Asheville revisited

We took a trip to Asheville with La's family last month...finally getting around to posting a few pics. Finding art in Asheville is easy. Laura and I stop by a mural to do our usual silly posing thingy....we didn't realize until later that we both stood near the colors in the mural that matched our clothing! We're just cool like that ya know.....



So very easy. Trevor and his fiance George pose by dude-looks-like-a-pipe art.




So sweet. Jalen to the left is being pulled by big brother as he'd injured his foot pretty bad and couldn't walk. Laura's kids loaned us their radio flyer wagon (via the Traaseth's) and we traipsed all over the place just fine. He had it made!







Alice taking in some bluegrass in front of Malaprops. That's the other thing easy to find in Asheville; street musicians.



While the music played, the kids found their own entertainment.




Back at Alices there was all sorts of entertainment...La demonstrates what happens to a Newman-O when you squish the cookies around real good. She's a woman of many talents.;)



Sierra, Sadie and George spent a good amount of time immersed in Serger technology. They made some really cool things out of scrap material and Sierra has been sewing every day since then! She's going to have an entire wardrobe of altered/homemade clothing before long.



Bananagrams (I tried to play, honest I did) and Twister were on the menu, along with the usual array of videogames.






All in all, it was a typical lovely visit to one of our favorite places with some of our favorite peeps! I can still taste the lovely melted goodness of mellow mushroom white pizza. I smile when I think of the toasty assortment of coffees and rows of books at Malaprops, the freaks and hippies in Pritchard park and the yummy, colorful art supplies at True Blue art.

The best thing though? Watching all of our children together, how they adore each other, work out challenges, make up games spontaneously and are such good friends. They warm my heart.

The following pictures are several I took just for fun. Alice lives past these greenhouses which have been abandoned. It looks like they will be dug under for new condos. Everytime I drive through there I get this sad feeling....for these rows upon rows of broken down, grown-over greenhouses which used to be so important to someone. I've thought a lot about the concept of usefulness and things that get abandoned, people who used to matter to someone but seem to have no one in this life. We see them on the streets of Asheville and that haunted look in their eyes makes me feel the same sadness the greenhouses do.

I've driven through them so many times thinking these thoughts and we finally stopped to shoot some pictures this time around. They are haunting and beautiful, abandoned and enchanting. The perfect setting for exploration and trying to archive a piece of something that exemplifies all those feelings.

















This final picture was simply shot from a parking garage skyway....it's an area we'd never discovered from the street and it looked very enticing indeed. Next time Asheville, next time...