I am writing this as I am sitting in my hotel bed somewhere in The Rockies after climbing up the elevator while listening to the hotel radio playing “Linger” by The Cranberries. I remember where I was the first time I listened to this song and fell in love with the Irish band: I was in Romania and the year was probably around 1990 something ... How long I have come! How far I have traveled! ... This life truly is a trip!
This is my umpteenth hotel in the past two months which have had me traveling from the Atlantic to The Rockies, to the Atlantic and back to The Rockies again ... How I could manage to do so much travel while dodging two hurricanes still boggles my mind, but that is a topic for another blog...
For this one, I just wanted to stop and remember the fun times we have had, the new places I found and the old ones I have rediscovered during these past few months.
We started this marathon with a return trip to Asheville. We had not been there together for 11 years. Just saying that sounds wrong, but it is true.
Asheville seems both stuck in a timeless warp and anew and fresh with new blood at the same time. The streets are filled with hippies, Krishnas, dirt, music, joy, laden with history and memories; a bon vivant-ness flows in the olden streets at dusk on a Saturday; the breweries abound and lure the traveler in with summer brews waiting to be savored, the mountains are a stone-throw away, ready to be explored. At the end of August, Asheville was still very hot. The city seemed a lot more crowded and a lot more happening than I remembered it ... That was the new part.
The Biltmore was gorgeous, in its everlasting beauty. The only thing that rivaled its beauty and richness this time around was an exhibit of Chihuly’s works of art - stunning beauty creations of massive amounts of glass and steel. The glassworks paired with the natural beauty of the gardens and the mountains, juxtaposed with the carefully detailed architecture of The Castle gave us a wonderful escape from our daily grind into a world all its own - grandiose, rich, timeless.
Chihuly at Biltmore was one of those things you'll remember as long as you'll live. It was not on my bucket list, but it so should have been. If you ever have the opportunity to see this artist's work, don't hesitate! How something so fragile can withstand so much nature and abuse is amazing to me. A great reminder of every one of us: we're so brittle but we all weather storms.
We had brunch at The Grove Park Inn, and that was hands down the most varied and plentiful brunch I have ever had anywhere. I thought for years that the brunches in Sundance or Snowbird, Utah were well done, but The GPI has them beat. Till proven otherwise - the best. I usually go for the smoked salmon at these feasts, but I had not one but three choices of smoked fish with this one: salmon, trout, and mackerel, alongside any other seafood you can imagine, from shrimp, to oysters and lobster ... This just to name one kind of the many kinds of dishes they offer.
The majestic stonework at The Grove Park Inn
It’s amazing that we did so much in Asheville just in a one-night weekend. I am so glad we are back in these parts where we could escape to so many places within driving distance from us, on impulse and be able to see and do so much!
In September, we went to our first Triangle Heart Walk, which benefits the American Heart Association and gives the money to the research in our communities. I have participated in it before in other communities, and this has been a cause which I have supported, for obvious reasons (if you know me) for years. All I can say about this event is that it ... was ... hot. Not just hot, but exhaustingly hot ... We were wimps and walked 1 mile instead of the 3 because it was brutal! As a heart patient, it was a great meet: I always like to hear the stories of other people “like” me - we’re really all unique and every heart condition is different. This was my first time meeting a heart transplant patient and being every bit as amazed, in awe, and overwhelmed as I always thought I would be when faced with such an individual. He was an inspiration. There is something special about people who get to die a little and then come back, there is no doubt about this. None.
Also in September I got to jump on a plane and come to Park City, UT for a conference. It has always been melancholy to travel back to the place I called home: my first married, happy home, for seven years. A place where I had always dreamed I would live. It’s a bitter-sweet feeling to go back: I miss these parts but I know, in my heart, that I don’t belong here anymore. Park City was cool and bright gold from the changing aspen; a perfect backdrop for the start of the fall.
Aspen mountains on the lake in Park City, Utah
Back on the East Coast it was time to take my sweet, amazing nephews to the SC beach - one of them for the first time in his little 7 year-long life! Call me crazy, but for a childless person, I have always enjoyed traveling with kids. It is amazing to see how they step out of their comfort zone and explore a world they didn’t know that existed. We started by barely being able to pull them out of the house, and pry them away from their devices with more or less force, and we ended with not being able to round them back up and bring them back in the room when they discovered how much fun jumping over the waves or floating in the lazy river, or sinking in the pool is. For two kids raised in the frozen tundra of Canada the beach was “pure paradise.” They said as much. To see the sparkles in their eyes with every new “different” restaurant experience or shopping adventure is rejuvenating. Reminds us, old, and cynical people, that the world should never cease to wonder us, as long as we stay open and come out to meet it.
First time together jumping the ocean waves - a breathless moment in time. So grateful to have been able to give them this and share this with them.
In Park City, I wore sweaters and scarves. In Myrtle Beach, SC, I wore a bathing suit and thought I was literally melting, decomposing, surely dying from sun exposure ...
Again, Myrtle Beach is one of those trips back in time for me, but I always make a point of finding something new to explore even in my old timey places. This time was the Pier 14 Restaurant which is literally on the Ocean (on stilts, part of a pier) and which did not exist 20 years ago when I lived there. The grouper filet and the mashed potatoes were to die for! I can say I got my seafood fix during this trip, for sure, and as any respectable coast town theirs doesn’t disappoint.
There is something of that when the sun is being born from the immensity of the sky and it's reflecting its birth into the immensity of the ocean ... Time just stands still forever ...
And after all that adventure, I am back in The Rockies for more work and maybe some play, too ...
As exhausting as these past two months have been, and as much as I still miss home, I am very fortunate, lucky and blessed beyond belief to be able to do this much. Not just financially, not just through the grace of my employer, but also through the grace of God and the knowledge of all my doctors who keep me going at this speed in my advancing age (aren’t all our ages advancing?!), with my advanced health problems.
I am also grateful that the world we live in is, still, allowing to some extent for us to mov about freely and explore it deeply. This is no small gift especially nowadays!
I will continue to push on, open more doors, discover more of what this life has to give me. One page at a time.
“ ... if you could return, don't let it burn, don't let it fade...” (The Cranberries, Linger)
