Asheville

For Halloween weekend, Bubbles and I went up to Asheville with Ellie and Caroline. We rented a little house in Weaverville and spent most of the weekend riding Ellie's Tesla in and out and all around. By "we" I mean Brett. We gals were happy to be chauffeured and Brett was delighted to tinker with all that is not inside of a Tesla. Have you been in one? There's nothing in there but a steering wheel and a screen mounted to the dashboard. It's oddly empty in there and somehow Brett still found settings and options to futz around with. He also found a humorous feature that lets out pooting sounds from different seats in the car. It's called "Fart Mode" but never mind all that. We drove the Blue Ridge Parkway and squealed and squirmed as we navigated trickier mountain roads. We all admired the scenery. Brett admired the car.

The night we arrived was the only warm evening so we sat on the porch up in the trees of our Air Bn'b. We had grey or rainy days during our visit and we think we missed the leaves by a week or two but that didn't bring down morale except on my part when I realized I wouldn't get to take colorful leaf pictures. We suited up and headed out for misty drives and soggy hikes. The best part of venturing off with friends is watching them interact in a foreign habitat. I've known Ellie for decades but I've never known Ellie in the role of "exploring a new place" nor do I read into her and Caroline's everyday interactions. You get to do that when you share a place for four days so my armchair psychiatrist ears we're taking in as much as possible and I came home with many a juicy thought on travel habits and relationships, both gay and regular.

We did a bit of hiking, spent a day wandering and eating in Asheville, and ended our trip with a sunny day and a much too expensive lunch on the piazza at the Grove Park Inn. At night we played cards and cooked strange rental-house suppers and tried to find scary movies to watch while we waited for our next meals. This endeavor came with many qualifications to meet. Not too scary. Not too stupid. Nothing made before Caroline's birth year - strange rule of Caroline's. And something else that I cannot remember because I don't like scary movies and was uninterested in watching them. I often took this time to nap or mull over my life choices but of the ones I did see ... just the stupidest. Not even scary. Just stupid. I banned the lot of them from choosing movies.

On halloween day, Ellie and Caroline walked around all day dressed as a baseball family. Brett and I thought that one of the perks of going to Asheville over Halloween weekend meant not having to come up with costumes. We received a "can't wait to show you our costumes" text from Ellie a week prior and were forced to come up with something on the fly. We did our best with what we had on hand though I did have to visit the women's section to find a turtleneck big enough for Brett.

Most of all things, it was so nice to get out of town for a few days with no real plans and even fewer responsibilities. Fun friends really make all the difference. We had heaps of fun and are already planning a repeat trip for the same time next year.