I finally got a good night's sleep! I quit taking the pills Saturday morning, evidently that was the cause of the problem.
I was surprised at the drop in elevation from Knoxville to Asheville... nasty roads there, too. Some of the trees in the Smokies were turning, but not very many. I hope that there are more on the way back...
Karen has a friend in Asheville... a Dr. Marc Karson, whom she met thruogh her work on the phones at BC/BS. Long story, and not mine to tell.
Anyway, we got to Asheville about noon and we had thought that we were going to meet Marc and his wife for lunch or dinner or something... but no. When we finally got ahold of them, we found out that they wanted us to have supper with them and stay the night. Karen and I found a place to eat, then went to look for the Biltmore Mansion. We found it, or at least the entrance. We went inside of the entrance house to buy tickets and found out what it was all about.
$36.00 apiece for the main house, and additional fees for other tours. And it looked like it would take at least all day just to got around the mansion, and by this time it was 15:00...
So, that'll have to happen on another trip. They do have an annual permit/ticket, so if you were going to be there three days and this sort of thing could sustain your interest, it would be fun and worth it. Me, I'll skip it, thank you.
After searching vainly for a Walgreens, we drove up to Marc and Ann's place... they live in a gated community, and we had to call Marc and have him come down and open the gate. After we'd sat there for no more than two minutes, here he comes, in a black Miata with the top down, hair blowing in the wind.
Marc is about 80 (maybe more) and has been retired from teaching for many years. He taught economics and political science at the college level, and now he lectures for the State Department. His upcoming lecture is in Cyprus, where he will lecture to both the Greek and the Turkish sides... two different times and places, of course.
Marc is a very engaging guy, probably a certified genius. I took to him and his wife immediately, as did Karen.
Marc and his wife of 20 years, Anne, both lectured on cruise ships extensively after he retired. Anne, I think, has pretty much given up on it now.
Anne is a retired psychiatric nurse from South Africa, and she is very special in her own right.
Anyway, they live in a beautiful duplex pretty much at the top of a mountain... the view is spectacular. They have large decks on both floors, and a guest room on the lower floor, where Karen and I stayed.
Karen borrowed the phone book to look up Walgreens, and found that there were none in Asheville, and only one in North Carolina, according the the pharmacist that Marc finally got to talk to. To make a long story short, Karen got her pills after a long drive with Anne being the navigator.
I must admit to being a little miffed... I had to make the decision to stay the night or drive on to Raleigh. I was between a rock and a hard place... I was very anxious to see Dan and Lynn, but I certainly didn't want to offend our new friends. Or Karen, for that matter...
So I was faced with another late-night drive, after another dinner at another McDonald's, and with an angry wife to boot. Not really much of a choice, heh. I called Dan and told him that we would be in on Monday.
We had dinner with them, then went to bed. Marc was getting his thoughts together for his upcoming talk, since it was a new speech for him, or rather a new audience... Turkish and Greek Cypriots have different views of the world, both from us and from each other, and the State Department did not want to get them riled up, so Marc has to weigh each sentence against their cultures... better him than me.
Tomorrow... traveling on to Raleigh!