Pritchard Park — Attraction in Asheville

Fantastic park. I was incredibly apprehensive as this is the first time I've been in Asheville proper for close to a decade. A lot has changed, for the worse. Too many sweater vests, designer dogs, khakis, etc. The last time I sat in this park I had the pleasure of drinking a cheap hot coffee from Firestorm book's, then located within sight of the park. A "dude bro" in shades asked where he could "score some dope" to which a park inhabitant alerted me and everyone else that it was a nark asking.

Fortunately today the park remained how I remember! It seems whatever culture, eccentricity, excitement this downtown area has to offer was distilled and following the sunshine around the park. Public toilets are a great addition, outlets for charging ones phone and a working water fountain. Small man riding a bike in circles with a katana in his backpack. Someone playing spoons. No pigs in sight, by far an oasis in an otherwise whitewashed...

So we were traveling through late at night. We stopped in town for gas for our truck and to find restrooms. There were public restrooms right by the police dept. There was a sign posted saying "Public Bathrooms Closed untill further Notice" I knocked, loudly, repeatedly at the police dept door to ask if my kids could use the bathroom. I know they heard me, but they ignored me. We had to use the port-o-pottys in the park and they were fithy. I told my kids mot to touch anything! And later we washed their hands in sanitizer. The park was so dirty and filled with homless and strange people. There was a public wash station but clearly it had been vandilized. For being a "Pandemic" right now nothing was clean. It looked like the whole town was shut down. This maybe normally a nice park. I wouldn't know, But don't visit it at night. And not...

We love, love, love to come here on Friday nights to listen as scores of drummers congregate in the small ampitheater with stretched skin drums of a variety of cultures.

Once the drums begin, it almost serves as a siren's song to bring more drums to the center. Before you know it, a crowd assembles around the park and individual dancers in costumes of their own liking and dances from dirvishes to African, to made-up-on-the-spot, swirl through the center hub while the rhythm of the drums beats into your chest.

Surrounding the drum circle one can generally find UNC Asheville students or graduates on street corners strumming guitars, wheezing through harmonicas, bowing their fiddles or playing statue as they stand perfectly still until tip monies clink into their cups. Look up and you might see the high-bicycle riding nun fly by in a...