{"id":793,"date":"2014-08-22T08:50:43","date_gmt":"2014-08-22T15:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikelberman.com\/blog\/?p=793"},"modified":"2014-09-04T11:53:42","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T18:53:42","slug":"one-day-in-asheville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mikelberman.com\/blog\/?p=793","title":{"rendered":"One day in Asheville"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since I decided to take a road trip to Nashville, I’ve been hearing about Asheville. \u00a0When I realized it was also the home of the Moog headquarters, it became a new highlight on my itinerary. \u00a0My five hour drive stretched closer to seven, after taking the time to blog about all of the hiking at a Starbucks.<\/p>\n

I pulled into town at 5:15pm, headed directly to the Moog shop that’d only be open for the rest of the hour. \u00a0I’ll admit that I went straight for the guitar pedal demo area, even though it’s Moog’s modular synths that put him on the map for most. \u00a0I played a red tele’ through a chain of Moog pedals, into an Orange amp. \u00a0The second pedal from the left was a really unique distortion pedal. \u00a0All of their pedals have control voltage inputs, meaning that you can plug-in an expression pedal to control one of the effect’s settings with your foot (think wahwah pedal). \u00a0On the distortion pedal, you can control the filter frequency, making sounds somewhere between a wah and a fuzz box. \u00a0And no, it sounds nothing like a distortion pedal through a wah.<\/p>\n

\"Moog<\/a>

Moog guitar pedal setup<\/p><\/div>\n

Not before long, I was geeking out with the manager Rob on all the great toys in the shop. \u00a0I mentioned the Littlebits Synth Kit that I worked on last year. \u00a0He said the he and especially the engineers at the shop were huge fans. \u00a0I asked Ron to stand by his favorite instrument in the shop. \u00a0He chose the limited edition Voyager (only 100 made).<\/p>\n

\"Rob<\/a>

Rob from the Moog shop with Voyager<\/p><\/div>\n

I opted to pose with the theremin (think of that sound in the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations). \u00a0When Robert Moog was a student, he sold theremins in kit form. \u00a0I guess I was acknowledging his origins (and taking the opportunity to throw a raised eyebrow). \u00a0I bought myself some geeky souvenirs including a travel mug and a series of ADSR coasters (sorry no money for a synth). \u00a0Rob also hooked me up with a sweet hexagonal moog calendar when I asked him the price. \u00a0Thanks dude!<\/p>\n

\"Posing<\/a>

Posing with a Moog theremin<\/p><\/div>\n

Still sore from the 10 hour hike the day before, I asked Rob for a suggestion on yoga spot in the area. \u00a0He mentioned the Asheville Community Yoga Center. \u00a0I wish every long drive on this trip ended with a yoga session.<\/p>\n

\"AshevilleYoga\"<\/a>

Asheville Community Yoga<\/p><\/div>\n

Once class was over I had to decide which of all the great dinner recommendations I would seek out. \u00a0I was originally planning on going to Rosetta’s, the cornerstone of vegetarian in the town. \u00a0I heard they had a homemade-kombucha bar, which sounded pretty fantastic. \u00a0It was already after 8pm, so I decided to consolidate my trip by going to the Brewery that the park ranger had recommended (he knew one of the brewmasters).<\/p>\n

I snagged a seat at the bar, and after a glance of the menus, knew I’d made the right decision. \u00a0With some guidance from Sam the bartender,\u00a0I ordered the double IPA and a fried-chicken with kimchi sando. \u00a0Sam went by ‘Slam’ at the bar. \u00a0There was a Sam Dunkin hired at the same time, so naturally they make the two parts of ‘Slam Dunkin’.<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/a>

Sam at Wicked Weed<\/p><\/div>\n

The second Ron I met in Asheville was a fellow solo roadtripper. \u00a0He had just come from Rosetta’s and was on the IPA wagon with me. \u00a0Between Slam and Ron, I felt like I was at dinner with friends. \u00a0Sam gave us tastings of her favorite beers, including their sours. \u00a0Sour beer is an odd thing to me, but it’s hard to turn down free beer. \u00a0Thanks again for the free round!<\/p>\n

After dinner, I still had to find a place to sleep. \u00a0The plan was to camp and couch surf, so I couldn’t chicken out and get a hotel room just because it’d been raining and it was close to midnight. \u00a0The guys at the Moog shop insisted I could camp off any trail on the Blue Ridge Parkway, so I headed in that direction. \u00a0It was a curvy, 40 mph local highway, much like Skyline. \u00a0I noticed cars parked on big grassy shoulders, presumably campers in the woods behind.<\/p>\n

I pulled onto the first large shoulder I could find, my small coupe awkwardly bobbling over the uneven ground. \u00a0I slung on my headlamp and entered the forest looking for a suitable campsite and to check for bear. \u00a0I big ol’ possum clunked around, totally un-phased by my bright headlamp. \u00a0The slope of the forest, way too sleep for tent camping meant I’d either sling up the hammock in the rain or camp on the actual shoulder. \u00a0I was headed for Nashville at dawn, so I didn’t have time to be picky about matters, so I popped a tent on the forest-side of my car and napped for about four hours. \u00a0Two to three cars and hour would drive by and I would laugh to myself as I imagined what their reaction would be to such a site.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since I decided to take a road trip to Nashville, I’ve been hearing about Asheville. \u00a0When I realized it was also the home of the Moog headquarters, it became a new highlight on my itinerary. \u00a0My five hour drive stretched closer to seven, after taking the time to blog about all of the hiking at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[226],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-down-south"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikelberman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikelberman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikelberman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikelberman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikelberman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=793"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/mikelberman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":874,"href":"http:\/\/mikelberman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions\/874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikelberman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikelberman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikelberman.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}