Thought I posted this last month. Doh!!
This weekend was a trip to Chapel Hill to hang out w/ the guys. Art and I flew down to meet w/ Tim and Anna who live in Chapel Hill while Tim goes to school. To get down there we had to fly. I just threw my toiletry kit in my backpack. The kit is a clear plastic bag. Apparently, only Ziplock brand clear plastic bags are acceptable so they threw away all of my toiletries. I could have put them in my pockets and walked through the security checkpoints. As per usual in our continued ruining of America, this measure makes us no safer what so ever but makes ignorant people think we are “doing something”. Ugh, when was that last time we made a decision that made sense.
Tim picked us up at the airport and took us to our hotel. We stayed at the “Home of sports”, otherwise known as Holiday Inn. They had bats for door handles in the lobby and little icons of different balls on each of the doors. We were in Soccer section. Ooohh sporty.
We spent the next day wandering around Chapel Hill and saw Tim’s school. Since we are all old men now, we needed a nap after all that activity. Around 6, Jay showed up followed shortly by Stryker. It’s like a reunion! We went over to Tim’s and BBQed for a couple of hours before we walked into Charlotte and found the bars.
The bar was basically empty when we got there but it started to fill up as we hung out. Art was in his professor jacket and was mistaken for a German TA by a cute coed. Turns out her German was pretty weak though as Stryker started saying some very uncouth things in German. She smiled and agreed. I guess she didn’t pay too much attention in class. Next fun drunken Carolina moment was when a random drunk Guatemalan telling us he hated racism but whites were usually OK. I started explaining the racism inherent in that statement but didn’t get too far.
We headed to the next bar to shoot some pool before being kicked out by the 2am bar closing. We found an oh so healthy late night food spot (staffed w/ what seemed to be a permanent detachment of 2 of North Carolina’s finest). Got my first shot of real NC pulled pork bbq. Mmm baby.
Next morning, we got a great breakfast. I had biscuits and gravy as I head through all the requisite southern foods. Gotta love the sweet tea being everywhere. After breakfast, we dropped Anna off as we headed to a gun range for some shootin. We printed out the Gun Safety quizzes and did them in the car on the way to the range. When we got there, he just wrote in the correct answers for anything we didn’t have correct. With the “safety briefing” out of the way, he asked for our licenses and gave us guns. Shot through a few rounds of various Glocks the 9mm, 40 and 45. Then we went back in for the Uzi. As casual as he was about handing us handguns, this one he actually came in and guided us through. Fun but expensive considering a clip lasted approximately 12 seconds. Mmmm deadly…. As we were leaving we got the low down on the gun market from one of the locals (who was buying rifle for his son that was nearly as tall as the kid, I might add). Apparently, you cannot buy any automatic weapon made after 1986. Anything before that is fair game w/ the correct permits. Not sure if there was a new technology introduced or it is another arbitrary limit that we decided on.
After we finished that, we finished out Raleigh by meeting stryker for a beer before heading back to get Anna and go get some real BBQ. Finished out our southern necessities w/ pulled pork, pulled chicken, smoked pork, fried okra, mac and cheese, etc… It was all fantastic and we topped it off w/ dessert before we had to roll ourselves out the door. Finished the evening playing cards and shooting the shit.
Next morning was time to leave. We headed towards the airport to find breakfast in strip mall city. “Strip malls as far as the eye can see” as someone put in and they weren’t kidding. As Tim put it, people got tired of walking from store to store in the mall so they made ones that you can drive to each store. We tried to go to Bob Evans for breakfast but ended up w/ a huge wait. Anna had the telling explanation w/ “Church just finished and you’re in a red state”.
All in all, a great visit. Always good to see old friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment