Day 3 - Roanoke, VA to Chapel Hill, NC to Spartanburg, SC

Days on the road: 3.
Miles today: 382.
Miles to date: 1110.

Parting thoughts on Virginia:

• Nice people, but not in a way that I can trust them
  
• Chick-fil-A's are EVERYWHERE
• Gun shops a-plenty
• Confederate flags seem popular

Dear Chapel Hill, NC,

I'm smitten with you, you saucy little minx of a town. I found your campus so alluring that it belies its status as oldest is the land, your architecture charming, your powder blue fire trucks striking, your ample and fit co-eds, uh, ample and fit. That your parking was cheap and convenient, that your motorists stopped ever so generously for me and other pedestrians, that the temperature was a perfect 73 degrees, that you are the perfect little town made me stay longer than anticipated but made it all worth the trip.

Forever,

Matthew



Just up the road from charming Chapel Hill was this gem of a place:


This is Allen & Sons BBQ. It is the cherry on top of the Chapel Hill sundae. I walked in, grabbed a table for a late lunch and perused a menu that talked of BBQ. I wonder what meat, but the cartoon pig made me wonder no longer. Pig, that's it. In all its porky goodness. I ordered the BBQ sandwich, sides of beans and hush puppies, and an Arnold Palmer.

Boo.
Ya.

Here's the food porn money shot:


I don't have the words to explain the goodness. Please note that the pork is not drenched in a sickly sweet, ketchup based sauce. Please see it in all its heavenly porkosity. The beans were tasty and I truly believe that I should be able to get hush puppies at my local movie theatre. But as my god as my witness, the pork and their house sauce (in the bottle beside the Arnold Palmer - a spicy/sweet/vinegar concoction that poured like water) was U-N-B-E-L-I-E-V-A-B-L-E. I'm moving there.

I spent so much time in Chapel Hill and BBQ heaven, that I had to speed passed Charlotte to get into position for Friday's organized and planned ahead activity.

Let me leave you with this one question:

Can any man say no to an early 20's North Carolinian waitress with a Southern drawl offering homemade pecan pie after a pork sandwich?