Sometimes, plans going wrong legitimately ruin your day. And sometimes, it just causes you to pivot and discover something new, like this past spring when a power outage caused me to cancel a day in Hot Springs only to find the charming Zadie’s Market in Marshall.
I’ll admit, though, that I forgot about that particular silver lining this past Friday when I was sitting in my car rotting in a standstill on 240 around 5. I’d been in the car for 35 minutes and hadn’t even reached the exit for Tunnel Road (a drive that typically takes approximately 7 minutes). To compound things, I hadn’t even planned on going out that Friday. I remember cursing at myself, thinking about how I should be happily laying on the couch or sunning on the patio, but I’d gotten a freelance article published in GQ and wanted to celebrate with a low-key evening of bluegrass and BBQ at Riverside Rhapsody in Woodfin.
I called my friend Eric, who I was meeting, explained the dilemma, and proposed that once I got to Tunnel Road, I’d get off the highway, head downtown, and would he mind just meeting me there via Uber instead of waiting for me to pick him up. I pitched a sunset drink on the roof of the new Archetype on South Slope.
When I arrived at Archetype, there were no tables to be found, and despite waiting for ten minutes and making eye contact several times, the bartender couldn’t be bothered to remove herself from the man she was flirting with to take my order (this is not a dig at Archetype in general—I’m a frequent patron of their West Asheville location, which I regularly has excellent service). Luckily, Eric’s Uber hadn’t even arrived yet, so I pitched option 3: Anoche in River Arts, which I assumed would be easy to park at and enter. Wrong again. River Arts was mobbed, and I probably would’ve just said fuck it, let’s go to the Wedge or HiWire, which both have large parking lots, but by this time, Eric was already being dropped off outside Anoche, so I parked a million miles away at Ultra and walked up to the River Arts Brewery, in a foul mood.
Obviously, the beer I wanted was kicked, but otherwise? It was exactly the kind of night I’d initially envisioned (sans BBQ). The singer at RAD Brewering was excellent, covering Tyler Childers, Fleetwood Mac, and 90’s country, the perfect soundtrack to a low-key but celebratory Friday night.
The following morning, I woke up for a sunrise hike in the Roan Highlands—Round Bald to Grassy Bald—since the forecast told me it would be sunny and clear all day. That was…a lie.
“The fog will burn off,” I thought after parking at the Carver’s Gap lot and starting the trek to the top of Round Bald. It did…when I returned to the parking lot at the conclusion of my hike. However, the foggy early morning was moody and breathtaking in its own way, suitably Halloweeny and moor-like, and resulted in fantastic pictures. It also meant that I was alone on the top of Grassy Bald for a good hour, where I got to contemplate life and re-realize that sometimes Murphy’s Law ain’t so bad after all.
None of my weekend was what I’d planned, but I’m not mad.
AshevilleExplorer 