DRIVING > HEAVEN > DRIVING

For the second weekend of April Christy and I traveled to Asheville for two nights of Widespread Panic concerts. Widespread Panic is one of our favorite bands, and Asheville is one of our favorite cities. When we found out that the opening act was another favorite band, J.J. Grey & Mofro, we couldn’t pass it up. Even better, a good friend of ours from Atlanta was planning to be there, too.

We didn’t have any luck finding a pet sitter, so I dropped Boone off at Doggie Daycare on Friday morning. Christy had taken him there for a trial run a couple of days earlier, and it had gone well. Doggie Daycare features a large indoor / outdoor play area where the dogs can interact. For Boone, it was like an all-day visit to the Bark ‘n’ Park. The facility also features individual rooms where the dogs spend the night. Doggie Daycare isn’t cheap at $35 per night, but it was definitely worth it for a high-energy dog like Boone.

We were still in Charlotte when we got behind a car with an interesting sticker. It read:

“I’d rather be

Driving / Disco”

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. “Driving Song” and “Disco” are titles of Widespread Panic songs, so it may have been a WP reference. I thought we might end up following that car all the way to Asheville, but we lost him early on in traffic.

The drive was fairly smooth, as we were able to beat the afternoon rush with an early departure. We arrived in Asheville right at 5pm, but I avoided the heavy traffic on I-240 by driving into downtown past the Biltmore Estate. We went straight to Hotel Indigo, which is conveniently located two blocks from the Civic Center. I was able to get a room there for free using my Priority Club Points. Have I mentioned that traveling for a living has its perks?

This was our first visit to a Hotel Indigo, and we were quite impressed. It’s rather different, with a modern, artsy feel. We parked in the garage below the hotel and headed up to our room on the eighth floor. We had a great view of the Smokies out our window, and there was no sign of the afternoon thunderstorms that had been in the forecast.

We unpacked and lounged around the room for a bit. Then we enjoyed a Little Hump Spring Ale before dinner. Little Hump is Highland Brewing’s latest seasonal offering. Highland names all of their seasonal beers after local mountains, and Little Hump, in the Roan Highlands, just happens to be one of my favorite peaks.

We walked through downtown and absorbed the pre-concert atmosphere. Panic fans were out in full force, and I was mildly concerned about finding a place to eat that wasn’t crowded. Surprisingly, the Laughing Seed, a vegetarian restaurant, wasn’t too busy. We each got Hemp Nut Veggie Burgers and shared a basket of jalapeno onion fries. Believe it or not, the veggie burger was fantastic. Honestly, it was one of the top ten burgers I’ve ever had – and it’s not really even a burger! We also had a couple of beers from a local brewery. After eating, we went downstairs to the Jack O’ The Wood Pub for more liquid refreshment. We were feeling pretty good by the time we headed into the show.

The concert was general admission, and most of the crowd was still out in the streets when we headed in. We walked down to the floor, and arrived just as J.J. Grey & Mofro took the stage. We enjoyed about half of their set from only a few yards away before the crowds started to fill in. At that point we remembered that we are too old to stand on the floor for a 6-hour concert. We walked to the upper deck, where we met our friend from Atlanta, Jimmy, and some of his friends. We took seats at the back of the arena, where we had a good view of the light show. The sound was better here, too, probably because we were straight back from the speakers.

Somewhere along the way we purchased wrist bands for $2 that allowed us to buy alcohol. Having to pay for the wrist bands was a little annoying, but they made up for it with surprisingly reasonable beer prices. All 16oz drafts were $5, including quality brews such as Highland Gaelic Ale and Sweetwater 420.

Widespread Panic started around 9pm and played two long sets. The first set started a little slow but finished strong with “Tie Your Shoes”, “Blackout Blues”, and “No Sugar Tonight / New Mother Nature” (a Guess Who cover). The second set was even longer, and between the beer and the long day, Christy and I really started to struggle. I’ll be honest – I may have nodded off briefly during the drum solo. I revived myself in time for an impressive encore featuring Driving Song > Heaven (a Talking Heads cover) > Driving Song and Hope in Hopeless World.

Panic finished up around 1am, which was way past my bed time! We forgo any additional partying, as we were hoping to survive Saturday nights show. We headed straight back to the hotel, picked up sandwiches in the lobby, and headed to bed.

We slept in on Saturday. Luckily I remembered to put the “do not disturb” on our door. Most of our neighbors had failed to do so, and we awoke that morning to the sound of the maid knocking on every door. Each knock drew a moaned “go away” or, in some cases, a less polite response. This would’ve been funny if we weren’t still exhausted, too.

Hotel Indigo serves breakfast until 11am but we still managed to miss it. Instead, we drove over to West Asheville for lunch at the Lucky Otter. We met Jimmy there, and some of his friends (as well as many other Panic fans) arrived a bit later. We feasted on enormous burritos, but decided to pass on their homemade margaritas. We’ve learned that we are too old to party two nights in a row, and we planned to take it easy on Saturday afternoon.

After lunch we drove down to Black Diamond Outfitters in Arden. There I used a previously purchased Groupon to buy a pair of $55 hiking pants for $25. We also browsed around the Frugal Backpacker next door. We didn’t find anything there, but they do have clothes and gear at attractive prices. Afterwards we headed back to West Asheville and stopped at Mike’s house. Mike is one of Jimmy’s good friends, and he was hosting a low key pre-show party. Mike fed us made-from-scratch pork tacos, which were fabulous. After hanging out for awhile we drove back downtown and stopped briefly at the hotel. We then cruised around downtown, taking in the pre-concert scene. Asheville was hopping, even more so than on a normal Saturday afternoon. We had dinner at the Laughing Seed again, as Christy had passed on the pork tacos earlier. She enjoyed her “Panic Pasta Primavera” while I watched. Afterwards we shared a cookie and walked back up to the arena, enjoying several bands playing on the sidewalk along the way.

