North Carolina… nothing could be finer…

I came of age in North Carolina, so it is a very important location to me… I have two children, three grandchildren, a brother and his family, and some of my oldest friends situated throughout. It was North Carolina to where I drove two days cross-country to spend a week or so with friends and family… I’d been looking forward to this trip all summer and timed it to coincide with the beginning of school back in Iowa… I wanted to be away from that craziness, having just retired… bwahaha…

My first stop along the way was at my brother Brian’s house in the Greensboro, NC area. He’s about 10 years younger than I am, and a retired physician enjoying his life immensely. He loves traveling around the world…

I had great fun catching up with him, as well as with his wife Andrea and his daughter Maddy… We had a grand time at one of Brian’s favorite watering holes, The Wise Man Tavern, a craft beer distillery and entertainment space in Winston Salem, NC. The Tavern is built within an old downtown warehouse… Classic gentrification and renewal of an old mercantile district. It’s an excellent space and the weather was perfect for a late August weekend in the South!

I had the great good fortune to see the new grass band Gipsy Danger playing inspired covers of “bluegrass-rearranged rock songs, such as the Beatles “I Am The Walrus” or Fleetwood Mac’s “The Weight”… They get the house rockin’… and you know what? Tar Heels party way better than the folks do in the midwest… no doubt about it… Click just below the name of the band on their image to follow a link to a Dave Matthews cover…

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The beer was killer too… I had a dark beer that’d been aged in a previously used bourbon distillery cask. Tasted great and went down smoothly which just a hint of bourbon flavoring… pretty high alcohol content; however, I only knocked down one…

After two days with my brother, I took off for Chapel Hill, NC, one of my absolute favorite places on earth… every time I’ve ever left Chapel Hill in the past, I’ve always wondered if it’s the last time I’ll get back, but somehow I manage to do so… I spent the afternoon and evening with an old frat brother, Ron Parks, an artist and long time musician who plays in multiple bands, as well as writing and recording his own songs. We drove to Cary, NC where one of his bands (The Doug Prescott Band) was playing at a local art festival.

In this particular band, Ron serves as rhythm player, but gets the opportunity to sing and rip out a solo lead on occasion. Most of the leads are played by Mike who rode along with us to Cary. I had great fun comparing notes on guitar playing and pedals with Mike. I shot a series photos of the band, post-processed them and loaded them up to my Zenfolio hosting site for the band to use. I you click on the image you can follow a link to the Zenfolio site.

Best of all, that night after Ron and I ate dinner in Carrboro, a twin town with Chapel Hill, we went back to his home and played guitar together into the night. Ron was way patient with me, adding fills while I played my repertoire of old country blues tunes. He played a Breedlove acoustic dread, while I plugged into my little Mustang travel amp and played my Taylor T3, semi-hollow bodied electric.

After spending the night at Ron’s, I tooled over to the Research Triangle Park in Durham, NC and spent a couple of days with another frat brother from days gone by… retired naval captain, Mike Schoedler. I had an excellent time catching up with “Sheds”… we took in a film one night and the next, Sheds cooked up a great batch of seafood gumbo and Ron came over for the final gathering of old TEP’s (Tau Epsilon Phi.)

I am incredibly grateful for the kindness shown to me by my brother, his family and my old frat brothers during my visit… on to Wilmington to see my daughter Sally and her family… perhaps my son Ben will find us too… and Nettie arrives Saturday!