spring forward!

good morning from asheville, north carolina. i believe eli has a thoughtful post in the making to share about our experiences at the farm, ida, and the highlander center, but i wanted to share my own brief updates in the meantime.

backtracking to new orleans -- i don't think i mentioned our trip to jean la fitte swamp, where we were sworn into being junior rangers for the first time since joshua tree. this particular park ranger had a little less enthusiasm than the person at j-tree, but we earned our badges nonetheless. we saw alligators, turtles, and snakes! but heard only the distant snort of a wild boar...

then in atlanta, like i wrote briefly earlier, i had a long awaited meeting with my penpal brawny and her amazing companion, freddie mercorgi. it was very special and sweet for me and i liked being called human freddie. i assure you these couple of pictures don't even scrape the surface of how many pictures i took of freddie.

 

we left atlanta and headed for ida, where we stayed for four nights and very much enjoyed unplugging, being around caring and hilarious queers (and their dogs), and hanging out by the beautiful creek running through the land. ida hosted a work party where both eli and i spent the majority of the day assisting chuck (a visiting artist from brooklyn) with the installation of their amazing sculptures of curvy queer bodies. it was kind of ridiculous, in that the sculptures (which started out as 3,000 pound logs) were pretty impossible to move (even with 5+ hearty queers pushing, shoving, and wiggling them with all our might) but eventually our collective brains and brawn made it happen. and they look amazing!! (eli's upcoming blog will include a photo of said installation). our last day in tennessee, we spent an afternoon at short mountain sanctuary where we took a nice walk and made a little music together.

now, we are in asheville, north carolina, one of eli's homes. so far we are having sweet times hanging out with eli's chosen family and mine, as we managed to catch a weird but delightful erica russo show at a whole foods nearby where we're staying. please listen to her album "in between dreams" if you haven't already! we'll be here in asheville for the next 5 days or so, in which we will visit earth haven, the rural wooded community eli used to live in, and hopefully go on mountain adventures!

til next time...

xo freddie