We went in early again, but went straight for the seats this time. J.J. Grey & Mofro played another fine set, even though they failed to play several of our favorite songs on this particular weekend. Despite that, both opening sets were quite good. In fact, they are playing in Charlotte this coming weekend, and although I’ll be out of town, Christy is planning to go.

Saturday’s Panic show started stronger than Friday’s. In fact, they played 3 of my favorite Panic tunes in the first 5 songs. That may not sound surprising, but Widespread Panic has hundreds of songs, and many of them are played infrequently at best. The highlight of the first set was hearing “Can’t Get High”. That’s been one of my favorites for a long time, but it was the first time I’d heard them play it live.

The second set was strong as well. They played Christy’s favorite Panic song, “Little Lily”, early on. The second set finished with a great run featuring “Chilly Water” > “Arleen”, > “Pilgrims” > “Chilly Water”. The encore was a bit mellow, but it proved to be a fitting end to a lively weekend.

I’m proud to say that we both managed to maintain full consciousness through Saturday’s show. Still, we were pretty much finished with partying at that point. We bid Jimmy, Mike, and the other folks farewell and headed back to the hotel.

I wanted to hike on Sunday. After all, we were in Asheville, surrounded by hundreds of trails. Unfortunately we slept in a bit, and then had a nice breakfast at the Cornerstone restaurant. By the time we left, it was almost 11am. We had to pick up the dog before 6pm, so we didn’t have much time at our disposal. The rational choice would’ve been to do a hike somewhere along the way home. The Pisgah Ranger District, DuPont State Forest, and the Green River Gamelands all offer attractive hikes that wouldn’t have been far out of the way. However, the weather was absolutely perfect, and I wanted to do a scenic, high-elevation hike. Originally I’d planned on hiking up at Max Patch, but decided that destination was too far out of the way. Spontaneously I got on the Parkway south of Asheville and started heading towards Graveyard Fields and Black Balsam.

We made good time on the Parkway despite some slow traffic. Here’s a quick P.S.A. – I know the Parkway is a scenic drive, but if you’re going to gawk at the view, how about pulling into one of the numerous overlooks along the way? Despite the gawkers, we made it from the French Broad River to Wagon Road Gap in 25 minutes. We continued on to the Graveyard Fields trailhead, which already featured an overflowing parking lot. I decided to skip that and went on up to the Black Balsam Trailhead. We arrive shortly before noon, and actually found several empty parking spots.

We had about 2 ½ hours before we needed to head home. Believe it or not, there are several hikes of that length that start from that trailhead. I chose the loop combining the Art Loeb and Ivestor Gap Trails, as it would take us over the grassy balds of Black Balsam and Tennent Mountain.

We walked back down the road a ½ mile to where the Art Loeb Trail crosses. We could’ve taken a steep short cut trail directly from the parking lot up to the Art Loeb, but I knew Christy wouldn’t enjoy it. Along the way I discovered that my camera wasn’t working right. For some reason it wouldn’t focus. I fiddled with it a bit, and eventually pushed the lens in and pulled in back out. That did the trick – apparently there was some dirt of something that had jammed the mechanism, which prevented the lens from turning.

We hiked up the Art Loeb Trail, first through a gorgeous spruce / fir forest, and then into an expansive grassy bald. From the meadows we enjoyed expansive views in all directions. The only disappointment was heavy haze to the southeast. The sky was clear except for some puffy clouds in all other directions though.

This part of the Art Loeb Trail is one of the most popular hikes in North Carolina, and we had plenty of company. Still, it wasn’t completely overrun, as I would’ve expected. We even found a nice spot on Tennent Mountain where we could relax and enjoy the peace and quiet for a few minutes. From there we had a grand view of Mount Pisgah, and the namesake quartz of Shining Rock was visible, too.

Beyond Tennent Mountain we descended to join the Ivestor Gap Trail (a rocky jeep road) a bit south of Ivestor Gap. We were a bit pushed for time here, so we started back towards the trailhead. Along the way I noticed an unmapped trail heading back up towards the gap between Black Balsam and Tennent. A bit later I reached a spur ridge leading to the west. I’m was pretty sure this was the upper end of the Fork Mountain Trail, and decided to take a few minutes to explore.

The map shows this trail on the north side of the spur ridge, and good distance below the crest. Apparently the map is incorrect, as I didn’t see any sign of a trail down there. I did find a faint, partially overgrown path following the spine of the ridge. I lost it briefly in a stand of balsams, but stumbled back on it on the far side. I walked it out the ridge, passing through tunnels of rhododendron that were just high enough to block most of the views. The trail continued, though at times it seemed little better than an animal track. After 10 minutes my time was up, and I doubled-back to the road. From there, I hustled to catch up to Christy. I finally caught up to her just at the car.

The drive home was smooth. We took the Parkway all the way back to I-26 rather than driving down through Pisgah Forest. I think this is actually faster, even with slow traffic on the Parkway. We made it to Doggie Daycare at 5:30, well before they closed. Our hike was a great ending to another wonderful weekend in Asheville.

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