This is a picture of Joe flying through Arkansas...or Oklahoma..or Kansas. There comes a point in that part of the country where only the most discriminating and scientific eye can discern the difference between one vast, generally uninhabited tract of rural land and the next. I think there might even be urban legends about farmers falling asleep at the wheel, waking up hundred of miles away in a different town and only realizing it years later. The stuff out there is really that monotonous. We

took 81 down from PA to Asheville, SC where Joe has a few friends that we would stay with when we got there. Our little Ford escape was packed to the gills, to the point where the passenger seat rider had his feet up on a stack of CDs and a six-pack of energy drinks while the poor back-seat passenger was sandwiched between protruding pieces of luggage and a 30 lb. snack box that threatened often to fall off its tenuous perch, between the bags and the ceiling, at any moment onto their head.

However, somehow we made comfortable due, stopping often for the frequent bathroom needs of the well-hydrated and pregnant. The creamy orange sun slipped into her nightgown as we cut through the Appalachian mountains, a sight for which you should believe the hype. Having done a good bit of traveling over the course of which i have paid particular attention to mountains, i must say that each range very much has its own distinct 'personality', something that is better experienced than muddled with words. I would encourage spending a full day in the mountains for anyone feeling in any way overwhelmed by life. If you are receptive to it the mountains will restore you.

Asheville is a hip little pocket of North Carolina, home to Warren Wilson college (known for its progressive, ecologically-oriented education) as well as a thriving community of artists and other weirdos who have lots of artsy, weird restaurants, clothing stores, galleries, public performances and similar things in the town. Interestingly, its also just another old town in the south like many others, full of beautiful though often decrepit old victorian buildings and a very unsubtle racial/socioeconomic divide. Mixed yet with this also the kind of Appalachian culture, something very rugged and vaguely primal that shows through in the art scene in the area, much of which is predominated by a style whose trademark image is dirty brown overalls with workboots, lots of piercings and tattoos, usually a dog or two - maybe a mohawk.

Anyway, Asheville was what it was and we weren't there long enough to wax any longer on the subject. Before sunrise the next day we were off again with light music and coffee cups full, cutting out of NC into Tennessee...