Asheville Thursday night

Hannah's asleep on the other half of our queen-sized bed at the Extended Stay Inn on Tunnel Road; I'm musing about how much we've packed into our few days. Hannah is an excellent tour guide and travel companion and she knows what I like.

We started with a detour to visit the Gentleman Farmer in Greensboro, patting his horses, and talking about whining, then proceeded to our home base here with tons of gear for fun in case it rained (it hasn't).

Thursday night we asked the desk clerk if it was a nice walk to downtown from here. He must have misunderstood the question... Tunnel Road is not a great place to be on foot, but we made the best of it. We wandered around downtown looking for the seedy hippy joints I remember from many years ago...

... it turns out they've been gentrified and straightened out until barely recognizable. Most everything is expensive and predictable, which is not what I remembered...

... but Hannah, who is an excellent chow hound, sniffed us out a good Indian restaurant called Mela and as we ate our curry we had front row seats for the belly dancing exhibition. A blond belly dancer with many fake braids and a dazzlingly extreme smile gyrated and twitched to Persian music. As entertainment, it was a little too sexy for two simple women (us) eating dinner together. We were especially taken aback by the long pointy metal fingertips she wore for one of her dances. They seemed to validate the worldview of an old boyfriend of mine: "It's a dangerous world for men."

To be continued.