Oct 23rd- meeting someone from M-J, eating pulled pork and about to smoke a mountain

After updating the blog last night, i promptly fell alseep... partially sitting up, laptop on my lap, tv on and three lights on.  that was at around what... 10:30 at the latest...
I woke up at 2:30am... shut everything down and fell fast asleep.  It's a wonder I slept at all with all the GIANT TRAINS blowing their whistle at all hours of the night.  Seems the reason the motel is so cheap is because it's near ad GIANT TRAINSTATION. heh.  maybe not, but it felt/sounded like it.

I finally did manage to get up sometime in the morning... no clue what time... this is why you should bring journals... so you'll know what you did! hah.

I still felt like crap, so i took one of these.

I still felt like crap, but now had a crap taste in my mouth.  I cleaned that taste out with a smoke.

I knew there was a giant truck stop nearby and you know what you get at a giant truck stop.
No, not handjobs... GAS!
and i got plenty of it after eating this

This is at the 'huddle house' in the gas station.
I refuse to say it was bad... like, how can you royally fuck up breakfast?  they didn't fuck it up.
It was bland.eggs are eggs.  The bacon was thin... the sausage unappealing, the rye toast soggy, the hash browns not brown enough and grits were grainy.
Overall... bland.

Got an SC sticker... woot.. .too bad i didn't go to the spot on the sticker tho. hah.. at least it has SC and i rode through the spot :)
The i got the other gas and decided to take the back roads into Charleston, SC a stopping point in the day where i was meet a fellow moto enthusiast from the M-J crew.  Yes. everytime i think about meeting M-J people i feel like a complete asshole for not going to see Adam or Kevin (to name a few)

I believe i took what they call the Savannah highway

The entrance to a Marine AFB i believe

a lot of this and some swamps/marshland to look at.  it may look boring, but it wasn't... it was like a nice sunday cruise...
And then was i Charleston (aka Chucktown). More of a check mirrors and shoulder checks every 3 second kinda ride.

Also to note... my Neutral light keeps flickering... not a good sign.  Now i can just hit the start while being in gear and the bike launches.  I don't want that.  I just read online that there's a problem if the wire to the switch is not routed properly around the front sprocket, it gets chaffed.
DAMMIT... another mechanic fucked up?  i'll have to check in the daylight and it's more downtime.  fuck.

I grabbed a coffee and txt'd ... let's call her Miss D... how about Misty... maybe Misty is her stripper name. lol
Anyhow, i got the laptop out and sent off some emails, and i chatted to an immigrant from Iran who has been a citizen since he was 17. A citizen of the country for longer than i have been born.  Great guy, chatted about travelling, where the worse drivers were, him living in california... odd stuff like that.  interesting fellow.

Sad to think that kids are born in a country, makes them a citizen, but a man who came to the country with nothing and worked his ass off.is still not seen in the eyes of his fellow man that he's a patriot... well.. that's crap.
Anyhow... He agrees that Florida drivers are the worse.

Misty sent me a txt to meet up at... a secret location.
You see, she's on the witness protection program... so i must abide;)

We met up and chatted for a while... She's a cool chick... how can you not love that accent :)
I wish i had more time, but if i'm ever in the area i'd like to spend some more time.  a) the chicks are hot. hah.
b) it's a neat town... i like the setup... no big tall skyscrapers... it's just the right landscape...
c) They have starbucks. I'm not a starbucks whore, i just like good coffee, and it's hard to come by with free wifi

We had to part ways... her for secret reasons, and i to head Northwest.  not northeast, but WEST.
Just chatting her, she conviced me to go to the smokey mountains and Hit Deals Gap and ride the tail of the dragon.  I figured that i might as well take the blueridge parkway north even though it'll take me a few days...
Might as well enjoy the few remaining days to the last.

I was heading towards columbia and thought a coffee would go down well.  Guess what... i didn't find the 3 different starbucks the GPS had. it's so out of date. arg.

What i did find was this.

Hard to read, i know.
Maurice's BBQ.  I promised someone that i'd try BBQ for comparision... begrudgingly i did.

looks like a bbq place.
Aha! buffet BBQ... this must be interesting!

I took the BBQ buffet.  He sad the buffet is a sample of everything they make here.
i tried to sample a lot of it.  I took the more interesting bits first

we got some Cracklin' corn, fish, chicken, leafy green stuff, potato salad, some cabbage thing and finally pulled pork BBQ.
Corn was not as good as the Old country Store, but was ok
The fish was good, a really good batter.
The chicken was pretty good.  better than a chain, but not as good as Mr. D's at the Old Country Store
leafy stuff was gross. tasted like grass.
potato salad, good
cabbage stuff, ok

leaves me to the two things i love.  Pig meat and Pig skin.

Pig skin first... I love cracklin... but not if one side is greasy and wet, and the other side full of pig hair.  Aren't you supposed to burn that shit off with a torch first?  it disgusted me.

The pulled pork

I don't know how to give it a good review without being unbiased.
you see, i'm not a Sauce BBQ fan.  I like mine naked.  Let the meat, spices and smoke do the talking...

sauce is the cheap way to go about it.  Some people like going to The Keg... others, to ponderosa. heh.

it was good.  Correction, the sauce was good.  I'm not a fan of sauces, so it's hard for me to judge, but they really are pushing this mustard BBQ sauce.  That's all they have in their restaurant (which was mostly empty and not much traffc)
Seems they won Best BBQ in the USA in 2008, as per Kiplinger's business report.
Wait...a business report is now the new taste tester?
jesus.

well, the meat sucked... it could have been cat for all i know.  you taste sauce and a hint of smoke.  it was weak.
Then again, if you sell your taste in a bottle... why not make the crap at home.

I went back for a second helping

I liked the chicken and fish so i took that again, more pulled pork to get a better taste some green beans and some odd mushy stuff.
Chicken and fish were good, the pulled pork same as above, the green beens tasteless and the mushy stuff... some kind of meat paste? it tasted like they tried to make a stew or a chli and didn't get either right.
no clue what it is...
it tasted ok... albeit odd.

so far, Tim-1 others-0
i'll have to try again if i spot another...
overall, thumbs down.

I rode some more and a Floridian woman came up to chat.  Tracy from Naples is a biker as well and we chatted bike stuff.  She said to be careful on the Tail of the dragon.  Just last year her friend died on it.  Took them a long time to find him as he went off the road off a little cliff. ouch.

Riding Around SC i saw a bunch of "Warthogs"... don't know if they are part of the "1%" club or nod... i nodded to them anyhow...
I stopped in for coffee somehwhere in SC before crossing the border... what to do where to go...
I had to put my jacket liner in because it was downright cold.

I stopped at a rest stop in North Carolina (that was a weak woohoo moment crossing that border) and was staring at a map behind a glass case.  it had all the routes i wanted to take on it outlined.
A security guard/janitor came out and gave me an identical map since he saw me staring at it. BONUS.

we chatted a bit, seems he's from pruhoe bay and knows cold.  he said it's -15 there now...brutal.

got to where i am now... i was tired and checked into the Budget Motel.
if $100 a night is budget, i wonder what the holiday inn across the street is charging...am i in full fledged tourist season?

I thought for a moment there she was going to put her pinky up to her mouth and say "one HUNDRED DOLLARS!"

tomorrow, the smokey mountains.. .hopefully some nice rides...