Road Trippin' With the Weatherman

I've been to Boone many times. My old church youth group went every fall for a football game when I was in high school. As a high school sophomore in October of 1994 we got to see Appalachian State beat Marshall in a snowy night game. The campus went bullshit. It was great! Saturday Jeff Crum and I rolled up the mountain to make some television magic as the Mountaineers returned to Kidd Brewer stadium for their first game since their historic upset of Michigan.I picked up Crum in Huntersville and we kept on getting up I-77 to Union Grove where we traversed west for a few miles and picked up Highway 115 to Wilkesboro. This shortcut can save several minutes but you always have to be ready for the occasional tractor on the main road. This one only cost us about two minutes, but it's nice to see a shameless tractor on a big road less than an hour from a major city.
Television's own Kris Cook typically makes this trip with Crum but he's on the road working every weekend. I'm a big believer in traditions when it comes to sporting events and a trip to Boone Drug is mandatory prior to kickoff. We parked the buggy and commenced a walking tour of the ASU campus and downtown Boone. We finally made our way to the fountain and grill where Cook always ate a Parson's Choice. That's basically a double cheeseburger with onion rings. Ya'll know I eat healthy 75 percent of the time since I'll have at least one heart attack in my lifetime. A double cheeseburger and onion rings is something I do only on RARE occasion, but to keep tradition I ordered the Parson's without hesitation. It was quite good and I thought it would hit me in a horrible way in about three hours but my stomach handled it like I never started eating healthy five years ago. Since Crum's a meteorologist and not a "journalist," he figured it'd be fine for him to sport his Appalachian State ballcap like the pround alumnus he is. Since I didn't attend or graduate from the fine university, I kept it simple in short pants and the standard issue work polo. Crum grew up around football. I heard his dad was a college coach at some clown university in Chapel Hill for a while. Anyway, he shot ACC football for years in his younger days. He hoisted the Sony DSW-570 and shot some really good football in the second half. In fact, the 12 yard touchdown he shot made the highlights and looked no worse than my shooting. Crum enjoyed it so much he's headed back up the mountain again this weekend to shoot some more.
After the game, App coach Jerry Moore couldn't stop talking about the 28,802 fans stuck inside 16,000 seat Kidd Brew stadium. It truly was a wonderful sports atmosphere. The fans even get hyped up for the band up there. It was cool. By the way, the kid to coach Moore's left is Trey Elder. He's the backup quarterback but started the game Saturday, threw four TD's in the first half and promptly left the stadium after the press conference with three young coeds.

We stopped near the parkway on the way down Highway 421 and fed a piece to Tim Baier then had a suprisingly good meal at Crappleby's. America's great, so is Boone.