The app that tells you the best time to run and pee during a movie without missing the best scenes.

100% free (donation supported) iPhone | Android

Tails from Asheville, North Carolina

asheville_bridge
Hwy 70 at exit 55 in Asheville.

Many of you may know that RunPee HQ is based in our home in Asheville, North Carolina. Actually, if you’re familiar with the area we live just outside of Asheville in a small town called Swannanoa. Many of you have probably never heard of Swannanoa, or the Swannanoa River, until yesterday. Now, it seems both are in the national news.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know much of what is going on, other than my neighborhood is a disaster. Fortunately, I live up on a hill. Normally my house is about a quarter mile from the Swannanoa River. Yesterday it was about 100 yards.

Just Another Thursday

Thursday was a busy day prepping, for movies. Vera and I went to see The Wild Robot. We came home, I did the Peetimes and then zipped back to the theater to see Megalopolis. At this time it had been raining constantly for at least a day. Not hard, but unending. I got back from the theater and went to work adding the Peetimes. I knew the next day was going to be stormy, and expected the power to go out at some point. Something that happens fairly regularly when you live in the countryside.

——Content continues below——

The World’s Most Indispensable Movie App

The RunPee app tells you the best times to
run & pee during a movie
so you don't miss the best scenes.


As seen on

Download the RunPee app.
100% free (donation supported)

Get the RunPee app at the Google Play Store       Get the RunPee app at the Google Play Store

Read more about the RunPee app.



Once the reviews were done I started looking more closely at the weather. And it wasn’t good. My big worry is the trees. There are at least eight large oak trees around our house that are close enough to cause anything from cosmetic to crushing damage to our house. I’ve told my wife, if one of the nearby oaks comes down on the house it will go through it like wet cardboard.

A Friday Like No Other

We went to bed. I fell right to sleep, because I knew that the dangerous winds would start around 6am and I wanted to be rested for what was to come. Vera was, anxious, and barely slept at all. The power went out around 4:30 am Friday morning. Around 7am I thought the combination of a saturated ground and the high winds were dangerous enough that we should be as cautious as we could be and stay in the gym where we could use some gym equipment to protect ourselves, maybe, hopefully, should the worst happen.

Sleeping in the gym
Vera next to the box thingy we use for workout.

Vera slept between the workout bench, box thingy, and weight rack. My hope was that those things would protect her should the roof and floor try to get together. I stood by the window and watched the oak trees dance in the wind. Back and forth they went, until one after another they went forth without coming back. In total four trees fell.

What people are saying
about the RunPee app.

star star star star star

A Google user

July 11, 2019

I’ve loved this app for years and use it at the theater and home. Super easy to use and so helpful to know when it’s a good time to run for the restroom. I notify my kids when it’s close to time, so I don’t end up running them to the restroom multiple times. (Updated review from 4 to 5 . I’d had an issue with the app while at the theater and it was quickly resolved with FANTASTIC customer service. Thanks, RunPee!)

View all reviews
Apple App Store | Google Play Store

Download RunPee app

Apple App store     Google Play Store

Life Is Like A Box Of Movie Quotes

We're back in the tree. Again.
Oh look, the tree is hugging my truck.

I’m one of those people that can find a movie quote for every situation. One of the memorable movie quotes I love is from Jurassic Park when Tim says, “We’re back in the tree, again.” You remember the scene, right. It’s when Alan climbs up in the tree to get Tim out of the SUV, they climb down and the SUV falls on them.

So yeah, my truck was in a tree. Fortunately, the damage is largely superficial. The front windshield is shattered, but nothing that a little Zip Tap can’t fix. At least temporarily. I spent much of the day cutting away at the branch. In truth, it’s not so much a branch as it is the top of an oak tree that snapped off. If I had parked just a few feet over my truck would have been totalled. (With collision only that would be a problem.)

Once most of the branches had been clipped away with a Ryobi Tree Trimmer tool, I was able to use a come-along to pull the tree away from the truck enough to back up and free my truck.

Going For A Walk

We didn’t have power, but cell service worked well enough that I was at least able to call my mother, who was staying with RunPee Sis in Morristown, Tennessee. They knew we were okay and the house was undamaged. Most importantly, the cottage that I built for my mother was unharmed, even though there’s a maple tree less than two feet from the corner. Seriously, I had to adjust the eve of the roof to go around the tree.

In the tree top
Me and Vera standing in front of the top of a fallen tree in front of our house. I’m smiling because the tree fell away from the house and not on it.

