A Weekend In North Carolina

This past weekend I headed down to North Carolina for my oldest sisters graduation from UNC and her commissioning into the Navy. But not before I stopped to get some of the best [if not the best] BBQ this country has to offer!!

First stop was Raleigh, NC where I was able to meet up with a friend from college for dinner at The Pit, located in downtown raleigh. You may be saying to yourself "Wait a sec, The Pit? This sounds familiar, explain yourself." Well, if you were in fact saying something along those lines in your head, then you're a better follower of my blog than I thought. A little over a year ago, I headed south on my famous BBQ Tour of North Carolina, and our 3rd and final BBQ stop was at The Pit. Well, the memories were so good that I wanted to head back there again, and yes, it was just as good as I remember. I split a platter of carolina style ribs and a platter of pulled and chopped pork with my brother, and added some mac & cheese, and fried okra on the side. [The okra was AMAZING!] Here's a poorly lit picture of the feast I enjoyed my first night down there.

Day #2 consisted of my sister's commissioning in the morning, and graduation from the nursing school in the evening. Here's a video of my dad administering her oath and she swears in and officially became an Ensign in the Navy, and a picture of myself and siblings after the ceremony. [I look like a total goober in this picture though, bad posture or something!]

Erika Swearing In

That evening after a nice walk around the UNC campus, we headed to the Dean Dome for the nursing school graduation. 

The graduate and proud parents.

Day #3 and Sunday morning consisted of early rain showers that thankfully let up just in time for the main commencement ceremony at Kenan Stadium. Here's a before and after pic of all the graudates filing into the stadium. I have some video from this as well, that I just haven't uploaded yet, maybe I'll get to that tonight, maybe not....we'll see. Anyways, the ceremony was real nice and not too terribly long either. If you want some more pictures, head over here. Congratulations Erika!

Colorado Update

I'm back from my vacation, and feel like I need another vacation to recover. I'm positively sure that my posts here were dearly missed, but rest assured I have some pretty good stuff to update everyone with. I got some pretty good video with my gopro while out snowmobiling and snowboarding in Colorado. I'm going to try and get all that edited together soon and get the video up this week. For now this quick pic will have to do. 

Vail, CO

Impromptu BBQ Road Trip

It's no secret; I love food, and I love BBQ. So when the opportunity arose yesterday to make a short trip for some of America's best eats, I could not pass it up. 

I was leaving church yesterday morning, [well, afternoon since I go to the late service at it was about 12:30 when we got out] and I walked over to say a quick hello to my friend Joe. Joe had recently been watching the travel channel and asked me if I knew about this place down in Richmond that supposedly had some great BBQ. I knew exactly the place he was talking about but couldn't remember the name off the top of my head. So I ran into one of the offices real quick to look it up. The establishment is called Buz And Ned's and it's right in downtown Richmond. He mentioned how he really wanted to go there sometime to try it out. I'm no stranger to spontaneous travels, and I said to him "I will literally go at anytime, just say when." Joe responded with "well, what do you have going on right now?" "Nothing" I said, "let's go!" And just like that, we hopped into my car and headed south. 

Traffic was extremely light heading south on a Sunday afternoon, so we made great time getting down there. It was very east to spot, and we had a no wait to order our food and grab a table. Now, we went in the dead of winter, so I can only imagine how hard it might be to grab a table in the summertime. Even at this time of year, there was a solid and steady stream of folks coming in for some BBQ.

Check out this video for a look at when Man V Food stopped by Buz And Ned's [skip ahead to 1:59] Man V Food: Richmond, VA

My friend Joe and I both wanted to try the famous ribs, which were indeed as good as the show described, but I can't ever head to a BBQ joint without trying their chopped or pulled pork BBQ sandwich. I discovered a long time ago, that adding slaw [coleslaw] on top of the pork is by far the way to go. So we each got a pork sandwich, and split a full rack of their pork spare ribs. I added baked beans and hushpuppies as my sides, and of course a big tall sweet tea to wash it all down. It was heaven. No really, it was, here look at this picture...

BBQ Heaven.

So after getting our grub on, we filled up our sweet tea's once more for the road, and headed back outside to grab a few pictures before heading home. To anyone interested, I highly recommend checking this place out. The folks were all very nice and the food was amazing. I'd like to go back in the summertime and stay a little longer while sitting at the outside picnic tables. Anyways, it wasn't a huge or long trip, but spontaneous adventures with friends, like the one yesterday always remind me that there's so much to do and see and experience out there. As the great Ferris Bueller once said "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Well said oh wise one.

