What the f**k am I doing in Asheville?

23 April - Set off pretty eartoday in order not to be distracted by the offerings of Atlanta as I had destination In mind - zipped through South carolina and made it to North Carolina and Asheville by around 2:00. At a rest stop a very big group of very big black men and women assured me I was goingthe right direction - I think I was talking to the patriarch and every time one of the women came over they would check out my California plates and say 'Ooh, you've come a longway!' - ladies, you have no idea. Arrived in Asheville and was given a bit of a advice by the guy who runs the hostel and I have to say it was a bit disappointing. I didn’t want to see real hillbilly 'squeal like a pig!' type people but I wanted to see something a little more exotic than espresso shops and objects d'art stores. You can pretty much walk downtown without any trouble unless you get accosted by a jewish christian convert who wanted to tell me the Word. He asked me what I was and when he heard atheist he got a little defensive and I found myself defending evolution for the second time in three days - it's a good thing he used the classic 'find a watch in the field and you know it was built by something intelligent' argument because Mr Dawkins shredded that one in his seminal classic, 'The Blind Watchmaker' - I think i've got to reread him again to make sure I’ve got some more coherent ammunition should this happen again. There ar mountains around the area but none within the immediate vicinity and i'm not sure if i'll be able to hang around for long enough to check them out if i'm to complete my journey in my allocattd time. In any event, asheville is great but there doesn't seem to be anything that really drags me in. There ar a few american tourists around the town but hardly any internationls, which i suppose is a nice thing for a change (the reason for their absence is pretty obvious however). I keep on thinking that an interpol traffic cop should put up a plastic police tape line across the I85 and wave all potential tourists away, saying 'Move along folks, there's nothingto see here, move along, move along...'. Its not the thingthat your supposed to do when your exploring a new country but i walked past a movie cinema that was playing 'Thank You For Smoking' so i took a few hours out to watch that, which was pretty entertaining - very amusing to see a film all about smoking and have not one scene showing a person actually smoking a cigarette.