Subject: Jesse Helms country

 

 

Thursday Oct 19� Nags Head NC - Raleigh - Chapel Hill, NC

 

Between the Outer Banks and the mainland is Roanoke Island, where I stopped� to see history stuff --� you know, the first English settlers in America, whatever happend to Virginia Dare?, double crossing the friendly Indians, all that stuff.� It mostly stars Sir Walter Raleigh around here, but our very own Sir Francis Drake gets into the act to bust up a few natives at some point.

 

I got a score off my Screw 32 tee shirt today!� As I was leaving the Elizabethan Gardens (English garden tourist attraction on Roanoke), I hear behind me a hesitant "excuse me sir, but did you see that group?"� The clean cut blond watering the garden in her official Elizabethan Garden polo shirt had put up the band at her place a few years ago when she lived in Greensboro, so we talked punk bands and this and that for a while.� It was a nice interlude from motel clerks and trading quips with retirees.

 

After that, I drove through more swamps for 40 miles or so.� Driving through a swamp is strangely exciting to me.� They are so mysterious.� I would (in theory) love to stop the truck and just go tromping off into the depths of nit, but I know in fact it would be buggy and unpleasant.� This swamp is called the Alligator River, and it seemed like there was a snapping turtle or three on every log in the swamp for about 5 or six miles.� Gosh I love turtles!

 

I stopped at the Railroad and Civil War Museum in the town of Plymouth (pronounced "Plummah").� I got the fully battle story from the windy old gent at the desk there who walked me through the exhibits with a running narration.� There was a big land and water battle in 1864, the last major battle the South won, complete with a clever rebel ironclad (called the CSS Ram) in the Ablemarle River that sunk every Yankee boat in sight.

 

The rest of the drive to Chapel Hill was uneventful, except for a really yucky rush hour traffic jam on the Raleigh beltway.� If I had to do that every day I'd shoot myself.� Raleigh is growing like crazy, the indicators are everywhere -- freeway construction, new malls, TRAFFIC!� It was rude traffic too, with people cutting in, driving along the shoulder to merge farther up the line -- very bad form.

 

My buddy Mike later told me of a suburb of Raleigh called Cary, that used to be a modest bedroom community when he moved here a decade ago and is now the sixth largest city in the state.� He says the locals claim that "Cary" is an acronym for Containment Area for Relocated Yankees :).

 

 

Friday, Saturday, Sunday Oct 20-22� hangin' in Chapel Hill

 

This will probably be the last of my 'guesting' for this trip.� This bit of guesting is also why I took the particular route I did, swinging all the way down here.� After my intermittently successful attempts to enjoy the Northeast, I am really looking forward to chillin in a real house with friends.

 

I'm visiting my friend Ekim.� His real name is Michael, and Mike spelled backwards is Ekim, which is just the kind of dorky thing (hyperactive) eight year olds get off on (John spelled backwards is Nhoj, which isn't nearly as fun :)

 

I think of him as a high school buddy, but we were Cub Scout buddies before that, and in fact he was living seven houses down the street when I moved to Louisville Ky at age 5!

 

He and his wife Carol and their son Patrick live in a pleasant wooded subdivision in Chapel Hill, which along with Durham and Raleigh create a little island of enlightenment in a vast area of Jesse Helms electin' rednecks.�

 

I devote Friday to getting the oil changed on my truck and cruising around the campus of UNC and the town.� Saturday we just kind of hang, go downtown (which the same as going to the UNC campus), throw a little Frisbee with the kid, and gawk at the football crazies (UNC is playing Clemson at home, so the whole world is either powder blue or bright orange and has a cup of beer welded to its hand).� Sunday we watch Patrick's soccer game and hang some more.� Very nice.�

 

We always laugh a lot when we get together.� His folks are also Indiana hicks, but whereas my people tend to be stoic, stolid, taciturn hicks, his his people tend to be story-tellin, loud and lewd, maybe a teeny bit racist and homophobic but absolutely hilarious.

 

As just one pallid example of the kind of country wit come away with after a few days with Ekim:� The last time his now-deceased Dad visited, they went to the local Whole Foods correlate and his dad was in the produce going "whew! the prices are higher'n a cat's ass around here!".� Most of these little zingers offend somebody, so this one is a good choice to relate to a large group since it only offends another species. :)

 

 

Monday Oct 23� Chapel Hill NC - Winston-Salem - Linville Falls NC

 

If it's Monday it must be time for me to say goodbye and hit the road again.� It's hard to leave their comfy place, but I do.

