Blue Ridge Blog, part three

The remainder of our short stay in Highlands was predictably serene for the most part. There was that last night when I couldn’t get a WiFi signal at the parlor. And I even had some ice cream (vanilla with peanut butter and brownie mix-ins)!

The cottage we stayed in was part of a boarding house that was built in 1885. The tiny bathroom Abe and I used had a clawfoot tub. Don’t get too impressed. You know those short demo beds they use in stores to show off linens? This had to be a demo tub. I kid you not: the base of the tub could not be more than three feet long. It’s like bathing in a bucket. I suppose I can call it quaint.

A multimillionaire has discovered Highlands and is buying it up lot by lot, rebuilding the town—for fellow millionaires. All the charming old structures are disappearing, being replaced by pretty stone and wood buildings for which you must don Prada in order to enter. It’s turning into Vail. Before the old Highlands disappears, let me show you around.

Downtown Highlands

Old Edwards Inn

Flower photography inspired by Greg, Joe, and Jeepguy. Now, who can name these flowers?

Pretty purple things with a swallowtail butterfly

Shastas? Purple pansies? Yellow marigolds

Pretty red things

Day lilies?

Main Street walkway

Behind our cottage

This new house on the lake holds two households. Price: over two million dollars each.

East of town is a stone bluff called Sunset Rock, rising 300 feet straight up from the plateau on which Highlands sits. It is a very popular spot for people of all ages for overlooking the town, watching the sun set behind the peaks, and stargazing.

Highlands Plateau

View of Main Street and two of three traffic lights

Flowers and grasses on Sunset Rock

Sunset silhouette

It’s time to head back to real life, richer by one new friend. I hope to meet more of you in my travels.

Blue Ridge Blog, part two

Saturday was spent lazing around. Ben was glued to the TV and I and my parents read and visited the library. A perfectly slow day.

Sunday was considerably busier. Ben and I rose early to drive him down to his camp in Zirconia (population: 40? plus campers). It was an easy drive through the mountains, and the camp’s registration process was so quick that Ben was gone in a flash. Well. I was done earlier than I thought.

At the last minute before we left Indiana I had made very quick arrangements with Java to see if she could meet me in nearby Hendersonville, about an hour from where she lives. We exchanged emails and phone numbers and agreed to meet “somewhere” around noon. I had an hour or so to kill, so I looked—of course—for someplace that had free WiFi. The chain restaurants in the area did not have it, so I went into a hotel lobby and asked if I could use my computer while I waited for my friend to meet me. The man at the desk was quite gracious and said, “Sure.”

With a few phone calls for directions, Java found me in the hotel lobby. We sat to chat before leaving for lunch. We realized at 4:00 that we still hadn’t left the lobby. At 5:00, common sense and hunger intervened and we left for dinner.

I had a great time with Java. Who wouldn’t? She’s smart, funny and compassionate. She tells a great tale, too; she had me laughing the whole afternoon. We confirmed that we had a great deal in common, too. Each of us has hit that “second wind” period of our lives, looking for something more, some way to make a difference. We have found it in trying to gain equality for the gay community, each in our own way. I am lucky to have found a friend in her.

Our talk was circuituous, one topic branching to another and back again. We debriefed on the latest blog entries and our favorite bloggers (that’s you). It was so great to be able to talk face-to-face about events happening in the blogosphere.

I’d forgotten how time has a different role as we communicate online; it weaves in and out as bloggers post and comment. Bloggers are connected in a fluid fashion, responding when time and mood permits. I think that’s one of the unintentional illusions of which we must be aware: in real life, there are times when we are rushed or tense and still we must interact, unedited. We see this in our friends and know them as complex individuals. That complexity is compromised by the editing we do in presenting ourselves online. And I include myself, of course. You haven’t seen the deleted sentences that show I’m sarcastic or impatient or self-centered or judgemental or—well, you get the idea. At the same time, I can express myself here in a way I find quite difficult face-to-face, so a depth is present that might otherwise be hidden. But another blogger once commented, “If you know only my words, you do not yet know me.” Wise words for all of us.

After dinner I had to hurry to pick up Abe from the Asheville airport. He and I drove back to Highlands, and Java returned to her home in South Carolina. Busy day! But I had met another blogger friend. The two times I’ve managed to meet fellow bloggers have cemented in brief visits the friendships begun online. If you have the chance to get together with someone whose blog you’ve read and admired, I highly recommend it. Take it from this genuine introvert: risk reaching out and expand your circle of friends in the real world.

Blue Ridge Blog

It was time to take Ben to the whitewater kayaking camp in the foothills of North Carolina. He was ambivalent; he wanted to spend every minute with his friends, but he acquiesced. (Acquiesced. I would kill to go to this camp! Zen, Birdie, zen.)

He and I drove down to Knoxville for the night. Ben “claimed” the hotel room TV and I spent the evening with my online blogger friends. Nice night. We were heading for a stop with my parents at their rental house in Highlands, NC. They’ve been doing this every July for twenty years, inviting all of the kids to join them. It’s one of my favorite times of the year.

The next day we drove through Pigeon Forge, Tennessee before going through Smoky Mountain National Park. Pigeon Forge is a commercial tribute to the blue collar Christian; not being completely a part of that particular demographic, I felt like an outsider there. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but notice how happy everyone was to be there. They were having a good time.

Our family has had a tradition the past several years of hitting a go-kart track as we pass through Pigeon Forge. We tried a woodie—a wide wooden track that goes in spirals, curves, and hills—years ago and had a great time. But Abe, being the World’s Most Careful Man, decided that it was safer to go on the asphalt tracks and insisted we do that the past couple of years. *Yawn*

But Abe wasn’t here this time. At Ben’s suggestion, I called Abe and told him Ben was eying the slingshot ride that flings its victims into the air, screaming while strapped to a flimsy frame on large bungee cords. Abe practically begged me not to let him do that. So I said, “Well, then we’ll go go-karting instead.” It’s all about perspective.

He said, “Promise me you won’t go on a woodie.”

I said, “Let’s see. You’re there. I’m here. I’ll think about that and get back to you.”


We had a blast on a huge wooden track (above), made bumpy over the years by karts careening around the spirals and taking air at the top. Whoo-hoo! I was sore from holding the steering wheel steady as I took the downward spiral without spinning out. I managed to pass the only kart in front of me; but it would have been more fun to have a few more karts to wrangle with. Ben complained that he had a “slow kart,” but he admitted it was great anyway.


Ben drove our car up the mountain in the national park and I drove down. We stopped, as always, at the top of Newfound Gap for the view. Smoky mountains, indeed, layered in varying shades of blue-gray haze fading in the distance. The undergrowth in the park is mostly rhododendrens, in full flower right now. This is when I regret having no photography skills. The scenery was spectacular and I found it impossible to catch it adequately in a frame.


We pulled into Highlands, a tiny upscale town 4,000 ft. up, in time for dinner. The only place to pull in a WiFi signal in the evening is an ice cream parlor, so we went there for dessert while I checked in online with work and friends. I was forced to get chocolate ice cream with Butterfinger mix-ins in order to get online. I suffer for my Internet.