Rewind to Monday.

Jared and I were laying around Monday night watching Stand By Me when, at around 10:30, the doorbell rang. I opened the door and - SURPRISE! - it was Alison and Osiris.

They had wanted to meet us in Asheville to see Balkan Beat Box, but they both had to work, so they decided to come up and visit for the night. Such a nice treat. Maybe next time they can come when we all don’t have to wake up so early. :-)

The drive down to Asheville was fun. We got started around 9:00 and made it there by 3:30. We lazed around the hotel for a bit then set out to walk the streets. We had dinner at a place called Barley’s. They had yummy beers and pizza. I had a King Don’s Original Pumpkin Ale by Catawba Valley Brewing Company. It was way delicious. Definitely the best one so far this year.

We walked around for a bit more, had some beers, played some pool, then headed to The Orange Peel around 8:30. It was such a great venue. It was so clean and pretty and not too big and had a comfortably small crowd. My only complaint is that I ordered a New Castle and that is not what I got. I drank it anyway and when I went back to get another I told the bartender. He tried again, and was positive that it was indeed a New Castle, but my taste buds still disagreed. I had a Purple Haze instead.

Golem was the opening act for Balkan Beat Box. I fell in love with them instantly. They were a klezmer style band, and played mostly traditional songs with a few originals. Naturally I developed a huge crush on the violinist. She was just too damn precious. I’m such a sucker for violinists for some reason. They are just so sexy to me. I bought both of their cds after the show. Their newest one is called Fresh Off Boat and guess who guests on it? Amanda Palmer from Dresden Dolls. Yippee! I love when two bands collide.

Balkan Beat Box was insanely good. Tamir Muskat was amazing. I hope to see a J.U.F. tour one day with him. They all seemed to be having the best time. The guitarist was the cutest thing I’ve seen since… well, since the violinist I guess. He’s definitely my new new crush. I couldn’t stop staring at him all night. Mmmmm.

Other Jared suggested going to Blacksburg the following night, and Rob and I were all for it, but turned out he wasn’t 100% serious. Damn. I could’ve done it again.

None of us were in a rush to get home the next day, so we decided to take the long way home and visit some caverns. The closest ones to us were Linville Caverns in Marion, NC. It was OJ’s first time in a cavern. Our tour guide was totally cheesy, and we were with a family of kids, parents, and grandparents, but it was still a lot of fun.

We began the hunt for some lunch afterwards, and that’s how we ended up in Boone, NC at Hungry Howies.

The place was crawling with freshman. FYI, Rob Seeley gets very uncomfortable around large groups of high school kids. We realized it was “Wacky Wednesday” and there were all these cheap pizza specials, hence the large population of youngsters.

We got our pizzas (yes, plural) to go.

We immediately got the hell out of Boone. About a half hour later, OJ realized he had gone the wrong direction. We were heading back towards the mountain we had just left. We turned around and got back to Boone and the place we were supposed to turn at earlier. Then another half hour passed when we realized that we were in Tennessee! OJ had gone the wrong way again. Twice in a row!

It was back to Boone for us. We were beginning to think that we were in Dead End and that we would never get out of Boone.

It was funny. It was Wacky.

The car ride home after that was long and rainy. We kept laughing about getting lost twice. The rental car had satellite radio and we found a fun station that played only old school hip hop. Rob got two bloody noses. We had A LOT of pizza to eat. We found peanut butter peanut butter cups at some gas station that were so yummy. OJ drank 4 Red Bulls, yikes!

We made it home around 10:00 and after turning in the rental car, headed to the Taphouse for just one drink. Other Jared soon realized that he had left his cell phone on the desk at the rental place, so we all piled back in to go get it. After that we were done. So tired. It was time.

We decided to retire Scrubs Wednesday for the season and we’ve christened Wednesdays here on out as Wacky Wednesdays.

Fun times ahead.

Happy Birthday to my Wob! I heart you for real.