If You're Going to San Francisco...

We're not, but in honor of our upcoming trip to the Asheville area, I thought I'd share a few of my favorite memories of the "San Francisco of the East". 

Shortly after we were married, Dean and I visited Asheville for the first time.  We were immediately taken aback by the beauty of the area and thought it would be a great place to retire to one day (we know we won't really do that... pastors never actually retire).  We had dinner at what is now our favorite restaurant there, Tupelo Honey Cafe.  After dinner, we walked around the downtown square area.  We found ourselves at the park in the center of town and couldn't help but notice about 30 people in the park with various drums, bongos, djembes, and I'm sure loads of other things that I can't identify.  They were all playing them together.  And there were hippie ribbon dancers (they were dressed like hippies, I'm not saying all ribbon dancers are hippies - but, hey, if the shoe fits...), a few kids and old men doing tai chi, and more than a few people smoking joints.  All in this little park area.  There were a number of people gathered around to watch and we asked a couple standing next to us what was going on.  The response was classic:

"They do this every Friday night.  It's just random people who come out to express the rhythm that's in their soul and with that rhythm we all become one."

You can almost see them becoming one! Right before your very eyes!

A second Asheville anecdote:

When Dean was a youth pastor, we took a few of our older high schoolers on a trip to look at colleges.  Along the way, we stayed the night in Ridgecrest and went to Asheville for dinner.  After dinner, we were walking through the downtown, and of course someone had to use the bathroom.  It was freezing so we all went into a bookstore and took a potty break.  We noticed a sign advertising for a local author that would be reading her book, and it happened to be going on right then.  We walked in just as she was getting to the part that read,

"And then I floated up out of my body and began to observe all that was going on around me..."

Ah, Asheville.  I'm excited to gather more stories.

Do you have any great Asheville stories?  Or just weird stories like that?