Road Trip:Burlington

Day three moved us on to Burlington, North Carolina for a visit that would move Burlington Athletic Park from the "been to" list onto the game list for the Burlington Royals and the visiting Danville Braves.

But that comes later, we begin in Johnson City as we planned to lunch in town before hitting the road.
Once again, Trip Advisor allowed me to check some stops out, send Fred a list of a few options, and have Fred pick where to go for lunch.
This once again would prove very fruitful when Fred listened to me and later not so much when he didn't!
Just kidding, Fred, but seriously Cootie Brown's was tremendous!!

I had seen a Cootie Brown's from our road trip to Bristol, so I was familiar with the name, if not the menu.
I ordered a Reuben (on Wheat, not the listed Pumpernickel) and added some extra meat.
I almost never do this, but it's a road trip, one does things like this!

I added a side of their "famous" homemade potato chips, which were OK, but nothing tremendously special, but our server Andee (yes, I asked about the spelling) told us all about the Key Lime Pie being famous.
Now, after the potato chips, I did wonder a little, but the Reuben was great, so I was open, especially when Andee talked about her baseball fandom and she knew her stuff.
I'm not always a massive dessert person, but the picture did look good and I usually like to try what a place is famous for, so when Fred accepted my offer to split a piece, I was all in.
Well, in a word-Wow!
First of all, that piece IS a half piece, so the serving is large and the taste has to be tasted to be believed!
If you ever are in either Bristol or Johnson City, you owe it to yourself to try Key Lime Pie at Cootie Brown's and ask for Andee-especially if you are a baseball fan!

I wish I could say the drive to Burlington was enjoyable.
I wish, but I can't mainly because the GPS kicked us far off the beaten path that we were driving through forests (although we did see a really cool lake) and a pouring thunderstorm during much of the drive. 

Instead of going on highways, we were going through places like Boone, North Carolina.
If you ever truly want to know just how much of an upset Appalachian State over Michigan was-drive through Boone!
It was far too long of a trip, but it was a good chance to talk to Fred (although I fell asleep) with a trip through Wilkesboro, where North Wilkesboro Speedway, the former home of two NASCAR races, we saw the track and the still existing, but badly faded Winston Cup sign from the interstate and had I thought about it, I might have asked Fred to stop and look around, but this trip and Wilkesboro brought the quote of the trip.
Entering Wilkesboro's limits, the sign greeting us said "Wilkesboro-Where the Mountains begin".
Me: "where the mountains begin? Then where the hell were we for the last two hours? the beach?"

We finally arrived in Burlington after riding by our hotel by accident and deciding to take advantage by checking in, so we were treated to seeing a parking accident right in front of us.
Considering there were so few cars in the lot, the offending party should have felt like an idiot for even considering squeezing in beside another car.
I wrote before about my trip with Mike to Burlington to see the park, but this was my first trip for a game there.
Burlington's Royals come from a clubhouse area so they have to walk through the crowd to reach the field.

I got most of a team set finished and was the only one graphing the Royals.

On the other side, Fred was trying to get some Kevin Maitan's for my friends since I had failed so badly on Maitan in Bristol.
Alas, Maitan was still just one per and the lucky winner was Mike Oravec of Maitan's lovely "KM".
We watched some of the game and watch Maitan make two errors at shortstop (considering he's 17 when I look at his build if he makes it'll be as a third baseman) and hit off for dinner.
This time, we went with Fred's recommendation at the Village Grill.
Our server was nice, but the food was slow and pedestrian for the price, although I did enjoy the "Chesapeake Slaw", which was quite good.

Back to the hotel, where I did have a television with something called "Spectrum".
Spectrum offered on demand for free and did something that cable/satellite companies never do and I've screamed about for a long time-they put their channels in alphabetical order!
Easy to find, easy to flip through-makes so much sense, and next to no one does it that way...

I'll be back soon with the final day of my trip with Fred which features lots of driving, a thicket with Lizards, Jack Morris, and the Charlotte Knights...