NORTH CAROLINA ADVENTURES, CHAPTER #3

The Fiat rental car has a mind of its own.  It shakes and dances and basically rocks and rolls all over the place.  We have to be very careful about eating and drinking when getting into the car because we might spill and we might barf.  Basically, the car, with under 17k miles on it, is like a ride at Six Flags -- it's akin to a Tilt-A-Whirl or an old Whip with a Turkish Twist thrown in for fun.  Gripping the wheel is a great workout for my arms, though.

For a regular car, this thing is pretty small, but for a Fiat, this car is a giant.  I think it's a 500X, which means we can put five people inside as opposed to barely squishing in two.  Aside from being unable to find the headlights without special directions and constantly setting off the alarm when we open the back doors, it's a decent little vehicle.  Well, if we forget about the carnival-ride shaking.

The car has a Texas license plate, which is good because the locals should know we're from out of town.  It helps with the forgiveness factor of our poor driving as a result of my horrible navigational skills.  Also, having the Texas license plate makes people slightly more rational about our lane changes as they believe we are fellow Southerners and not the Damn Yanks we truly are.

In addition to visiting the fam and the new bambina, my daughter and I want to explore a couple of breweries: one is to bring back a birthday gift for my youngest, and the other is to bring back gifts for my co-workers.  After my massive highway failure trying to get here from the airport, I figure I should just try the back roads.  Since we've already hit a Chili's, just like back home, we decide to find a Dunkin Donuts, just like back home.  We discover a Dunkins three miles up the road from where we are staying and set out to find it, which we do without incident.  We order iced coffee and two muffins, one blueberry and one chocolate chip.

We haul our loot back to the hotel and warm both muffins in the microwave.  The problem is that we cannot tell one muffin from the other.  Usually the blueberry ones have lots of giant sugar crystals on top; I know this from being an assistant manager at Dunks back in the day.  However, neither muffin seems more remarkable than the other, so we take a chance.

"I have your chocolate chip muffin," I tell my daughter.

"No, you don't," she assures me.  So, I take a peek at hers.  Sure enough, she has a chocolate chip muffin.

I try mine again.  The "blueberries" are melting, and I taste it one more time.  Nope, I got a chocolate chip muffin, too.  I guess I'm eating a chocolate chip muffin today.

We are still too early to go see the baby and also too early to hit the breweries, so we jump back into the Fiat with our Dunks coffee and head out to explore.  We are shaking all over the place, and the ice cubes in the coffees clink with ridiculous fervor as we careen down the road.  Someone told me that the NC police ticket anyone going over the speed limit, so I am being exceptionally mindful of my New England Lead Foot.  Thankfully, Rea Road is a two-laner, so locals can pass the Texas Fiat with ease.

Somewhere along the journey, our road turns into another road without any warning.  My daughter checks Goggle and discovers the road we started out on is now a few roads parallel to us.  How we lost the road is a mystery.  We decide to drive toward the old road which is now the new road.  Hanging a right onto route 51, I casually say, "Maybe we'll find a park or a church to stop at so we can drink our coffee until the breweries open."

Here's where I should probably mention that my son said if we're going to sight-see, we should look for the massive church. Being a Northerner, massive church equals giant steeples and arches and stained glass windows.  I've seen those massive multi-plex churches on television, the ones where they have stadium seating for the masses, but I guess I've never really put to mind what that might look like from outside.  When the humongous church comes into view, both my daughter and I scream blasphemous epithets.

"HOLY SHIT!  JESUS CHRIST!  HOLY CRAP!  OH ... MY ... GOD!"

Yes ... yes ... yes ... and yes.  What we stumble upon is the Calvary Church, which is, without any doubt whatsoever, the biggest big-ass church I have ever seen.  According to information on the Internet, the main sanctuary can seat more then 5,000 people at a time.  My daughter and I get out and start walking around the building, which is like walking a 5k.  We are on the grass taking pictures when we realize that we can hear people inside and that there are a lot of cars there.  Suddenly we are wondering if parishioners inside the glassed windows can see us prancing around outside.

We retreat to the back of the complex, a walk that takes us about four minutes, and sit under a tree at a picnic table.  Something small and white falls from a tree and bites my daughter in the arm.  Oh great.  First we disrupt a church service, and now my daughter will get gangrene from some rare and weird Southern insect.  Of course we blaspheme again, swearing out things at the insect like, "Damn," "fucking bugs," and saying "Holy crap" a few more times.  Apparently we are going to Hell, directly to Hell, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.

We debate walking through the cemetery, but time is no longer on our side.  The breweries open soon, and we have errands to run and get back to visit the family, which is why we're here in the first place.  We hit the road again, letting Sirri get us to where we need to be.  Our brewery adventures already made last week's blog, but suffice it to say that as we are parking at brewery #2, I have a sudden and horrible thought.

I have forgotten the important car registration paperwork back on the table of our hotel room.  I am now driving an out-of-state car after having a few samples of beer without benefit of legal papers should anything happen.  For a few brief moments I panic at the thought of ending up in a Charlotte jail somewhere for driving an unregistered car (though it really is registered, but still), and possibly earning myself a DUI as I have no idea what the legal limit is here for drinking and driving.

As we shake and shimmy our way back toward Rea Road, this is when I say a little prayer and hope any good juju we picked up at the Calvary Church stays with us until we are safely back at the hotel.   It does ... at least until we deliver the rental back to the airport the following day.  But that's a tale for another day.  I mean, seriously -- Holy crap, indeed.