Anyways, I'm glad that I was able to go yesterday, and I anxiously await for whatever my next adventure may be.

Our sandwiches and the rack of ribs. You can see in this picture all the

caramelized sugar that Buz mentions in the video. Delish. 

Buz and Ned's: Check 'em out.

7 Springs Snowboard Trip: Before

Watch this.



[Very Best of Snowboarding]

Now that we're in the right state of mind.....later this afternoon a bunch of friends and I are heading up to 7 Springs, PA for a weekend on the slopes. I'm pretty excited, since 7 Springs is a pretty good size, and generally has good snow conditions for being in the mid-atlantic region. Also, I only got to snowboard one day last year, so I'm realllly itching to get back out there. Also, this will serve as a good time to start getting my legs back under me since I'll be heading out to Colorado in about 6 weeks.

In anticipation of this weekends trip, and the trip to Colorado, I went out and [finally] bought a snow helmet for myself last weekend. I've been snowboarding for about 13 years now, and have never worn a helmet on the snow [and least when not riding a bike.] I've had some hard falls before, and actually knocked myself out once a long time ago, but overall I've been pretty lucky so far. I figured since I ride so much faster now than I used to, that it was time to get a helmet. I picked up a Giro G10 audio series helmet, and I really like it, and am excited to test it out on the slopes. It has some pretty good speakers built into the ear flaps, and when I tested them out after bringing the helmet home, I was very impressed. I was very surprised by how good the sound quality was, and that was important for me since I do like to ride with music. My roommate was so impressed that he went out a couple days later and bought the same helmet.

Anyway, here's a couple pictures of the new 'dome protector.' Hopefully I wont have to test out the limits of this helmet anytime soon! Stay tuned for updates on the trip after the weekend!

The new lid.

Tunes? Yep.

And this is how you mute and control the volume.

Meaning you can keep your music player tucked safely away.

Gatlinburg Mopar Cruise

One of the reasons I haven't had a ton of updates lately is that I've been super busy traveling and visiting and stuff all over the east coast. This past weekend I was down in Gatlinburg, Tennessee for the 2010 ForumZ Mopar Meet in the Mountains. It was a 4 day weekend and gathering of Challengers, Chargers, 300's, a couple Vipers, etc. I've been a member of the Challenger "Z" for quite a while now and have talked to folks on there for months, and it was great to finally meet so many great people and puts names and faces together.

Even though our cars are what brought us all together in the first place, this event was really more of a family reunion that it was a car show. I've said it in the past, but folks in the automotive community and culture, are hands down some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. I had a great time down there, and already have my calendar booked for the same event next year!

I have a ton of pictures to share as well, but here's a video I finished yesterday of our police escorted cruise through downtown Gatlinburg. I borrowed another GoPro camera from a friend and mounted them facing front and back then edited it all together. We had 2 lanes stretching about 1/2 mile long. It was definitely the highlight of the trip and quite a sight to see! Lots of cheers and waves and pictures as we cruised through the main strip. Hopefully you get a small sense of that from the video. Enjoy!

[Mopar Gatlinburg Cruise]

Old Rag Mountain Hike

Yesterday I headed out early with some friends to do the Old Rag Mountain Hike. It was the first adventure on our friends bachelor party day. The entire thing is right around 8 miles long, but varies a little depending on which trails you take. Including a stop at the top, we did the whole thing in just about 5 hours. Not too shabby. It's not an expert hike, but you definitely need to have a little athleticism to get through the rock scramble area. It was a great time, as the following pics will prove. Enjoy!

Started out pretty normal.

Running in the beginning turned out not to be the best of ideas.

First overlook, covered in sweat.

The bachelor, clinging to his remaining days of freedom.

....Or maybe not, who knows.

Panoramic shot.

Yours truly.

Luckily, I am part Superman, so I was able to lift this boulder so we could pass.

Start of the rock scramble area.

Steep.

And definitely not easy.

Closer to the top, there was the 'hard' path and the 'easy' path. Naturally we chose hard, and there were some pretty decent gaps you had to jump. I was voted to jump first for the majority of them so no one was able to get pictures of me, but I got this great shot of Nate jumping the gap between these two rocks.

Not how you do a rockstar pose.

THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT!

Motley Crue shots.

Go Karting at VIR With Tony Stewart

There seems to be a perpetual sense of adventure following me and my life around, and for that I suppose I both lucky and thankful. It's also one of the reasons why I decided to start writing about all the fun stuff I'm fortunate enough to experience.

