Asheville, North Carolina

April 3-8, 2025

I arrived in Asheville on a Thursday afternoon, staying there for five days. Asheville is an interesting city in the mountains of Western North Carolina with a population of around 95,000. I stayed in an apartment there and had a great time. It was such a fun, energizing experience.

This was a change from my normal routine of staying in campgrounds. The apartment was about one mile from downtown and a mile and a half from the River Arts District (RAD). I parked the van and used walking as my mode of transportation for the five days, with one exception. On Sunday morning, I drove up to Marshall to a combination coffee shop-bike shop, called On Your Bike, that also serves as a community gathering place. Marshall is about twenty miles north of Asheville.

The apartment was absolutely wonderful, clean and comfortable, in a great location in the Montford Historic District. There is a unique blend of homes in the area. I explored the neighborhoods by taking walks and riding my bike along tree covered streets with a variety of birds chirping much of the time.

I had several reasons to visit and experience Asheville: bike riding, art galleries, and the flood of 2024 are three of them. There would also be a gathering downtown on Saturday, a protest and demonstration to raise voices against the unlawful actions taking place in our country and save democracy. And I wanted to obtain a feel for the area as a possible place to spend several months as part of a transition from being on the road, more or less full time, to where I “settle” for a while. And I would meet up with a friend from Danbury, Bev, whom I had not seen for years, as in decades.

On Friday I walked down to The River Arts District. First, I visited The Radical, a hotel-restaurant with a rooftop bar overlooking the French Broad River and the RAD. I talked with Hannah, who was working at the front desk. She told me about the floodwater (French Broad River, Hurricane Helene, September 2024) reaching the second floor of the five story building.

I went up to the rooftop and surveyed the scene. Looking south, there were buildings in line with The Radical. The first was Phil Mechanic Studio. The next building is Wedge Studios. Each of these buildings is home to several studios and galleries. To the west of these buildings was some open space with a food truck with picnic tables, a narrow parking lot, some railroad tracks, and some more open space where I think there might have been other buildings that were washed away or taken down and removed after the flood. Adjacently west to that open space runs Riverside Drive, then a bike path (The Wilma Dykeman Greenway), then the river. It is about three football field in length from the river to the buildings. It is hard to imagine or visualize the amount of water that would be needed to reach as high as it did so far from the river.

I visited two art galleries, the Phil Mechanic Studio and the Mark Bettis Gallery in the Wedge Studios building. They were very interesting places, inspirational. There is such a variety of art, drawings, paintings, sculptures in wood and metal, photography, jewelry, and more. There is such a high level of creative energies at work.

There was a woman working at the Bettis Gallery. She said hi and waved as I entered. I walked around some admiring some of the art, working my way back towards the desk and counter behind which she was sitting.

I commented about the diversity of art in the gallery as well as the overall size of the district. She responded there used to be so much more. She talked about the flood and how high the water had come on this building. It did not reach the floor we were on, but the floor below us had been completely flooded. She was friendly, spoke of the flood partly in sadness, but also with enthusiasm for the recovery.

As we talked, she walked me over to a window where she could point out how high the water rose on a green awning on the lower floor. She headed back to her desk, and I walked around some more, taking in the paintings. As I approached the door, I saw she was talking on the phone, looking at me. We smiled and waved.

Leaving there, I walked down the road and took some stairs that led to the ground level and entrances to those flooded out businesses, some of which had reopened. There was a record shop with vinyl and other older physical music media, a bar, and a food truck called The Outpost. It was Friday afternoon and there were a lot of people there. There were several picnic tables and other spots for people to stand, sit, and mingle. The bar seemed quite busy as evidenced by the number of people with pictures of beer on the tables. It was somewhat of a party, seemed like a joyous environment.

However, there were several galleries damaged by the flood ...

I talked with two guys who had commented on my Death Valley T-shirt. It turns out, they had gone to Death Valley in the past to ride their bikes. They knew all about Towne Pass, Dante’s View, and Badwater. They suggested I head to Panamint Springs next time I am there, saying it was worth the trip.

I had a sandwich, a “Tiger Chicken Sammie” at The Outpost food truck. It was a fried chicken breast with a spicy sauce, absolutely delicious, the tiger sauce having a nice kick but not overwhelming. The guys asked if I wanted a beer, but I said no thanks, I’m walking. I had a bottle of water with me.

On my way back to the apartment, I detoured my way into downtown. I thought it would be a quick survey. I was wrong. The downtown area has a lot taking place. The first indication was a drum circle in a little park on Pack Square. I could hear it a couple blocks away.

Upon reaching the drum circle, before crossing the street to see it, I headed into the Asheville Gallery of Art. I talked with a woman there, she was standing just inside the entrance, and she had a name tag on, Annie. She explained to me they were having a celebration of the artist of the month, featuring the works of a local artist on the first Friday of each month. They had cheese and crackers, fruit and wine, smiles and laughter. It was a fun event.

Next, the Drum Circle. It was actually a Drum Arc, as the drummers were either sitting or standing in an area that approximated a geometric semi-circle. It was like a small amphitheater with several rows of seating. There were about thirty drummers, teens to gray hairs, a few tambourines, and some dancers, including adults and children. The music was flying! “I want a drum!” I said to myself. I watched it for about thirty minutes. It was high energy. It’s my understanding this happens every Friday night.

Heading back to my apartment, I was walking up Haywood Street, near Asheville Library, when a woman walked out of a building about twenty yards ahead of me. She had bright mustard colored pants and a white top. Longish, wavy, gray hair. I was walking faster than her, and soon I was about to pass her. I glanced at her and said hello as we reached side by side. Actually, I said “Hi … Karen.”

Because she was wearing a name tag. She said hi and smiled, telling me how embarrassing it was to be caught in public while wearing a name tag. “Nothing to be embarrassed about,” I said.

She had been at a conference. “What kind?” I asked. She said it was a therapist conference. “What kind? What kind of therapy do you do?” I asked. “Drama,” she said. “The multiple roles each person has in their life. Not multiple personalities, but multiple aspects of themselves.”

We walked together talked for a few blocks. She is from Colorado, and we talked about Colorado some, including my living in Boulder for seven years. We talked briefly about the political environment, cost of housing, nature and the mountains, and the gathering to take place Saturday on Pack Square. We parted ways at the corner of Haywood and Montford.

On Saturday, I did a bike twenty mile ride utilizing the trails adjacent to the French Broad River. Google Maps had indicated that the trails were closed, but they were open, and there were plenty of people using them.

Later, I headed out, walking to Pack Square for the demonstration. I met another woman walking, and she was headed to Pack Square, too. She had moved to Asheville about four years earlier as a retiree. She had been a professor at several universities, some in the northeast, some southeast. Her area was literature, and most recently she taught writing at these colleges.

When I learn of people as writers, I usually find it interesting. Writing is discovery. There’s so much to learn through writing. I used writing as a framework for my thesis in my graduate degrees. encouraging the use of Writing Across the Curriculum in my education degree and writing as a tool for Information Literacy for my library degree.

We parted ways after arriving at the demonstration, which was in full swing with speakers and music. There was a huge crowd. I am not good at estimating crowd size, but the Asheville Citizen-Times estimated it to be around 7,500 people. There were people and signs everywhere. I walked around the park, mingling with people and taking photos. It was difficult to hear the speakers, but it was easy to hear and understand the crowd’s disagreement and anger with the new administration and its law-breaking policies and actions.

After it was over, I went to Asheville Library. There is a used bookstore as part of it. I picked up four titles for four dollars! Then I headed back to the apartment, back on Haywood Street again.

I stopped at a busy four way intersection waiting for the “Don’t Walk” light to change to “Walk.” I looked over to the corner to my right. I could not believe it, but there was Karen, standing on the corner, waiting as well. I shouted to her, and she looked back in surprise. After the lights changed, I crossed over and we talked some more, saying wow, what are the chances of this meeting up again? She was on break from the morning sessions of the conference.

On Saturday afternoon I rode my bike about three miles along some of Asheville’s nice, bike friendly (lots of marked bike lanes) streets, to meet Bev at Jones Park Playground. She was taking care of her grandson.

Bev and I had met through my work at the Sesame Seed Restaurant in Danbury. Bev’s uncle Dimitri (Dee) owned the Seed. (FYI, employees were humorously known as Seedlings.) I was a waiter there 1979-1986, and Bev came in occasionally. I recalled meeting her husband, Rob, on a Saturday morning. I don’t remember the exact details, but they were visiting Danbury I think, and they had already moved to North Carolina or were about to move there.

Dee told me a few years ago that Bev was a college librarian in Asheville. At the time, I figured she worked at UNC-Asheville. But no, she worked at Mars Hill University, about twenty miles north of Asheville, eventually becoming the library director there for several years before her retirement.

Bev and Rob were both librarians, meeting at Columbia University in NYC during their studies there. They moved to Asheville when Rob landed a job in this area. He worked in The Buncombe Country system, having an upper administrative role there for many years.  After that, he worked with the Madison County Library system, including the design of the interior of Marshall Library. He was a prominent local historian, writing a column, “Visiting the Past,” in the Asheville Citizen-Times for many years and authoring six books about Appalachian history. Rob passed away in 2019. 

We first discussed “When was the last time we saw each other?” We determined we probably had not seen each other since sometime in the 1980s.

We spent the next two hours talking about a variety of things. We started out with the question, “How did you come to be a librarian?” I asked her first, and we eventually each gave a lengthy description of how it came to be. Her path was much more straightforward than mine. She wanted to become a librarian shortly after high school, in early years of college. I became a librarian after working in restaurants for about thirty years, having never thought about it before 2004.

Saturday night I took a walk downtown to see what’s what. It was a very busy place with a lot of people walking the streets and filling restaurants and bars.

