Go 'Canes!

First things first. Before we left Chapel Hill for Raleigh we stopped at a sporting goods store to get some Carolina Hurricanes flags for Red. The colors matched very nicely.

Since neither Steve nor I had much of an idea where to go in Raleigh, we headed towards downtown. We stopped at a park and found a fireman who looked really parched, in fact, he looked like he hadn't had a drink in years.


Right nextdoor to the park was the Raleigh newspaper. We headed over there but apparently "the newsroom cannot accept any donations." I guess thats an O.K. policy for a media outlet, but really, who could turn down a cold Cheerwine on a hot day--this is coming from a journalism major.


After that we moved Red and started walking around and found a man dancing to a band on a street corner. We handed him a drink and he didn't even miss a beat.




We also ran in to some mounted cops who were Hurricane/Cheerwine fans themselves. The horse's name is Flash, a name which I am partial to because its my dog's name. I love my dog so I thought he deserved to be on here too.

j

We made our way over to N.C. State and drove around and through the campus a bit, stopping once or twice to hit some of the many construction sites. We ended up going out a road that led us to a brand new park. We grabbed our flags and filled up a backpack cooler of Cheerwines. We met some folks fishing and some on the trail. Here's a picture of me and Corey taking a drink break.


We drove around town more and stopped at a few parks including one called Pullen Park that had a small train that's track went all over the park. We came back to Chapel Hill to get some rest before a long drive tomorrow. (Canes were up 3-2 whe I wrote this.)

--Sam

Change of plans

Tommorw, instead of going down south, we're going to spend the day in 'Canes country for game 7. Look for us until gametime in their hometown area.

The Old Van on the Sea

Sorry for the delay on yesterday's entry but now that we've got all our computer kinks worked out, we're ready to start blogging again. Our day on Long Beach, Oak Island was a little shorter than the past couple days to make up for the ride home. Short maybe, but no less exciting. We started out making a wrong turn and ended up on the opposite end of the island. As it turned out, this wasn't a problem at all. We found a really cool lighthouse and some laid back beaches full of the thirsty CW drinkers that make our job even more fun and easy. Here are just a couple of them, who happen to own a few really great and all very different dogs.


During one of our midday stops for ice we noticed a fellow sampling van and decided to park next to it and take a picture for all the fans out there to decide who outdid who. I'm pretty sure I know what you're going to say.

If I had to pick, I'd say the highlight of our day was the ferry from Southport to Pleasure Island and its loading dock. Sam and I figured Red deserved a break and that the ferry was the perfect way to give it to him. We sampled a bunch and played the best of the best beach tunes while we all waited to board. Everyone there was in great spirits which made the whole experience a blast. We even made friends with the friendly and hospitable ferry crew.

The first weekend for the R.A.O.S. team was a huge success. We met some great people, saw a lot of new places and had an awesome time. Unfortunantely, Sam and I are off for a couple of days now but look out for us as we head down to Charleston, SC on Thursday. Hope to see you out there.

Steve

Long Beach Blog...coming soon

Hello again everyone. I know some of us are anxious to see the R.A.O.S. entry from mine and Sam's day on Long Beach on Monday but unfortunately we're having some difficulty uploading our pictures. The blog just isn't the same without the pictures to go along with it so we're going to sort out these issues first and get the web entry up as soon as we can. Sorry for the delay, but please check back with us soon.

Steve

It's a small, small world

Today we headed out to Sunset Beach. We had to cross a one lane wooden bridge to get there and we immediately drove around looking for a place to get to the beach. Sunset Beach is on a small island so we explored it fairly extensively. We got to the very end of the island and were about to turn around when we spotted a man down the street using a leaf blower on his driveway. Since we were already down that way we decided to give him a drink. Turns out the man, Vernon, lives in Salisbury and was friends with the Peeler family that founded Cheerwine! We shot the breeze with him for a while and he told us where we could park and head to the beach. Here's a picture of Vernon.


The word of the day at the beach was "awesome." It was by far the most popular response from people we met on the beach. Some of the people that helped establish this as the word of the day were in this family which we decided we would call our "family of the day" because of how many times we saw them and chatted.


This kid made an aligator out of sand all by himself.


To top it all off, I met some folks from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where my mom is from. And they even KNEW MY MOM. For the second time today the world seemed really small. We had met Vernon earlier in the morning, and now people that knew my mom and grandparents. Here's Dan and his wife.



After lunch we went back to the area around Ocean Isle and saw some firefighters washing vehicles outside of the station. We stopped and gave them some drinks and asked them where a car wash was because we couldn't seem to find one.

We finally found a car wash and gave Red a much needed bath and vacuumed some sand.


To end the day we stopped in some parking lots in the Shallotte area before turning in. Tomorrow we'll be near Long Beach before we pack it in until next weekend. See ya there.


--Sam