Andy finds his Chi in Asheville

A few weeks ago, my friend Muffin wrote and asked if there was any chance Andy and I would want to meet them in Asheville to go to a Nickel Creek concert. After laughing for a minute, I thought to myself, well, actually, why not? I have an old college buddy who lives there, so maybe we could take an extra day off work, drive down Friday and spend some time with her too.

The more we thought about it, the more we decided it was a good idea. So, I got in touch with my friend, Lee, and she offered to put us up for the weekend. That made the idea instantly go from good to great!

We dropped Layla off at the vet early Friday morning and headed down to Asheville. Lee was truly the "hostess with the mostess" after a quick tour of her amazing home, we were off to dinner. We chatted over a few beers and some good Mexican food, catching up on old times. We actually managed not to bore Andy too much, especially since Lee remembered all the really good details of some of the funnier college stories that Andy hadn't heard -- mainly the "Great Prank War of 1998 ... or maybe 97." I won't go into too much detail, but let's just say it ended with a trip to the Dean's office where we made to swear off any and all future pranks. Good times.

It was a great night, and even though it's been a good 8 years since we've seen each other and a year ago or so since we reconnected, we picked right back up. As Lee said ... It was weird how it wasn't weird at all.

The next morning, Lee took us to Craggy Gardens for a nice hike. It's right off the Blue Ridge Parkway and has an amazing panoramic view of the mountains. Andy has particularly requested a hike with a view, and Lee delivered :) That's where he found his Chi. Apparently it had been missing for a while.


Here's Andy searching for his Chi.

Here's just a few pictures from our hike. More to come in my next post.