We were in Charlotte for a couple reasons. First – we had to pick up a refrigerator so that we can brew lagers as well as ales, but that’s probably a whole separate entry. The other reason was the Carolina Orienteering Klubb’s Score-O meet in McDowell Nature Reserve. There was a two-hour limit on it but it’s still good practice for some of the 24-hour races we’re planning to do later this summer.
It had been raining all morning so pushing through the foliage left us drenched fairly quickly. Generally we weren’t real fast but I think our route choices and navigation were good. We ended up in 4th place overall, including a stumbling sort of sprint through a swamp at the end to get back to the finish line inside the 2 hour time limit (actually it was more like right exactly at the 2 hour limit).
Having already involved beer (or beer-related acquisitions) and orienteering in the day, there was nothing left to do but go visit a new site (for us) on the North Carolina BBQ Trail. This is Bridge’s in Shelby, NC. Here you can find, well… pork. Bridge’s has a fairly strict interpretation of the NC BBQ menu with pork and slaw dominating (although the deviled egg sandwich is vaguely intriguing). The pork is chopped, the sauce is a warmed tomato-vinegar concoction and the hush puppies are particularly good in pimiento cheese. (That was sort of an accident originally but it worked out well.)