Will It Ever Stop Raining?
Thursday, April 27th, 2006It’s 8:30 Thursday morning, and it’s been raining almost non-stop for the last 24 hours, with no signs of letting up. We’re at a campground in Jordan Lake State Recreation Area just south of Chapel Hill, NC. I couldn’t sleep or just lie inside the warm, dry tent anymore, so I got up, let Jake out (but didn’t stay out with me – he obviously prefers the warm, dry tent right now), and boiled water for some tea.
We left Asheville, NC yesterday morning, and since it kept raining, we kept driving. But I didn’t want to drive past Chapel Hill without checking it out. Chapel Hill is known for its indie (independent) music scene, and several bands I like come from the Chapel Hill area (e.g. Superchunk, Whiskeytown, Ben Folds, and others). There were no campgrounds close to the Durham/Raleigh/Chapel Hill area listed in “Don Wright’s Book of Free and Cheap Campgrounds,” so we had to punt – that is, look at the map for green shaded areas or little green tree icons with little green tent icons, drive toward the area and watch for signs; it almost always works.
So, we found the above-mentioned Recreation Area, the campground looks really nice, and it’s only $15 a night. The problem is, it’s still raining pretty hard. But, this is where we want to be, so we don our rain jackets and begin to set up our kitchen fly (tarp). We’ve become pretty good at selecting sites that will accommodate a fly (strategically placed trees, mostly) and, since, it’s early in the season, we generally have our pick of sites.
OK, the tent will go there; there’s the fire ring; the picnic table is moveable; so we’ll put the tarp between these two trees, and we have tie-offs to these other trees. The tarp is almost set up, and the park worker comes by to collect our fees. He asks if we’re sure we want to camp here. Wondering the same thing ourselves, we tell him yes. In fact, since we still want to spend some time in the area, we tell him we’d like to stay two nights! He tells us that a campsite is normally $15 a night, but because of the crummy weather, he’ll give us a deal and only charge us $10 a night – SWEET! So, we tighten the last tie-offs for the fly and go to move the picnic table so that it’s under the fly. We move it about a foot, and it won’t go any further. AAAGH!! Leaves, pine needles and crushed rock had been disguising a chain that’s keeping the table in its current location. OK, go to Plan B on the fly. We’ll put it between these two trees and pitch one side of the tarp at a real steep angle, tying off one corner using a tent stake. Cool, it works!
We get the tent set up with little difficulty (other than the steady rain). We get some water going on the stove for hot chocolate, heat up some left over pasta from the other day and add some stuffing that I had in the food tote. (Yea, I know, a lot of carbs, but just what we needed for a cold rainy day; it tasted excellent!)
Wow, it’s STILL raining! …and Dan’s still in the tent. OK, I’ll tell you about Asheville; but, first, more hot tea to keep my hands warm. 🙂
Since we left Indianapolis and before Asheville, we had been doing really well with making our own meals: cereal, oatmeal or pancakes for breakfast; easy sandwiches or cheese and crackers with carrots and celery or fruit for lunch; and hot meals at the campsite for supper. But, Dan and I had been talking about wanting to also “hang out” with the locals, and one of the best ways to do this is by going to coffee shops, restaurants and bars. You can look at a map, with its multitude of symbols that can give you a good idea of the area. And, you can drive through an area to see an area’s architecture, layout, vegetation, etc. But, to really get a feel for an area, you need to walk its streets and visit the places where the locals hangout and talk to them. So, this was in the back of our minds as we approached Asheville.
I had found a free campground east of Asheville that we were going to check out. But, we wanted to check for Wi-Fi hotspots in town first. My Ji-Wire software listed several coffee shops in Asheville, so we looked for the addresses (streets) on our map. Here’s one in East Asheville; let’s see if we can find it. We found the street and drove down it, watching the addresses on the buildings count up, closer to the one we were looking for. We were looking for The Relaxed Reader. Oh, darn, it should have been on that block on the right. OK, we’ll go around the block and look for it again. What does that sign say? I think it says “Outspoken;” maybe that’s it. OK, I’ll park. As we’re getting out of the truck, Dan notices rainbow colors in the sign and a pink triangle in the middle of the “O.” Cool – our people!
So, we order some beverages, connect to the internet, check email and post a couple blog entries. It was hot on this day (near 80), so we each took turns staying with Jake outside. A woman who had helped get our beverages and lunch came outside to have a smoke when I was out with Jake. I asked if she owned the coffee shop, and she did. I asked her about the GLBT community in Asheville, if there was a “gayborhood”, and about other places the community hangs out. She said there is a pretty good concentration of GLBT folk near her shop in West Asheville, but that there is no single area that is primarily GLBT, like “Boys Town” in Chicago. She directed us to the handful of GLBT bars in town. After talking with her, I suggested to Dan that we see if we could find a campground closer to town, so we could come back into town later in the day. And, we found one about 20 minutes south of town: Lake Powhatan State Recreation Area.
We set up camp, went back into town, had a drink at both O Henry’s and Smokey’s. We met and talked to a young man at O Henry’s who was from New Orleans and was displaced to the Asheville area after Hurricane Katrina. After Smokey’s, we got a sandwich – and I had a local brew – at the Mellow Mushroom in downtown Asheville.
The next morning, just I was going to try to make some breakfast, it started raining, has barely stopped since then, and is still raining as we sit here in McAlister’s Deli across from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus.
Tim
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