July 4, 2011. We were sitting in the underpass of the Greensboro airport watching a ripping thunderstorm roll in and delay our flight back to New York. We had just finished a long holiday weekend that took us from Greensboro to Statesville, Todd, Boone and back again. "You know what would be great..." I said.
I have a history of planning ridiculously complicated, logistics-bound expeditions, usually involving food. On three separate occasions I have dragged friends through all five boroughs of New York (well, once was the length of Manhattan, on foot) on a quest for dumplings of many nations. Our vacation to Mexico in 2009 involved multiple air legs and two train rides and three days in an SUV bouncing to the bottom of the Copper Canyon and back.
So it was only a matter of time before our regular trips to North Carolina to visit Claudia's homeland fell into my machinations. Not entirely unrelated: I love North Carolina barbecue (Claudia is currently telling me I have to spell it with a c. It hurts me.) and have a long history of cooking large hunks of pork. Also, I love baseball, particularly minor league baseball with its goofy mascots, rickety parks, and charming between-innings promotional contests.
Within an hour, possibly lubricated by a couple beers at the airport's lone and nearly empty bar, a plan had emerged. A cross-state road trip built around the state's multiple minor league teams and its many, many esteemed temples of pulled pork. In December we started marking out home game schedules on a calendar. In March we bought tickets and booked a rental car. In July 2012, we're heading to the Tarheel State. We'll be photographing and commenting on the food, the games, and our almost comical inability to bring enough music for the road.
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