On Sunday morning, I planned to drive to REI, about eight miles south of downtown, to have them do a repair on my bike. Coincidently, Bev had sent me a video that morning that she had found just the day before about a bike shop in Marshall, about twenty miles north of Asheville. The shop, called On Your Bike, had recently reopened after being closed due to the flood. The flood basically destroyed the entire downtown area of Marshall. The video was featured on a CBS Saturday Morning show. Instead of REI, I called On Your Bike and asked if they could look at my bike.

 The owner, Adam, explained he had seven repair jobs and if I could bring it in on Wednesday that would be better. I told him I traveling with a van, visiting Asheville for a few days, leaving on Tuesday. He said bring it in and he’d see what he could do. I arrived there around 9AM. He was remarkably helpful and welcoming. I had a Cinnamon Crunch muffin and some tea while he worked on my bike. The muffin, homemade, was fantastic. I bought another one to take home.

There were rows of books on shelves along the bottom of the windows. I figured it was part coffee shop, part bike shop, and part used bookshop. As I was getting my tea, I told Maddie I wanted to buy one of the books and asked how much they were. She told me they were not for sale. I was surprised, wondering, what … I probably looked startled.

Then she told me they were free. They like to encourage people to read, to share, and that it was good for the community. Isn’t that fantastic?

Adam did the repair and explained what the problem was. There was a nut in the headset that was only tightened about 20% of how tight it should be. (He told me in Nm. What’s that? A newton-meter is a measure of force. Yes, in physics. It was supposed to be around 9Nm, and it was around 2Nm. He also said there were some spacers in the headset that are normally built of metal or carbon fiber, but these were plastic that had deteriorated.

After leaving the shop, I walked around town. It was disquieting. There was evidence of extreme destruction in so many places. Shells of buildings. But there were signs of progress in the recovery. Some other businesses appeared to be open, though closed on Sunday. Other buildings had construction going on that implies progress in revival.

Although the buildings were shells, based on the lively conversation and interactions at On Your Bike, the people are not. They seemed fully alive.

It was supposed to rain much of the day Sunday, but it didn’t. I took a walk around the downtown area once again, bringing my umbrella, but I did not need it. There was a great deal going on, shops, shops, and more shops, many unique. There are restaurants of a variety of cultures. American of course, but also varieties of Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Italian, French, Mexican, etc. In the space of an hour, I walked past four places with Indian Cuisine. I had a huge burrito at Mamacita’s on Biltmore Avenue. I ate half, and on my walk “home” I gave the other half to a homeless guy. There seems to be significant homelessness in Asheville.

There are a lot of art galleries in town, too. I stopped in one, and learned that it was another gallery involving Mark Bettis, the artist with the studio in The Wedge. It seems since the flood there have been several galleries that have opened downtown or that have integrated the work of artists who have lost their space due to the flood. Other artists welcomed them in a compassionate, community minded manner.

It rained most of the night Sunday into Monday morning, but it stopped just in time for me. I was going to walk to meet Bev for breakfast at Five Points Restaurant. It was only a mile walk. We had a basic breakfast of eggs and home fries and talked away for about ninety minutes about a number of things, much of it about Danbury, The Sesame Seed, and family. One side note, our Mom’s were classmates at Danbury High School, Class of 1947. I knew her Mom, too, as she took care of the accounting for Dee at the Seed. In fact, many of Dee’s siblings were involved in some way with The Seed. And once there, you become like extended family members. Fun times.

Monday afternoon, I did a thirty-five mile ride utilizing the bike trail again. It felt fantastic. I had planned to ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway while here, as it passed right through Asheville, but I opted out for two reasons. One is that most of it was closed locally. North of Asheville for a long way, it is closed. South of Asheville it is open for about twelve miles, but it was simply more convenient to ride the bike path here.

On Tuesday morning, after leaving the apartment, I parked at the River Arts District and walked on the bike path for about half hour, then visited some more galleries in Wedge Studios. There was one gallery, next to the Mark Bettis one, that featured several artists, each with a little studio in which they created and displayed their work. I talked with two of the artists about their work, Naomi Diamond Rodgers and Colleen Lineberry. It was remarkably interesting and energizing to hear them talk passionately about their work and the processes they go through in creating it.

Naomi talked to me about the effects of different lighting on her work. She did so in a very energetic manner. She showed me what she meant by taking a painting off the wall, walking into a hallway to see it in different light, and then going outside into bright sunlight. She did this with three different paintings. The changes were dramatic. The materials she uses, alcohol based inks play a role in this, impart a subtle, layered effect to the paintings. It is apparent in some lighting, not in others. She has extensive experience in a variety of other art forms including sculptures, glass, wall hangings, oil based and acrylic paintings, and mixed media.

Colleen’s work caught my eye for two reasons. The first was its abstract nature simply appealed to me. The second was that she mentioned Goosenecks in a narrative she had put on the wall related to some works. Goosenecks is a section along the San Juan River in northern Utah. I have seen them a few times. The river meanders its way dramatically, and one has a fantastic view of it these red rock formations from Goosenecks State Park and Muley Point, two places I have camped. She did a multi-day raft trip there years ago that inspired some of her work. Nature, the landscapes, and the mood they create play a role in her paintings. She said her work is an expression of spirit.