Beauty Mountain

UPDATE! Check out the article that this post came from in the new issue of the excellent WNC Magazine,
The River Maidens, Ride the waves with WNC’s leading female kayakers featuring just five of the many river goddesses of the region.

Dixie-Marree Prickett is a self-described southern belle that likes to get her hands dirty and play outside. Dixie-Marree is from Clinton, SC, and, like Bunny Johns, was led to the mountains of WNC as a camper and a camp counselor, at Camp Greystone in Tuxedo, NC, and at Camp Green Cove in Zirconia, NC. After graduating in environmental policies at the College of Charleston, she moved to Jackson Hole, WY. The huge snows didn’t fit her. “I’m out,” she said, and headed back to her paddling community of Asheville. She became a kayak instructor with NOC’s satellite store in Asheville, competing and winning in rodeos and field meter races. Pyranha Kayaks picked her up as an athlete and she spent five years traveling in an RV, living on the river. “Every boating company had a team – a traveling gypsy band. I got the best of it.” Since then she’s boated in Ecuador, Mexico, Costa Rica, Canada, Turkey, France, Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia, Austria, Italy and the USA. Now a manufacturer’s rep for Patagonia, she spends six months on the road during the selling season. “I still get to travel but I’m not gone as long. It feels much more balanced.” Paddling 15 to 30 days a month when she’s home in Asheville. “You couldn’t ask for a nicer Class IV-V in your own backyard.”

Favorite river and why?
I just was in Tibet-we paddled several different stretches of the Tsang Po and we also ran many other smaller rivers and creeks. My favorite area was the Sum Sum River and Valley which flows into the Tsang Po. Po means river in Tibetan. It was so beautiful I couldn’t stop crying.
And the Green just feels like home. It is so special because of the community.

Favorite moment on the river
On the Gauley in 2004. On Gauley weekend they ramped it up after 2 pm, and Pillow was at 10,000 cfs. My friends Katie, Little Dave and I were in playboats. It was so exciting, my ribs hurt from laughing so hard.

Favorite music
Reggae. It calms me down.

Favorite food
Mexican/Latin American and peanut butter and jelly

Any hobbies?
I like to make jewelry. I blow my own glass beads. I also love to cook and garden.

Favorite restaurant?
Sunny Point. It is the one place I always want to get back to when I am away.

Insiders tip to WNC?
Get in a boat and get out there. There is something for everyone.
I am seeing more and more people getting out in the rivers and creeks, and not just in kayaks, but in inner tubes, duckies. And there are more and more paddling clubs, many in North Carolina. There are so many ways to try getting on the river, it’s very user-friendly.

Heroes
Buffy Bailey Burge. She is an amazing kayaker and friend…. And mother She has a three year old and twin babies who are almost a year old. She is so humble and top class. I feel the most comfortable on the water with her.
Daniel DeLavergne. He was a leader in whitewater videography. He passed away in 2006. I was lucky to travel around the country with him in an RV. Daniel was always ready to fire it up and he was a huge motivator for me in kayaking.

Philosophy
On a wooden plaque that Daniel’s family had made. “Live well. Love much. Laugh often.”

Big Dreams, Goals
I want to do a girl’s trip to Europe. Do an all girls Take Europe By Storm paddling trip. Then get all the ladies over to Tibet, where I recently spent three weeks.

by Balakov
Found this via the brilliant A Photo Editor. I love these, there are so many all-time favs.

This is from Banu over at NC Arts.
From The Wall Street Journal
June 3, 2010
‘Vanity’ Press Goes Digital
By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER And JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG

Writer Karen McQuestion spent nearly a decade trying without success to persuade a New York publisher to print one of her books. In July, the 49-year-old mother of three decided to publish it herself, online.

Eleven months later, Ms. McQuestion has sold 36,000 e-books through Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle e-bookstore and has a film option with a Hollywood producer. In August, Amazon will publish a paperback version of her first novel, “A Scattered Life,” about a friendship triangle among three women in small-town Wisconsin.

Ms. McQuestion is at the leading edge of a technological disruption that’s loosening traditional publishers’ grip on the book market—and giving new power to technology companies like Amazon to shape which books and authors succeed.

Much as blogs have bitten into the news business and YouTube has challenged television, digital self-publishing is creating a powerful new niche in books that’s threatening the traditional industry. Once derided as “vanity” titles by the publishing establishment, self-published books suddenly are able to thrive by circumventing the establishment.

“If you are an author and you want to reach a lot of readers, up until recently you were smart to sell your book to a traditional publisher, because they controlled the printing press and distribution. That is starting to change now,” says Mark Coker, founder of Silicon Valley start-up Smashwords Inc., which offers an e-book publishing and distribution service.

Fueling the shift is the growing popularity of electronic books, which few people were willing to read even three years ago. Apple Inc.’s
iPad and e-reading devices such as Amazon’s Kindle have made buying and reading digital books easy. U.S. book sales fell 1.8% last year to $23.9 billion, but e-book sales tripled to $313 million, according to the Association of American Publishers. E-book sales could reach as high as 20% to 25% of the total book market by 2012, according to Mike Shatzkin, a publishing consultant, up from an estimated 5% to 10% today.

To continue reading:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704912004575253132121412028.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsForth

On my way home today, I saw a box turtle stuck in the middle of the road. I stopped and a truck was coming, and I pointed to it, and it was just able to avoid it. Then, I ran over and moved it to the side of the road, and lo and behold there was another box turtle there craning its neck, looking for it. I put them next to each other. They had the most exquisite patterns, and so different like snowflakes. I wish I had my camera. But then I found a four leaf clover :)
I hope they both have a long, happy life.