 

I-40 is extremely crowded.� Lots of road widening and shopping center construction -- yuck!�

 

Hungry again.� I want badly to not cave in and go to Wendy's, I want to find more gen-u-ine Carolina bbq.� I get off the freeway at two different places to find a place and don't.� I leave the freeway in favor of US 421, which eventually narrows down to a two lane road.� There is a dusty little "snack bar" that is pretty sorry looking, but has lots of cars and trucks around it, so I give it a whirl.� It's definitely the farmer's favorite (although now that I think of it, most of most of thse big guys were probably working on the road construction).� I get a chopped bbq plate with cole slaw and mashed potatoes for .75, coffee and tax makes .50!� It was darned good and filling.

 

Eventually I'm out of the Piedmont, as central NC is called, and into the Blue Ridge Mountains.� The lower elevations are "prime" leaf-wise.� I head on up the hill to join the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is a really cool thing.�

 

The BRP is a 1930's WPA project.� It's a beautifully landscaped two lane road that starts in the Shenandoahs in Virginia and follows the ridge of the Appalachians all the way to Georgia.� Speed limit 45, with frequent pullovers and lookouts, and all fences, bridges, and buildings built with tender loving care by the unemployed of the Great Depression from local fieldstones that give everything a really classy look.�

 

I cruise about 30 miles and stop for the night at a US Park Service campground at a place called Linville Falls.� I hike to the multiple overlooks of the falls this evening, and plan to take the hike to the foot of the falls tomorrow.

 

This campground is serious RV heaven.� There are maybe two tents here, and about 25 RVs.� Some of the people are sitting outside around their campfires, but about a third of them are sitting inside their vehicles doing whatever they do by the electric lights of their vehicles.

 

There's a great radio station out of Asheville 88.7, WNCW, so I am burning a little bit of car battery to listen to it as I sit here and type in the camper shell.� Sort like a really small RV!� :)� They are doing a special on King Crimson on WNCW which is pretty cool.

 

 

Tuesday Oct 24� Linville Falls NC - Asheville NC

 

I do indeed do the morning hike, and I'm a little lightheaded afterwards from taking a two mile walk before my morning coffee!

 

So I eat, dawdle my way down the BRP, take a bunch of dorky "pretty leaves" pictures.� Great views, Mineral Museum, Mt Mitchell - tallest peak in the Appalachians (6992 feet), Ashville.

 

Oh yeah, this is a good one:

 

� "Those liberals, those trial lawyers, and those union bosses are

�� trying to destroy our way of life"

 

this is, I swear, an exact quote from a radio ad where Jesse Helms is exhorting the good racist rednecks of NC to vote for some other racist redneck.� I swear, I couldn't make up something that good if I tried!

 

Ever since yesterday afternoon when I heard the concert announced on WNCW, it has been looking more and more like it will be my fate to see Eliot Smith in Asheville tonight.� First was the luck of simply hearing about it.� Then I asked my breakfast waitress if she knew where he would play, and she did, and showed me about where the place is on my Tourbook map of Asheville.� She also said downtown Asheville is a pretty hip little place.

 

So I get to Asheville, and I find a kind of scary looking motel right next to Asheville's sorry little downtown freeway.� The place has absolutely nothing to recommend it except that it's about two blocks from the Music Zone.

 

So I register, hang in the room for a while then head out on foot to see what Asheville is about.� There are many beautiful old buildings in various stages of decay or renovation in the downtown.� Eventually I start looking for the music venue.� I had smoked just the tiniest bit of dope before I set out, and somehow the act of asking for directions a couple of times boggles me enough that I managed to get screamingly lost in this itty bitty downtown.� Two different people told me the name of the place, and both times I managed to forget the name two blocks later.� I tell you, adult ADD is a terrible thing!

 

Eventually I am able to focus well enough to follow directions and find the Music Zone and purchase my ticket ( :).�

 

I then go looking for dinner, and find just the place I was visualizing -- beer and decent food on outdoor patio (it's about 65 degrees at 8PM).� I am finding Asheville to be very user friendly.

 

The show was really fun.� The first group was Grand Daddy, who said they were from central California, and sure enough they did a Pavement cover to prove it!�

 

It was certainly a much more intimate venue than I would have seen Eliot at in SF.� As some of you know, I have not been much of an Eliot fan -- I just don't see what the big deal is about him.� But so many people whose opinion I respect think he's just the bomb, and here he has more or less fallen in my lap, so I'm checking him out, and I really enjoyed him!� The band rocked and the songs were un-boring in person.

 

All in all, I think Asheville is a fine place, and one of the few places I have seen on this trip that I could actually see myself living in!