a betwixt-and-between day; I should know better than to let those into my schedule. My task was a simple one: get from Nashville to Asheville, explore Asheville, possibly start a little ways onto the Parkway, find a campground. It didn't quite go like that.
It was a weird feeling heading out from Nashville without a bed or even a town lined up for the night ahead: I haven't done that since the early days of my trip before crossing into Mexico. Still, I remembered that it was pretty easy to find campgrounds. It was a beautiful day with a cloudless blue sky; for the sake of efficiency I jumped on the highway, but even the Interstate threw in some glorious sweeping curves through the rising foothills of the Appalachians. When I got off on Route 25 through the National Forest and crossed into North Carolina the land got even prettier.
My first check came in the town of Hot Springs, NC, where I'd planned to stop at the spa and enjoy a mineral hot tub soak; apparently you can book those by the hour. But on a Memorial Day Sunday the parkinglot, and the tubs, were full. Oh, well. I drove on, but I'd been looking forward to the driving break, and unalleviated fatigue was catching up to me as I pulled into the charming town of Asheville and started nosing around for a place to get coffee and dinner.
Asheville really was a charming-looking town: cute, collegiate, walkable, with scenic views and attractive restaurants at every turn. To make a long story short, I never got out of my car. I spent 45 minutes driving around that town looking for parking, with no luck. Even the pay garages were full. On one street, I found a garage on my left with a digital counter showing five open spaces, and as I waited to turn, all five cars in the oncoming lane turned and went into the garage.
Achey, spacy, hungry, angry, and in general suffering a mood that wouldn't be reported in the blog if future Internet connections were assured to overwrite it with forthcoming better ones, I delivered a decisive and not-so-fond farewell to Asheville and jumped on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
By now it was unfairly close to 6:00 pm (I'd lost an hour crossing a time line), the sun was low, and the nearest campground North per my map was a long distance. There was a closer one South, but right at hand was a Visitor Center, and I pulled in there. In the last few minutes before it closed I called the Southern campground and asked if they had an open tent space; the woman said they had exactly one, but she couldn't reserve it, it was first come first serve.
At that point I gave up and found a local Motel 6. It was $80, the most expensive one of my trip, and after a swim in the pool my door card didn't work, and while other Motel 6's had free wi-fi this one charged for it, which I declined to do. I had a heavy roadside dinner at the Waffle House across the street, learned from a phone message that Walter Becker had died, and went to bed.
It was that kind of a day.
But during my brief dash on the Blue Ridge Parkway, it looked gorgeous. Today I'm off to try it for real. And if you don't hear from me, assume I had a wonderful day!
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