Fall is a very busy time in Asheville. On the weekends, in particular, the town is clogged with people who come here to see the leaves change, stroll Biltmore in the company of a couple thousand other people, attend the very festive events on the estate and elsewhere in town, spend money, and in general make their presence known. I am not one of those people who will complain much about this since it comes with the territory. If you live in a town that is this attractive and has this many things for people to do, tourism flourishes. Nonetheless, a little over a week ago, when Larry and Mary Kaye Young were here for their visit, it took me 15 minutes to find a parking space a little over 6 blocks away from the restaurant in which we dined on Saturday night. Fortunately weather has been very nice and I bumped into an acquaintance along the way with whom I chatted for a minute.

October was going to be my busiest month of the year in terms of house guests, but with a couple of last minute cancellations I found myself with a calmer schedule. Larry and Mary Kaye were here for a little less than 4 days and we were running pretty ragged the whole time. There is a lot to see and do here and when you add art shopping for a new house to the list, it gets pretty hectic. Since they are both accustomed to being busy and active, it went fine. We ate, drank, toured and shopped the whole time they were here. What fun.

Then, about a week and a half later, by sister Lisa and her husband Dave blew into town for a real whirlwind. They were here for almost exactly 24 hours. Considering the drive from their house on the north side of Indianapolis takes about 7 hours, I guess I should be flattered that they felt like it was worth coming for such a short visit. There was some discussion about their coming back next weekend with the kids but it looks like that probably isn't going to happen. Still, it was fun driving around the beautiful old neighborhoods of Asheville and Biltmore Forest trying to look at as many styles of period residential architecture as possible. Lisa and Dave are beginning the daunting task of finding an architect to design a house for them and this was part of the prep work. Since I am no longer set up for doing the work, or for that matter, inclined to do it, the best I can do is prepare them for the process and help them find a good practitioner to design for them.

The weather changed pretty sharply in late September. Nights got cool all of a sudden and the daytime temps in the 80s were replaced with anywhere from high 50s to mid 70s. Fall in this part of the country is widely varied. We will have 5 straight days of brilliant sunshine and warm weather with nights cool enough to trigger the heat to go on in the house and the leaves to change colors on the trees. Then, with no notice other than Ray's Weather page on the Internet, this morning I got up to a brilliant red sky followed by overcast and drizzle on and off for much of the day. It still got into the low 60s but it is like the weather is suffering from ennui. Then tomorrow we are supposed to have an absolute downpour followed by two days of gorgeous sun and mid 70s again. Dressing for days like this can be quite complex and can involve many changes during the day.

The leaves are looking like the display this year is going to be a bit more dramatic than last year. Some of the early turners. . .mostly maples, are already well along and are even dropping leaves. Many of the hardwoods are still green or just starting. Where you see large forested areas, it almost looks like someone is selectively painting the trees yellows, reds and burgundies at this point, on a background canvas of green. John Ballenger is due here in a week. I am hoping that by the time he gets here the balance will have swung toward more color.

I have also noticed the return of the wooly worms. I will post a photo of one of the more common ones when I finish the text of this update. Wooly worms are caterpillars that are completely covered in long multi-colored fur and at this time of year they are migrating to the locations where they will cocoon themselves for the winter. I am not good enough with my bug knowledge to know yet which type of caterpillar turns into which type of butterfly in the spring but my knowledge of this whole process and its timing is far greater than before I made this move. One of the great joys I have in this new life is that my awareness of the physical world around me is no longer primarily that of the built environment. It isn't that I'm not still interested in architecture. I still read a number of professional journals and try to keep up, but all this hiking I do with Abner has opened up an understanding of biology and botany that I certainly never had from school. I realize when I observe some of the life I see in the wild, that buried in some crevice in my brain is a lot of information about these creatures that I retained for all these decades without ever applying it to anything or even accessing it beyond the occasional game of Trivial Pursuit. Now sometimes, I will see something happen in nature that I remember learning about in 9th or 10th grade and it astounds me. A lot of this knowledge also makes sense for the first time in my life. It's like the wooly worms. I see them only when they have to make their mad dash (using the term very generously. . .they are among nature's slowest creatures) to safety and security for the winter, and that occurs precisely when I have changed into long pants and sweatshirts for my hiking. Whoda thunk it?

My house is somewhat casually on the market. I have a for sale by owner sign in front of it with an info tube that I try to keep filled with fliers. Try is the operative word in that sentence. The people building the house next door to mine also have their old house on the market. They are much more energetic than I am with signs stapled to power poles pointing to our street and lots more effort. The problem for them is that they are asking $21/square foot more for their house than I am for mine and theirs is a rather ordinary looking early 60s ranchburger. Well apparently they are mightily pissed off that mine is, in their minds, competing with theirs and at some point every day or night, one of them skulks over here and removes all the remaining fliers from my infotube. I just keep refilling it but it is kind of sad.

