Saturday was more eventful. We went looking for the Payless listed in the phonebook near our hotel, and found it at the mall. Leigh needed some purty shoes to wear to the Biltmore on Sunday, having only brought her Converse. We lucked out and both bought the same $9.99 sandals. Bath and Body Works was right next door, so I stocked up on smelly stuff. Hey, I'm not in a mall very often.

We went downtown to have lunch at Cafe Max & Rosie's, which was a funky little place. I had the hummus pita with no tomatoes, and Leigh had the falafel pita. They had vegan chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies, but they were a bit dry. After lunch, we walked and walked and walked and shopped. I found a lapis ring and a small onyx pendant (and paid too much for the latter) at one of the many funky little bohemian places. These stores sold clothing, saris, jewelry, incense, and artwork, and almost always smelled of nag champa or patchouli. There were quite a few head shops, too, though they don't have the sex toys, lubes, etc. like the ones here. (Damn!) Another abundance was rummage, consignment and thrift stores. And since Burt's Bees is headquartered in Durham, NC, the products were in almost every store we visited.

After a pit stop at the hotel, we went back downtown to have dinner at Rosetta's Kitchen. The atmosphere sucked, but the food was pretty good. It was a kind of a figure-it-out-yourself/fend-for-yourself place. I had the smashed potatoes with nutritional yeast gravy, kale, and peanut butter tofu. Leigh had the potatoes and gravy with the tofu. We ordered some chips and dip, but it arrived after we were almost finished. It was way too much food.

We ended up going to a Wal-Mart (not Super) because I forgot a razor and the downtown CVS closed at 5pm. What's that all about, anyway? Later, we soaked our sore feet in the tub. We had planned to go to the hot tub at some point, but decided it was sketchy. It could be seen, with the indoor pool, through a glass wall from the lobby and front door. Fuck that.

Sunday we had brunch at the Laughing Seed, thinking we'd go back since we liked it so much Friday night. After that, we went to the Biltmore. The driveway was several miles long. We parked, and took a short hike to the house. We'd paid $36 each for tickets at the hotel, but they still wanted to charge an additional $6 for the earphones for the recorded tour/info about each of the rooms. Geez. We just walked around in a quick self-guided tour. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's a huge place. Standing on one of the back patios looking at the view made me feel very small.

The Conservatory and Azalea Gardens were even better than the house. They had every imaginable flower growing there. I guess they had to, being that all flower arrangements are grown and made in-house, and are always seasonal live flowers. (The unpaid tour guide we ran into in the basement said this. It sounds legitimate. We finally had to break eye contact with her and speed up our walking to get away from her. She knew everything about every room.) We took lots of closeup pictures of the flowers like amateur photographers out there. Too bad we didn't have a snazzy closeup camera like this bitch.

We headed into the Azalea Gardens. I can't speak for Leigh, but I thought it might lead to the parking lots, or at least the trail to them. Wrong. We ended up turning around. How many azaleas can you look at before they all begin to look the same? That was the "Just how fucking out of shape are you?" trail. I was huffing and puffing, and felt like I'd pass out. It was pitiful.

We finally got to the car, then got behind even more annoying tourists. They had to slow down or stop at every thing of even slight interest (or not) on the way out. The driveway out seemed even longer that the one in. I saw a sign for another road that said "Winery - 4 miles". La-dee-da. The place is so touristy. There was a General Store type place with various souvenirs and other crap, a couple restaurants, and a Confectionary. Oh, you know I bought some stuff - vanilla fudge, 2 white chocolate cherry cordials (only 2 because they were almost $1 a piece), caramels, etc.

Geez, what else? I got home around 7:30 Sunday night. I had Monday off, so I went to the store then. I was too tired to go Sunday night. I slept like a log that night. So much so that I didn't wake up at 3am to go pee as usual. No, I didn't wet the bed. I peed for about 5 whole minutes when I did wake up, though. Didn't you need to know that?

Oh, yeah. There's a lot of dirty hippies in Asheville. Maybe it was because Earth Day was coming up, I don't know. There were dreadlocks, hackie sacks, and hemp wear as far as the eye could see. OK, maybe they weren't dirty. That sounds like something my Dad would say.

Alright, this has gone on long enough. I'll post anything I may have left out if I remember.