ribods says formaggio: the south rose again...for a few days anyway

There has always been something about the South. Maybe it is the mild winters and the early springs or that I don't feel guilty eating fried chicken and biscuits while there. I have always been a sucker for the accents and continue to have a love hate relationship with the slower lifestyle. Regardless, after spending four years of college in North Carolina, I still find myself heading down there once in a while to visit friends, enjoying a lazy afternoon, and indulging in some fried chicken and carolina barbeque.

This particular trip was not planned ahead of time, nor did it need much thought. After a short conversation with Jason on gchat, a text sent to Lauri and a bbm to Kimberly the trip was set only a few days in advance. I packed a lunch, some bottled water, a few snacks and went to bed. The alarm went off at 4:00am, I was in the car at 4:45am and driving past Newark Airport within an hour. Speeding? Hardly. By 9:30am, I had was past Washington, DC and for some unknown reason at 1:00pm my phone was dead with no way to communicate with anyone. I knew I was in the south when the billboards were sponsored by Chick-fil-A and Bojangles. Getting directions to Lauri's was simply impossible at this point. Luckily I knew the exit off the highway and found the local chamber of commerce to charge my phone for a little while before I was able to get Lauri to tell me proper directions.

The entire trip focused around eating. Some of my favorites were the Chick-fil-A nugget platter, Bojangles supreme combo and Mac's barbeque. All of this going against my attempts to not eat fried food, but how can one pass this up? .....we've gotten a little older, went from dorm rooms to houses, we are slightly more mature, added a few babies to the mix and can still laugh about the good old days. Not really much has changed...we just go to bed earlier. I am not sure when I will make my next visit, but I know this past visit was a great, spontaneous addition to summer-time fun. It's great to know that every time I go to this place I used to call home, it feels like I never left.

It is always great to see this crew...