Part two may be a few days away.
The trip to North Carolina ( and Virginia on the way home) had five games scheduled over three days, but rain loomed ominously in the forecast-large trip destroying amounts of rain.
However, the forecast was not great for Monday and Tuesday, but our first day looked fine, so the start would be a good one.
On this occasion, I was riding with Fred Landucci and we had thrown an audible, a week before the initial trip.
It would cost some cards over the long run, but we did see more games than we would have with the original plan.
Fred and I pretty much drove straight to Winston-Salem and decided through TripAdvisor to try Bad Daddy's Burger Bar.
Bad Daddy's specializes in some unusual burgers with lots of offered toppings.
I had the Magic Mushroom Burger with four various types of mushrooms and swiss cheese along with a creamy white sauce.
It was delicious and Bad Daddy's offers a generous metal bowl of tater tots as my side.
Bad Daddy's has a handful of southern locations, so if you are a burger or sports bar fan, try Bad Daddy's.
We then jumped over to maybe my favorite High A ballpark in Winston-Salem.
I love the ease of autographing, the wide concourses that wrap around the field, the large scoreboard and the various different views from around the stadium.
My only knock on BB&T Ballpark is that there is not a ton of parking (Or maybe I just haven't found it yet) and with Fred's need for handicapped parking, we were located far from the only entrance in center field.
Fortunately, the Dash golf-carted us from the parking area and saved Fred a lot of walking.
The easy graphing area for the visiting team that I had the last time did not happen this time as it is an area to be rented out for parties.
I talked to the staff member in the area and he told me before I went down that the team is fine with graphers in the area when it is not rented, but of course, when rented, it's unavailable.
That's the way it should be (unlike Hagerstown) in where when someone pays for the area, it's hands-off, but if not paid for privately, patrons may use the area.
Different teams, different policies- to each their own.
I moved to the side of the field and did the Salem Red Sox (Fred nabbed a few Dash players for me as he waited for Luis Robert, you remember my post on him?).
Salem doesn't have the high number of huge prospects that the Red Sox usually have because of the many trades of the parent over the last two seasons, but I did get almost all the bigger prospects, except pitcher Tanner Houck, who I didn't see and is known to be a less than willing signer anyway.
The two biggest prospects signed all that I had with 3rd baseman Bobby Dalbec and 2nd sacker Brett Netzer being very gracious.
I added some others and considered it a decent day.
Fred hung around and did get Luis Robert on a baseball.
I didn't need Robert because the Top 100/Bowman set wasn't released until a few days later.
The next time I see Robert, I'll need him.
As I moved towards the concourse to meet Fred, I ran into C.J. Johnson, who formerly worked for the Hagerstown Suns during the Mandalay years.
C.J is now the President of the Dash and judging from my two visits, is doing a terrific job with the Dash organization.
We chatted for a few minutes, talked about Hagerstown's problems with getting a new stadium in dealing with the city council and one member in particular and how it's too bad that it has gotten to this point with the Suns considering what once was with the team.
Fred and I watched for a bit and then moved to our next stop, which was a little under an hour away in Kannapolis NC.
Normally, I would include our trip to Kannapolis with this one as it was the same day, but I'm getting tired and I have a trip soon.
Kannapolis and Fred's big day will wait until the next road trip post....
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