The only reason I have put the house on the market is that there is a house up on top of the highest mountain in town that I want to buy. It has been on the market for almost 15 months and has all kinds of problems that make it unlikely to sell to someone outside of the architectural or building professions but the owners aren't interested in selling it to me contingent on the sale of my house. So I decided to try the FSBO route in between visitors and my trip to Ocracoke Island for the week of Thanksgiving. If I get much action or get a buyer, that's great. Otherwise, I probably won't actually list the house until after I return from Barbados in late January. It's not a bad position to be in really. I am reasonably comfortable where I am so I'm not desperate to sell. I would love to get this house I have found, but won't do it in any way that risks putting me in financial trouble to get it. I am exactly the kind of seller real estate agents hate.

I have the trip to Ocracoke scheduled and arranged already and am thinking of adding a few days either before or after that week to explore the rest of the Outer Banks, and Williamsburg and Norfolk Virginia before heading home. I guess my decision to extend will be somewhat predicated on whether or not much is happening with the house. Then I will spend pretty much the whole month of December here. My friends with whom I play cards have a fairly regular ritual of events for the Christmas and New Years Holidays and this year I have been invited to join them. It feels different this year in that regard. Last year, while I knew a lot of people already, I wasn't really close enough with anyone to be involved in holiday events. This year that is certainly changing and I guess that is a mark of my being more a part of the community.

Then in mid January I will go to Barbados for 10 days with my parents and siblings. After that I probably will stay home until mid March when Judy Carver, Jean Ann and Jim Rogers, Judy's brother and sister-in-law from Maine and me all head down to Puerto Vallarta for a group trip. Judy and her family have bought a timeshare that they can use pretty much anywhere and they decided that they wanted to try out PV this year. Well, I got to thinking that March is an awfully nice time there so I asked John if I could have his house for a week and asked Jim and Jean Ann to come as well. I guess we will have to take a bunch of decks of cards.

Maybe after all that travel I will be ready to settle back in for my anticipated spring guests. Of course, I may be moving so who knows what will happen next. I expect to visit California for a longer more leisurely trip next year but that won't be until late summer.

I am also beginning to look into a house swap with someone in Portugal, Spain, or Southern France for the summer of 2008. That will be the year of my 60th birthday. When I was approaching 50 I had planned to give myself a big trip and had saved money for years to do so, but 1998 rolled around and circumstances just weren't right. This time, since I no longer have a business to worry about, I think I can pull it off, so I am hoping to get a house and car for the summer and will take Abner with me. I have already found out that Cunard will allow dogs to travel on the QM2 so my plan is to sail to and from Europe and then set up housekeeping in a conveniently located town. Then I will make trips out and about to see things I have wanted to see for years. Things are still in the early planning stages but I have almost two years to figure out how all this would work. More later.

I have switched to a new dentist. Her name is Kathryn Philpott-Hill and her practice is called Bouche. For those of you who aren't familiar with French, that means mouth. I probably would have switched to her on that basis alone, but she has a beautiful modern office with good art and flatscreen TVs all over the place that are continually playing old black and white classic movies. I think she is a good dentist although she wants me to spend a fortune on my mouth. I have only one crown and it needs to be replaced but there are apparently 3 other teeth that have ancient fillings that are big enough that she thinks they will need to be replaced by crowns as well. Add to that the fact that I haven't had root scaling/planing in probably 15 years and it starts to get pretty pricey. I guess I will eventually get all this done but it will have to be over a long period of time. I do like Kathryn though. She is a Katrina expat. Apparently she lived in Western North Carolina in a town she didn't particularly like many years ago. Then she moved to New Orleans where she practiced for 8 or so years until Katrina forced her out. After that, she remembered that she always sort of liked Asheville and came for a visit. Well, the town has boomed since she was here before and she decided that this would be a good place to start over so here she is.

Funny thing is that the same day I met her, I met a woman who is starting a new art magazine here after having one in New Orleans and having to leave. Only a couple days before that I heard that Harry Anderson (formerly of "Night Court" fame) had decided not to reopen his New Orleans club and he has relocated here. All of a sudden we seem to be getting a large number of Katrina exiles. I guess enough time has past and things are slow enough in recovering in New Orleans that a lot of people are just deciding to start over elsewhere.

Well, on balance, life is still an embarrassment of riches. I am awfully happy here. There are days when I am out walking someplace with Abner and I am almost overcome with the simple joy of my life here. A big part of my fun has been sharing this place with my old friends who come for visits and I hope that continues. If I move to this new house my guest accommodations will be better too so more of you can come.

I hope you are all well and would love to hear from you when you have a moment. Pictures will follow shortly.