Monday, January 31, 2005
To Build a Fire
Many have begun to message me asking how the weekend went, and to save time, I'll talk about it here.
As I've mentioned before, I intended the trip to be a surprise for Liz's birthday, but and illness prevented her from coming up on the crucial day, so the whole thing had to be moved to the following weekend.
I left mid-afternoon on Friday. Liz was visiting a friend in NC (she's seeing a lot of friends as she's about to go off to Australia for 5 months) and so was to meet me in Brevard. I took a different route than the one that we took so many years ago, this time taking me through the towns of Liberty and Pickens and then up one of those spiral mountain roads. An hour later I was at the Ingles in Brevard, buying food for the weekend.
I was careful to buy enough to last us straight though the weekend, as reports of the coming snow and ice convinced us (rightfully so) that we were going to be stuck there the entire weekend. Liz met up with me at Ingles, and we drove to the cabin which was 15 minutes away.
Ash Grove was run by two middle-aged southern men named Mark and Steve. While it was never explicitly stated, Liz and I agreed that Mark and Steve were probably gay. A statement about "acceptance" on their website and the fact that their e-mails were jointly signed already had caused me to suspect, but upon our arrival all the evidence began to pile up.
Mark and Steve were both very nice, and we learned that except for the pair of them that lived 10 minutes down the road, their entire 'resort' consisting of 4 cabins, a score of campsites and RV areas and a public bathhouse and hot tub, were all vacant due to the off-season. This didn't bother us a bit.
I cooked that night and we watched several movies, warm and snug as the air began to chill around the cabin. When we fell asleep that night, we knew that we probably weren't going anywhere the next morning.
The snow crept up on us, as I woke up randomly at 6 am to find that several inches had already settled around the entire site. Sure enough, when we got up the next morning, travel was pretty much out of the question.
One brief attempt in Liz's sister's jeep convinced us to stay put, and we resigned to walking around in the cold, having lunch and watching stand-up comedy together, and otherwise just letting the day waste away.
One does not truly understand the meaning of cold until they experience the climate change of jumping out of the snow into a hot tub, then back again.
The next morning was spent slowly getting up, cleaning, and saying goodbye to our temporary refuge. It really was about as perfect as a weekend could get.
After a goodbye to Mark and Steve, and a Mexican lunch in downtown Brevard, Liz and I parted ways, knowing that next weekend will be our last.
Liz attempts to roast marshmellows over a candle (we only had a gas fire)
As I've mentioned before, I intended the trip to be a surprise for Liz's birthday, but and illness prevented her from coming up on the crucial day, so the whole thing had to be moved to the following weekend.
I left mid-afternoon on Friday. Liz was visiting a friend in NC (she's seeing a lot of friends as she's about to go off to Australia for 5 months) and so was to meet me in Brevard. I took a different route than the one that we took so many years ago, this time taking me through the towns of Liberty and Pickens and then up one of those spiral mountain roads. An hour later I was at the Ingles in Brevard, buying food for the weekend.
I was careful to buy enough to last us straight though the weekend, as reports of the coming snow and ice convinced us (rightfully so) that we were going to be stuck there the entire weekend. Liz met up with me at Ingles, and we drove to the cabin which was 15 minutes away.
Ash Grove was run by two middle-aged southern men named Mark and Steve. While it was never explicitly stated, Liz and I agreed that Mark and Steve were probably gay. A statement about "acceptance" on their website and the fact that their e-mails were jointly signed already had caused me to suspect, but upon our arrival all the evidence began to pile up.
Mark and Steve were both very nice, and we learned that except for the pair of them that lived 10 minutes down the road, their entire 'resort' consisting of 4 cabins, a score of campsites and RV areas and a public bathhouse and hot tub, were all vacant due to the off-season. This didn't bother us a bit.
I cooked that night and we watched several movies, warm and snug as the air began to chill around the cabin. When we fell asleep that night, we knew that we probably weren't going anywhere the next morning.
The snow crept up on us, as I woke up randomly at 6 am to find that several inches had already settled around the entire site. Sure enough, when we got up the next morning, travel was pretty much out of the question.
One brief attempt in Liz's sister's jeep convinced us to stay put, and we resigned to walking around in the cold, having lunch and watching stand-up comedy together, and otherwise just letting the day waste away.
One does not truly understand the meaning of cold until they experience the climate change of jumping out of the snow into a hot tub, then back again.
The next morning was spent slowly getting up, cleaning, and saying goodbye to our temporary refuge. It really was about as perfect as a weekend could get.
After a goodbye to Mark and Steve, and a Mexican lunch in downtown Brevard, Liz and I parted ways, knowing that next weekend will be our last.
Liz attempts to roast marshmellows over a candle (we only had a gas fire)
