Trip Summary - Part I

Until a few hours ago our BBQ trip was best described with numbers. How many pulled pork sandwich's we had consumed, how many miles of pavement Babe had navigated and the amount of tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere through our highly recognizable rectal gases. When we left seven days ago and made a left onto Arkadelphia Road none of us dreamed that so far we would have been on the news three times in three different states. That our story would be read by families all over the South or simply used as a way to absorb puppy urine on kitchen floors. Somewhere along our journey I distinctly remember an elderly woman telling me that our story brought her nothing but jealousy. And it wasn't until this morning, sitting inside the Holy Grail of BBQ, B's in Greenville, North Carolina that I knew why. Because in fact, our story could not be measured in numbers, but as famously said, in moments. Never again, would sit in back of a black expedition with a peptobismol pink pig nose on the front, with Tom Petty blaring over the blown out speakers and with wind blowing in from one window and my youth and journey blowing out threw the other. Never again would I be able to sit on the banks of the Mississippi and watch the water rush by, and with it my college years. Never again would I be able to visit the place Martin Luther King was shot. Never again would I be able to spend 18 days driving down the back roads of America with my three best friends. And never again would I take people, conversations, BBQ and memories for granted.