On beer, Stephen King and minnows

This past weekend Ian and I took what’s becoming my annual birthday trip to Asheville, N.C. First off, let this be known: So far, Asheville is my favorite city out of all the cities I have ever visited. Its downtown area is so vivid and walkable, with all of these great bars and shops and restaurants, but there are so many great places to go outside of the city, too. So much hiking and mountains and waterfalls. The whole place just seems so alive, and I always feel so relaxed and happy when I’m there.

Also: You can not shower for a week, be a white person with dreads, a dude in a skirt, etc., and they will not judge you there. In fact, it seems weirdos are embraced. No wonder I love it so much.

Some highlights from our trip:

• Beer: Hands down, Asheville has got the best local breweries. We drank so much I can’t even remember all of the new beers I tasted. And honestly, it’s not because I was so wasted. Except for that one day we started drinking at 2 p.m. and didn’t stop until almost midnight, I was pretty lucid.
• Non-asshat celebrity sighting: In our hotel, our room was on the seventh floor. One day when we were going out, it came down from the top, and when it opened, Stephen King was on the elevator alone. Ian and I looked at him, and then each other, but didn’t say anything. He started bitching about the slowness of the elevators (they were really, really slow), and we agreed with him. I mean, come on. Stephen Fucking King, the master of horror, is on your elevator bitching. How can you NOT join in?

  He was wearing a 1.20.09 shirt and was about 6′4″ or 6′5″, with his trademark glasses. I wondered if I should say something, but then the elevator stopped and some Chatty Cathy got on and I figured if I said something then she’d embarrass all of us. So we got to the bottom and got off, and as soon as we walked outside Ian and I were all, “Fuckin’ a, was that Stephen King? Yes! It had to have been!”

  We did some research later that day, and discovered he is an outspoken Bush hater (and actually advocated waterboarding Jenna Bush to determine if it is indeed torture), and so we paired that with his t-shirt. We were 99 percent sure it was Stephen King we ran in to. Our suspicions were confirmed the next night when we asked our bartender, Joann, if he was staying there, and she said that indeed he was. He was in town for a wedding. She said we should have asked him for a picture, that he would have loved it. Fuck. Every time from then on when we were in the hotel we were on the lookout. But no more luck.

• Minnows: I don’t know if this counts as a highlight, but it’s pretty freaky so I am recounting it in hopes someone can shed some light on the symbolism of minnows. One night Ian and I fell asleep watching TV, and I woke back up sometime in the middle of the night. I tried to wake Ian because he was still fully clothed (and had a dip in), but he was not having it. At one point I was standing over by his side of the bed, patting his leg to try to wake him up, when I noticed he had his hands clasped together loosely and was making a flicking motion toward his body with his forefingers and middle fingers. I asked him why he was doing that, but he wouldn’t answer. He kept doing it, and I kept asking, and then his eyes sort of rolled back in his head. Scared he was having a stroke or something, I smacked his leg hard and asked again why he was moving his fingers that way. He opened his eyes and replied, calmly and with a smile, “Keeping them away from the minnows.” Shortly after that he woke up all the way, started responding to me normally, and then went back to bed. I told him what he’d done the next morning, and we laughed about it.

  When we were out and about hiking and stuff the next day, we came to a creek. Where we discovered this box. That was being used to trap… MINNOWS.

  That kind of creeped us out. I tried looking up the symbolism of minnows, but pretty much all I can find is info about fish in dreams. He doesn’t remember dreaming about minnows or fish, so I don’t know if his episode even counts as a dream. And I also think it’s more specific than just fish. I found a reference to an artist named Morris (Ian’s last name) Graves who painted minnows to symbolize “the spark of spiritual illumination,” and a few other things, but nothing I can find really seems to tie the two occurrences of minnows together.

Anyway, we finished up the trip by heading out to Chimney Rock to do some hiking, which kicked our asses but was fun and had gorgeous views. It was nice to spend some time outdoors, and the weather was perfect.

On the way home, we took a short detour and stopped in Cherokee, NC, and did some quick lose-all-our-money-quickly gambling at the Harrah’s there (which sucks, by the way—no cards, everything’s digital, and NO BOOZE! Dry reservation!!) and drove through the little town. Then, instead of driving 30 minutes backward to get back to I-40, we took the Blue Ridge Parkway all the way up to Pigeon Forge where we caught it again. That was a nice drive, and if we weren’t running short on time already we would have stopped at some of the overlooks. We also discovered that the Civ doesn’t really like mountain driving too much. It was getting a little pissed off, I think.

Anyway, it was a great trip, and Ian is an awesome boyfriend for taking me (and for letting me shop my little hippie heart out). I’m already looking forward to our next trip out that way!!

Technorati tags: Asheville, North Carolina

~ by Megan on May 28, 2008.