Cell service dropped out around 10 am. After that, there was nothing. So we went for a walk and… Yikes.

On a normal summer day we can walk about a quarter of a mile over to the Swannanoa River, take our shoes off, and wade across without getting more than knee deep in water. To call the Swannanoa River a river is, usually, an exaggeration. It’s a big creek in my opinion.

“Fall” came early to Asheville, North Carolina.

But Friday, the Swannanoa River did it’s best imitation of the Mississippi River. We watched a trailer float by, and saw cows wondering out of their pen, and then the bridge. Well, I guess it’s not a bridge anymore if it doesn’t connect both sides of the river, right? Three’s a 20 foot gap where the river wore away one of the supports and the deck fell into the river. From what I can tell from the limited news I’ve seen it would be easier to count the number of bridges left than the bridges destroyed.

Perfect Timing For A Vacation

As fortune would have it, we were scheduled to fly out of Asheville Airport on Sunday afternoon on our way to China for a three week vacation. Vera is from China and we try to get back at least once a year, but I haven’t been since right before Covid. But the Asheville Airport is not open and there’s no telling when flights will resume.

We loaded up our luggage and headed for Raleigh, where we hopped to stay with a friend until we could reschedule our flight. Well, I-40 east out of Asheville is closed. And so is I-40 West to Tennessee. And so is I-26 West. The only way out of town is I-26 East, down to South Carolina. I started out with 3/4 tank of gas and hope. Hope that we could make it to someplace with power so we could get enough gas to make it to any airport. In our little adventure we picked up two couples at the Asheville Airport who were stranded. They had a flight back to Fort Lauderdale, Florida leaving from Charlotte. But they had no way to get there. I had a truck, so I threw all our luggage in the back and they crammed four people in the back seat and off we went. It was rather anti-climatic at this point. I had enough gas to make it all the way to Charlotte where I dropped them off at the airport.

My wife worked her magic and we rescheduled our flight to leave out of Charlotte, two days earlier than scheduled.

Right now I’m sitting in Detroit Airport waiting to fly to Shanghai. We were able to get out and start our vacation early. We feel a little guilty that we’re not staying behind to suffer with everyone else in our community. And they are suffering. I still don’t have much info, but from what I’ve heard it’s catastrophic and then some. I’ve heard unconfirmed reports that are astonishing. I hope they’re exaggerations, but only time will tell.

My flight is about to board, so I don’t have much time. But if you can find a place to donate to the recovery effort in Asheville there sure can use your help.

RunPee is in good hands. RunPee Sis and a few other Peeps will keep the Peetimes flowing. 🙂

Update From China

We made it safe and sound to China, for now. It looks like a typhoon is headed or way. Vera’s parents live in a small city called Jiaxing. (It’s about the size of Chicago, which is small bp Chinese standards)

Jiaxing is the little dot on the map between Hangzhou, the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen, and Shanghai. You can locate the cities just above the cone of uncertainty in red.

 

Don’t miss your favorite movie moments because you have to pee or need a snack. Use the RunPee app (Androidor iPhone) when you go to the movies. We have Peetimes for all wide release films every week, including Transformers One, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Reagan, Deadpool & Wolverine and coming soon The Wild Robot, Megalopolis, Joker: Folie à Deux, Venom: The Last Ride  and many others. We have literally thousands of Peetimes—from classic movies through today’s blockbusters. You can also keep up with movie news and reviews on our blog, or by following us on Twitter @RunPee. If there’s a new film out there, we’ve got your bladder covered.

Comments

3 responses to “Tails from Asheville, North Carolina”

  1. LinFromNJ Avatar

    OMG. So glad you all are safe. Try to enjoy your vacation

  2. Rob Williams Avatar
    Rob Williams

    By the time those storms get to this side of the Atlantic they’ve usually lost a lot of their bluster and bravado. Having said that, a couple of years ago one of them took about half a dozen ridge tiles off our roof! Fortunately the garden wasn’t damaged as all the tiles landed on the car…

    Hope you are safe over there and everything is still standing when you get back!

  3. Jason Owen Avatar
    Jason Owen

    Glad y’all are okay. I live in the southern part of Georgia called Alapaha. It’s about a hour north of Valdosta, GA. Tiny close knit community we have been working everyday to help each other and feed the linemen getting our power back on and our town/county running again. I’ve never seen my town hurt this bad. It was a shocker for sure.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

RunPee