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My dear friend Heather Heather is in town. Tonight the temperature is in the teens and Joshua and I took her downtown to the Prayer Gallery. I think she was wearing ten layers and three hats. And still cold.

Joshua and I have this really bad habit of leaving our car headlights on and then we come out later and try to start the car and realize the battery is dead. It's an old Tercel and there is no dinging or light flashing to give you warning that you've left the lights on. Today, for at least the fifteenth time, we had to get someone to give us a jump because we had done it again. (Thank God the Worthys put a pair of jumper cables in the trunk.) So we were late picking Heather Heather up from the airport. But she's reading Twilight so I don't think she minded too much.

We tried to do the whole rolling start thing since the Tercel is a manual, but I was in the driver's seat and couldn't get it to work. I think I was supposed to pop the clutch or something once I had it in second gear, but I don't know what that means and I didn't do it. Poor Joshua had to push the car up a hill and I think he might have given himself a hernia.

It was snowing this morning. :)

Huffin' and puffin'

Realization of the day: chubby and out of shape = miserable workout.

It wasn't even supposed to be a workout. The roommie and I both had hellish days at work-- waiting on other people to give you information so that you can do what your supposed to do and then give your work to someone else who needs it before they can do what they're supposed to do, within a two-hour deadline... yeah. Also, working in a higher-education institution lends itself to perks (like great cultural events that come to campus and are free for faculty and staff) and certain disadvantages (like everyone thinking their program/unit/department is the most important on campus). I suppose you get that disadvantage in every workplace. But still, it's a little frustrating when you know that the world really revolves around your office. Haha, just kidding.

When I got home Michelle was vegging out in our corner chair, catching up on Grey's Anatomy, and I headed straight for the (can you guess?) Ruffles and ranch dip. (This, I'm realizing, may be part of the chubbiness problem.) We caught up on our days, our drama and moaned about being tired, and then jointly decided that what we really needed was to expend a little energy. Out came the bikes.

Now Michelle is mountain biker extraordinaire, and my bike has been on the back porch covered in a tarp since I moved to Asheville last November. Six months, baby. Six months of sedentary winter living. "Winter living" means eating, huddling up in lots of blankets, and more eating. Eating things like alfredo pasta, and broccoli and rice casserole, and hot apple cider, and Godiva hot chocolate. These things are heavy, creamy, and full of sugar and fat that keep you nice and warm all winter long. And I needed to be nice and warm. I am a Florida girl after all, and I had a hard enough time just getting used to the fact that I couldn't just jump in my car to go to work in the morning and drive off. I had to wait for the ice to thaw or try to scrape it off (usually without much success, though I'm blaming the ice-scraper). So it was pure survival mode for me.

Michelle and I didn't have the drive to load our bikes up into our cars and go to a local park, so we decided to ride down the main road and use the sidewalks. For the first five minutes I was smiling like a loon. (Cheri, I didn't know what a loon looks like, or even that it was a bird, but I have heard that they smile a lot. Or did I get my expressions mixed up?) "Now this is North Carolina living," I said to myself as we cruised downhill in the twilight air.

We rode for 28 minutes and went 3.5 miles, according to Michelle's do-hickey that she keeps on her handlebars. Anyone who isn't as silly as me realizes that after you get to the bottom of the hill you're cruising down, you have to go back up another. Let's just say that I got my half-hour of exercise with a consistently elevated heart rate this evening. Michelle cheered me on for the last quarter-mile, because she's a good sport. I felt like I was on Biggest Loser.

So, this is what I have surmised: a) I am chubby and out of shape, b) I do not want to be chubby and out of shape, and c) I probably need to lay off the Ruffles and ranch dip and spend more time on the bike.

Has the girl got spelunk?

My friend Heather paid me a visit this weekend, so Josh and I decided to take her spelunking. Yep, caving. WNC has amazing hiking trails and rock faces for climbing, and lots of caves that are mostly unknown and hard to find. We heard about this cave through someone at Josh's work, so yesterday Josh, his sister Michelle, Heather and I drove out toward Chimney Rock and followed this hand-drawn map to a rutted clay road that led up the mountain a half-mile to a trail head. Armed with cameras, a first aid kit (I told you I like to be prepared), three flashlights and one headlamp, we started up the mountain.

Right after we started we ran into some hippies who were also climbing up the trail, complete with a zampoña and a jaw harp which they were pretty good at. We said hello, and told them we were trying to find a cave someone had told us about, have they ever been there? The hippie with the zampoña replied with obviously feigned ignorance, "Cave? What are you talking about? There aren't any caves in these mountains" and shortly went back to playing his panpipe.

They paused half-way to strip off some of their clothing and we surged ahead, only to have us ladies get winded a quarter-mile up the trail and stop for some water. The hippies passed us and we saw them climb up the mountain on the trail leading left-- and then they disappeared.

I suggested we try going the way that I saw the hippies climb around some boulders, but when we got ourselves up there, there was nothing to be found. No cave entrances and the trail that continued to the left ended up taking us in the wrong direction, or so two climbers told us when we ran into them and asked.

We doubled back around, climbing up crevices that were too small for my hips to pass through the proper way, and still nothing. Not wanting to climb back down to the main trail the way that we had gotten up, we decided to cut through some boulders that had created sort of a tent against the mountains-- cool, secluded, but sadly not a cave.

Heather was the first to go through that way. "What is that smell?" she said. "I know that smell. Rosemary? No, that wouldn't be growing here on the side of a mountain." She disappeared into the crack in the boulders. "I know what it is!" her voice echoed out. "Marijuana!"

I believe our hippie friends made a pit stop on their way to the cave.

Meanwhile, another hippie couple had started up the mountain and I was trailing the guy's flannel shirt through the trees. Then, they too disappeared.

We trekked around the mountain for three hours, climbing up and down boulders, finding cracks in the rock face blowing out freezing cold air, but no main entrance to the cavern.

We left without ever finding it. It didn't really matter, because we had completely tuckered ourselves out searching and had a blast doing it. Especially me coming up with hippie conspiracy theories all the while.

This was my first real experience with hippies since moving to Asheville. It's a big movement in these parts. Thing that I learned: hippies are all natural. Dreads, body odor, the works.

I think I could be a hippie except for the B.O. part. No thank you.

Plans to find the cave in the near-future.