Take for instance this past weekend. On Saturday I headed down to VIR in Danville, VA [right on the NC/VA border] to participate in an endurance go kart race. Our race got delayed a little bit because of a private party going on just prior to our group. When we finally get called in and over to the team/drivers meeting, the track marshall informs us that we had 12 teams scheduled to compete in the event, but hoped we didn't mind that they were going to run a 13th team....and that team was going to be Tony Stewart and his NASCAR crew. In case you don't know who Tony Stewart is, click this link for more detailed info, but in short, he's a world class driver and current pilot of the #14 Office Depot car in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series. ......He's good.

Since no one on our team really knew how the event was gonna play out, I did the first driving stint for our team. Unfortunately Tony Stewart didn't hop into a kart and get onto the track until after I was done driving so we were never on the track at the same time, but I was able to get some good helmet camera footage with the GoPro and was able to take some pictures of the other folks on my team battling with Tony on the track.

It was a really cool event, and ended up making for an even better story. Below are some of the pictures from the day, and the video I put together of me driving. I feel the need, the need for speed! Enjoy.

My roommate Chris trying to hold off Tony on the straight

Ha, next time by [Tony's team did have the fastest kart though, not totally fair]
Tony passing my friend Mike
Paparazzi picture time at the end
And here's the video:

[Endurance Karting at VIR]

North Carolina BBQ Tour

This past weekend I felt the urge to do something a little out of the ordinary. I came to the conclusion that I wanted to be adventurous and get some good food while in the process. So i decided to plan out a small road trip down to and through North Carolina in search of some great BBQ. The weather was looking pretty good, so I put a full tank of gas in the Challenger and made a playlist full of rocking tunes for the road. My friend Matt accompanied me on the trip as well, so that was cool.

We started by heading down to Goldsboro on the Eastern side of the state for 1st lunch, and from there headed west about 2.5 hours to Lexington for 2nd lunch. Then we headed back east again to Chapel Hill and UNC where we stopped at my sister's house for a few. Erika jumped in the car and came with us into Raleigh where we went to dinner at The Pit. It was a 90 minute wait, but we didn't let that deter us. We headed up the street to a bar for an hour or so to kill the time. Oh, and when we tried to park on the street for The Pit, a parking guy told us we couldn't park in that spot cause it was a bus lane. He said normally to park in his lot it is $5, but that we had an awesome car so he'd let us park for free! I love my car more and more!

From start to finish we drove 880 miles, in a day and a half. I was pretty exhausted, but it was well worth it. Oh, and there most definitely will be a round 2 at some point! On with the pictures!

Challenger Meet & Greet, Oceana

This past weekend I had plans to meet up with a bunch of other Challenger owners in VA and head down to VA Beach for the Oceana Air Show. Well long story short, the weather did not cooperate at all. I first met up with another owner of an R/T Classic in the B5 Blue color in Woodbridge before hitting 95 south to start the trek down to the beach. Another member of the ChallengerForumZ was kind enough to come and meet us and send us off even though he wasn't going on the trip. He has a TorRed R/T [pictured.] Of course it was pouring rain but we managed to get a few pictures in Woodbridge.

We drove south to Fredericksburg to meet up with another 2 Challenger owners to double the convoy size! Once back on the road, the 4 cars headed down to VA beach to meet up with the locals down there. Needless to say, we attracted a lot of attention on the highway cruising in single file line! It was a shame the weather was so crappy, and we ended up leaving the air show after only an hour cause they couldn't really fly in that weather. So the goal of the trip was a bust I suppose, but it was still fun to meet up with a bunch of other Challenger owners. Here's a couple pics from the trip and when we all got together on Saturday night after arrive at the beach. Enjoy!

TorRed/Hemi Orange/B5 Blue

The Owners

Picking up some more in Fredericksburg

Darlene driving her B5 Classic....and the Stonewall Jackson Shrine!

This butt monkey was being a real jerk on the road. Kept slamming on his brakes and trying to cut in and out of our little convoy. Way to disprove the stereotype NEW YORK tag # DWM-8104

This is what we call the 'Challenger Grin'

Another member of the Z in her SRT

Meet up at Jenero's, VA Beach

Another Z members' Hemi Orange R/T

And his custom nose badge

All 3 possible versions of Hemi Orange: R/T Classic, R/T, and SRT

Quite the sinister looking bunch eh?

All the owners. Sorry this pic is a little far away [I didn't take it]