Thursday, I got back out on the running trails with Jeff. By this time, I was realizing that a couple of nighttime beers weren't necessarily a terrible thing. I won't keep that up when I go home, but it wasn't killing my morning runs. :-) We did another two-loop Suicide Ridge run, 4 miles, coming in at 40:36, a one minute improvement over Tuesday. PR! The funny part about the Thursday run was that on our way up the trail to Suicide Ridge, we saw "Michigan Tom" ahead of us. We were breathing pretty hard, and weren't exceptionally stealthy, but Tom was lost in his iPod and didn't know we were stalking him. It was priceless when I tapped him on the shoulder at the top of the entry trail to let us by him. He jumped pretty good for a guy that had just climbed that trail! Tom tagged along with us for our first loop, but ended his running day at that point.
By the way, the Garmin worked flawlessly on all the trail runs, even in the deepest foliage. It tracked dead accurately all the twists and turns of the trail, and I got the same numbers every trail lap. Awesome piece of technology, and I can now recommend it with no reservations. Garmin Forerunner 305. Ask for it by name. The 205, without HR functions, also has the same abilities to track even in the woods. Save your pennies and get one!
Thursday night, we went to the Folk Week Open Mic (night Two of that event), and saw some of our friends perform. The ukulele girls backed up Lorraine, a girl that I met my first year at Swannanoa (this is my seventh year). It was a big hit, needless to say. The mix of songs that I heard during my visit to that Open Mic was pretty balanced. Some funny songs (including a song about "Bob, The Crocodile" that featured some children doing choreography), some gut-wrenching songs (a guy sang a song about his brother flying across the country to "save his life with a guitar" while he was undergoing bypass surgery), and some pretty standard folky stuff. I heard about 10 songs, I guess. Then, I grabbed my uke, and joined the Uke girls and Del for some jamming. We had big fun, roaring through a ton of songs. I'm still learning some of the more exotic chords on the uke, so I was a step behind them at first, but after two hours of playing, I was a lot better at it than I could have expected. This was Lesson 2,134 that Practice Helps. It occurred to me at this point, I'd played more ukulele during this Swannanoa than guitar. Was this a sign of the Apocalypse? Or, just a sign that I was having fun? I'll go with the "fun" option, if you don't mind. I joined in with some singing, too, but closed out my night around 2:00. There was still a lot happening, but I needed a little rest. Just a little. :-)
Friday, I just wasn't fired up about running, so I skipped. Jeff went out, though, and did our 2-loop Suicide Ridge run. He said he ran about 8 minutes slower than we did together, so I felt a lot better about how I'd run earlier in the week. Did I feel guilty about skipping the run? Well, maybe, but I got over it about the time I strummed my first chords in the uke class. :-)
It's always sad to have those last classes on Friday, and this year was no exception. Jeff and I practiced our song for the Guitar Week Open Mic that evening (we did John Prine's "Angel From Montgomery" this year) during our break times. I did a three-song performance for Performance class, which was well-received. I didn't even suck. The now-traditional luau came just after dinner, and I joined my fellow ukulele gangsters for a four-song set there. There were probably 80-100 people milling about, so it was fun to show off our new skillz for the assembled mob. The highlight was when we did a traditional bluegrass mandolin song for the people, called "Jackson Stomp," or something like that. It cracked up the mandolin people who were in attendance. Hearing that kind of music played by a squadron of ukulele players was pretty funny. After that, I dashed over to the Guitar Week Open Mic for our performance. True to form, it started 30 minutes late. That's okay with me. Jeff and I played fourth, and we did a good job, I think. By now, I don't get nervous at all at something like that. The audience is largely fellow students, and they all are rooting for you to perform well. You couldn't ask for a better crowd. There were some great performances, and once again, you see how much musical talent there is out there, that you'll probably never hear on the radio. The Bossa Nova Guitar class did a group presentation of two tunes, and that sound was awesome. If they offer that class next year, I've probably got to find a way to take it!
Friday after the Open Mic, we tried to find excuses to stay awake all night, but by 2:30, I was done. It was quieter than normal, and some of the prime late-night instigators had used up their precious stores of energy earlier in the week. Not to worry. For the first time ever, I was going to finish a Swannanoa without blistered fingers or a shredded voice. I have to give that a "thumbs up!"
Saturday, no running. Please. We did make it over for breakfast before the cafeteria closed, though. We said our goodbyes to everyone as they sadly packed up and drove away. Then, since we had some time, we did some hiking down to the Swannanoa River and around campus. Why not? While we waited for Andy to arrive with the Jeep, we took the opportunity to read through a stack of the evaluations that we all fill out at the end of the week. It was funny and interesting to go through those. Amazing how differently, but at the same time similarly, we all viewed the week's activities. Andy got there around noon, and we loaded up our stuff, and left campus. Jeff and I were pretty tired by now, with the end of the week crashing down around us. We went into Asheville and checked into our hotel, and then hiked around Asheville for a bit, including a visit to a great local bookstore for an afternoon pastry snack. We visited the Thomas Wolfe museum and home, too. Wolfe wrote some Important Books, including "Look Homeward, Angel," that we read last year before Swannanoa. Asheville was his homeplace and the thinly veiled setting for most of his writing.
I dozed off a couple of times during the short film on Wolfe's life, and I think every time we stood still for more than 30 seconds, I started dropping off, too. The tour of his home was actually pretty interesting, and we had a great tour guide. The guy really knew his stuff. We quizzed him afterwards on a variety of topics, and I think he was excited to find some people who actually knew the book.
Running on fumes, we went to Barley's Taproom, which is a great pub and pizza place that we usually visit while in Asheville. Jeff and Andy had their usual 4 ingredient creation, and I had a couple of huge slices of jerk chicken pizza. That's good eats, my friends! I had two or three increasingly dark beers, ending with an Oatmeal Porter. Feeling pretty buzzy, I figured we were done. Oh, no. Jeff ordered a round of Trappist Ales to finish off the evening. Those bad boys were 10% alcohol content as opposed to the 5% that the other beers featured. And, the flavors were so complex that it's hard for me to describe them. However, it was a great LAST beer. You would almost waste it if you started with such a drink. Given our fatigued state, it was a good thing that our hotel was in downtown Asheville. No driving for us!
We strolled around downtown, took in the sights and people-watching, and after a while, it was time to crash and burn. We were all asleep within, oh, 30 seconds of hitting the bed. It might have been as late as 11:00pm, but that would be a maximum. We slept the sleep of the just and the overly served. What a week! :-) Post-Swannanoa Depression Syndrome (PSDS) had set in, but we were delaying its full effects by not leaving Asheville right after camp was over. Crafty strategy, that.
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