Great Smokies and basketball

On March 1, I had a red-eye flight out to Raleigh-Durham. I was upgraded to first class, so I could sleep. There was a three hour layover in Newark, which wasn't much fun...

I arrived to a light rain, and picked up my rental car and drove to my friends Curtis & Patti's house. We went to get some barbecue at Stamey's in Greensboro, which was good, and hung out for most of the day. Dinner was pizza. The rain was too hard to seriously consider a trip to Krzyzewskiville.

Sunday was the UNC at Duke game. I picked up my ticket and met up with Julian King; we got to watch the senior day for Jason Williams, Carlos Boozer, and Matt "Seven More Years!" Christensen. The game itself was a bit of a route, despite UNC's Jason Capel having the best game of his life. Duke won by 25.

After the game, I met up with Curtis and Patti at Orin's house, where he prepared an excellent dinner.

I left moderately early on Monday for the Great Smokies. On arriving, I found the main road through the mountains was closed due to ice, as was the Blue Ridge Parkway. I looked around the place, where I could go, and then went to Asheville, where I spent the night. (Monday night, the Duke women beat UNC for the ACC Championship.)

Tuesday was a full day at the Great Smokies. The road across the top was open, as was Cades Cove. I took a bunch of pictures.

That night I went for barbecue at Barbecue Inn, which was excellent.

Wednesday was off to the east and south to Columbia, South Carolina. I had eastern barbecue at Melton's, but they've lost a good bit of flavor in the move. Sad, really. Barbecue in Columbia was an experience, to say the least. First, they have a sweet honey-mustard sauce, and the place was a recruiting post for the KKK.

Thursday, I first visited Congaree Swamp, where I saw several woodpeckers, including a pileated woodpecker. I also heard a worm-eating warbler. The nature break was wonderful before what was to come.

Up to Charlotte, North Carolina, for the ACC Tournament. I first met up with my dealer, who provided my fix of ACC Tournament tickets. The first game was an overtime affair where Florida State ended Clemson's season. Thursday had a single game, so I went to my hotel.

Friday was a quadruple header. The first game Maryland ended the season for Florida State, in a game that was much closer than the score. Then, N C State beat up on Virginia. Between sessions I saw a Virginia fan sell a Maryland fan a book of tickets for $1000.

The Duke fans gathered for a tailgate party between sessions.

Duke-UNC opened the evening session. UNC played stall-ball, holding until less than 5 seconds were on the shot clock on each possession. Duke ended up winning, 60-48. UNC's season finished 8-20, the first time in quite a while that an ACC team had less than 9 wins. Georgia Tech lost to Wake Forest in the night-cap.

I slept well, and arrived in time for the ACC Semi-finals. N C State managed to upset Maryland in one semifinal. This was good, since the Maryland fans were probably going to get ugly regardless of the results of the ACC Championship game. Duke held off a Wake Forest rally to win, 79-64.

We met for dinner at LaVecchia, a seafood restaurant in Charlotte. To celebrate the wins, and because I juts felt like it, I had a lobster. It was delicious.

Sunday was the ACC Championship. We started hot, and went on to win, 91-61, over N C State. I drove to Curtis & Patti's place for a short night, and caught a 6 AM flight home.

While in North Carolina, my system was cracked. I was a victim of the recent ssh exploit discovered on March 5. I was hacked March 4. I spent a day and a half trying to fix my system, but it still isn't fully restored. I'll need to re-install.

Wednesday morning, March 13, I flew to Albuquerque, where I met up with friends for the first and second rounds of the NCAA Tournament. We had selected Albuquerque for our annual party after Washington proved difficult for tickets. We stayed at the Courtyard, within walking distance of the Pit in Albuquerque.

Dinner the first night was at Ron's El Camino Mexican restaurant. Excellent. Thursday saw our first games. We had two upsets (Missouri over Miami and Wyoming over Gonzaga.) and two close calls (Ohio State edged Davidson, and Arizona needed 8 players to beat UCSB.) Best Cheerleader was "Fan Tom" of UCSB, who was extremely funny.

By the end of the day, we went back to the hotel and gradually collapsed.

Friday was the off day. Some of us went to a sports bar to watch Creighton beat Florida, and a few other games. Not as many upsets. Dinner was at Barney's, a friend of Steve Chapin. I had ostrich and buffalo.

Saturday was our second round. Ohio State was upset by Missouri, confirming the curse (Steve Chapin is an Ohio State fan, and when one of us has one of our teams present, that team usually loses) and Arizona needed 8 to beat Wyoming.

Dinner was at El Pinto, which was decent, but not great. Enchiladas, etc.

I had an early flight Sunday. I was upgraded to Phoenix. While in Phoenix, I saw an air traffic hold put on the flight to San Francisco. Since I had to walk from end to end on the way to the SF gate, I noted there were flights to San Jose and Oakland. I asked if they were delayed, and if there was space on either flight. There was space to Oakland, so I called my friend Tai to see if he would mind picking me up in Oakland instead of San Francisco. This wasn't a problem, so I switched to Oakland, and was upgraded in the process.

Tai met me, I was home, and the cats were happy to see me.