As stated below, we took a little road trip over an extended weekend, leaving the chilly gray city for warm, flowery Southern towns. It’s a tale best told in pictures.
About 2/3 of the way down, we came across our first awesome sign, in the door to a truck stop in southern Virginia:
Roller skating? Things must get lively there at night.
We then stopped at The Kitchen mastering studio in Carrboro, NC, so Will could put the finishing touches on his new CD. The business next door had this cryptic yet great door:
After dinner at a local burrito joint with a friend, we headed out to our bed and breakfast about 14 miles out of town:
Which had tastefully appointed rooms, friendly hosts, huge breakfasts, and lovely grounds. We were suitably impressed. The next day was for touristing and antiquing. First we strolled around the UNC campus and lingered a while in the campus arboretum, where Will was silly and I was a little too cool:
Then we went for a nice late lunch of barbecue sandwiches, collards, beans, and fried squash:
In neighboring Pittsboro, I bought a 1919 edition of Edna Ferber’s Roast Beef, Medium (to be mined for future blogging) and we found the most perfect lamp ever:
Only $20! So it’s now on our side table in the living room. We then stopped in at the gorgeous and ridiculously wholesome Soda Shoppe on the main street to refresh ourselves with a Cherry Smash and Dreamsicle Shake:
Back in Chapel Hill, we watched a squirrel try to eat an enormous oatmeal cookie:
Then took in two shows at the local planetarium. I don’t have a photo, but enjoy the song:
The next day was time to leave, so we stopped by the local gourmet market for picnic treats and hit the road. We stopped for lunch at scenic Nutbush Point near the Virginia state line:
Where Will heartily enjoyed his sandwich:
We then stopped for the night in Richmond, VA, where I stopped taking pictures because I ran out of batteries. But we had a good time there with friends. Then we came home.
Always Double Back 
April 17, 2007 at 9:19 pm
awesome, thanks for sharing all the pictures… reminds me of the story i just finished ‘two for the road’ by michael and jane stern, but of course y’all are much cuter and thinner 😉
April 18, 2007 at 6:05 am
Nice pics. Think the squirrel may be my favourite, possibly because I have no idea what a collard is! Ha!
It seems like a foreign country!
April 18, 2007 at 6:07 am
yeah – wordpress is playing tricks on me again
April 18, 2007 at 12:08 pm
I took care of the duplicate. Jon, for you it *is* a foreign country! And poor you, not knowing the wonder of collard greens. It’s a classic Southern side dish–bitter greens (sort of like mustard or turnip greens) simmered with onions, pepper, and fatty pork. Southerners are masters of removing all nutritional value from their veggies.
April 18, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Mmmm. Poor people food. Also, interesting that you found a place with both bbq and collards. Primarily a bbq resto or more just a soul food joint?
April 18, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Finally learned the trick of preparing collards without destroying nurtritional value: freeze them before cooking. It breaks down the fibers without endless simmering. And I boil the smoked hocks first and defat the broth before adding the greens. Yee-haw!
April 18, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Way to take the fun out of collards, mom. To me, food like this is like cheesecake–great as an occasional treat in its classic form but awful when you try to make it “healthy.” Hillary, this place was a hybrid, as most barbecue joints around there seem to be. We couldn’t find any that were ‘cue only. Meat was good, slaw was great.
April 18, 2007 at 2:48 pm
It’s really not about nutritional value. I’ve had quick greens, and they just don’t have the same flavor as those cooked with fatback. Mmm… fatback.
April 18, 2007 at 3:41 pm
I dunno, maybe quick greens would taste great alongside some oven-fried chicken and steamed squash.
April 19, 2007 at 1:57 am
Probably shouldn’t have told you my secret; they taste just the same, especially with the nice chunks of ham hock floating in the pot likker.
April 19, 2007 at 2:19 am
The greens don’t taste the same. Same with oven fried chicken.
April 23, 2007 at 3:29 pm
I’m curious about this picture on the door. Is that a squirrel that is blowing glass? Smoking a banjo?
April 23, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Dunno–that’s why I described it as cryptic. It seemed to be a metalsmithing workshop of some kind, but I still don’t get the picture.