NC Weekend

This past weekend Claire and I drove down to Charlotte, NC to visit our friend Teddy.


It was a great weekend. When we arrived on Friday and had a cool evening catching up and watching the Olympics.


On Saturday, Teddy cooked a rock'n breakfast of pancakes, jalapeno bacon and fresh OJ. After clearing our plates, we headed over to the US National Whitewater Center. It was great! We watched some people shooting the rapids on both kayaks and rafts and rented some kayaks to go out on the river ourselves. We explored tributaries, saw beautiful birds, talked to turtles and even saw boaters set up a volleyball net in the middle of the river and proceed to play.


We ended the day watching Olympics, eating some sweet pizza and hanging out.


On Sunday, Claire and I took off to explore the city and begin the 5 hour trek back to P-Towne. Teddy sent us to a great little restaurant in downtown, 300 East. Claire's breakfast was Banana Hazelnut Bellini's with Frangellico Honey Butter topping. I ate a corn waffle with cream cheese eggs and meaty chili on top. Crazy good.


The one problem that we had at the restaurant was telling the difference between the men's and women's bathrooms...they both had dogs on them. I actually had to ask one of the servers which one was the Men's Room...she said to "check the anatomy"...sure enough, a red rocket was easily visible on the male dog.

We then cruised the town, finding it lacking...it seemed to have little personality. So, we hit the road with the plan on stopping anywhere that looked interesting. And that is exactly what we did, finding a herd of wild elephants running around.





Claire was frigg'n brave, chasing them down...

The elephants took to Claire really well. They seemed to accept her as one of their own.

We were so excited about the animal siting, we decided to check out the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, NC. What a great place. It reminded me a lot of the Wild Animal Park in San Diego. We spent a few hours there for free since they have reciprocal benefits with the Norfolk Zoo.

While we were there, the zoo even hooked us up with some sweet outfits to work with the rhino's.

They even sent Claire out in the Zoo's chopper to track down the escaped herd of elephants that were running around downtown Asheboro.

After she successfully rounded up the group (she had already developed a good relationship with them) we cruised up to Raleigh, searching for some Carolina BBQ. 1 restaurant was closed and 2 others were out of business, so we ate at the next place we saw, a biker bar. That food turned out great and we headed back.

It was a great weekend. Next stop, the Outer Banks, North Carolina this Friday. WooHoo!