ASHEVILLE - Sitting quietly on a bench, arms around each other, Julie and Jaime Grindstaff were watching the crowd walk by.

What brought them out?

“The opportunity to sit like this, sit like we are right now,” Jaime said.

“And the people-watching is pretty damn good, too.”

Crowded into downtown Asheville’s Pack Square Park, the Blue Ridge Pride festival was in full swing Sept. 27, festivalgoers undeterred by intermittent rain showers. There was a 30-minute pause for lightning, but that afternoon, interim Executive Director Josie Seay pointed to a swathe of sky just beyond the bulk of grey clouds.

“It’s blue right over there,” she said. Seay had been burning sage to fend off the storm. It smoldered under the shelter of the park’s pavilion until she dampened it in the water fountain.

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