Family, Hikes and Disc Golf in NC!

Yes, we are still in the Raleigh North Carolina area and staying at the NC State Fairground Campground. Our weekdays are still filled with morning walks around the NC State campus,afternoon disc golf and happy hours while our weekends are filled with family time at our daughter’s house. And,of course we are enjoying a lot of quality time with our newest 17 month old grandbaby Allie!

Raleigh NC has loads of wonderful disc golf courses so we have been playing nearly everyday at one park or another. A nice feature of the parks in the fall is the abundance of mushrooms we often stop to admire. We love to play at the Apex Nature Park disc course as it is one of our favorites but we also spend a lot of time at the Kentwood disc golf course because it is so close to the fairgrounds. Better yet it is also close to the Flying Saucer downtown.

The Flying Saucer is one of our favorite happy hour spots because it offers so many different craft beers on tap and has generous drink specials. Another favorite is the Backyard Bistro for its Wednesday NC draft beer specials. Yet another favorite is a neat little mom-and-pop gift shop which also serves craft beer called the Green Monkey. It is our go to spot on Tuesdays.

We have also discovered a drink special that surprised us. It is at the Lowes Food Stores, a grocery store, which offers half priced drafts on Thursday half priced flights on Fridays and half priced growlers on Saturdays.  Because the stores change out their beers often we have had the opportunity to try many new North Carolina craft beers. On many of the Thursday visits we have met brewery representatives who answer questions about their beers while also offering stickers, coozies or glasses to the patrons..

We have been playing so much disc golf that I even got a callous on my finger from flinging discs. Sharon’s game has improved greatly, to the point that she now makes par often and is making some nice long putts. Because our son in law is an NC State Alumni we have also really enjoyed exploring the campus and football stadium.

But then the weekends come and it’s Allie time. We are both savoring the time we  spend with Allie,her mom and dad. Our daughter has Wednesday off so often she is able to join us for a walk or some disc golf before leaving to pick up Allie from her day care (which she loves).

We actually left Allie one night with a trusted babysitter from her daycare for a Durham Bulls game (minor league baseball). What a nice night out on the town in Durham NC. There’s nothing like an evening of baseball, family, hotdogs, nachos and peanuts to feel totally American. We are down to our last week here at the fairgrounds and have started planning for our departure. But, hey, we still have the long Labor Day weekend to enjoy with family before departing…

Still enjoying our stay near Raleigh NC…

We are still in Raleigh North Carolina but have moved over to the NC State Fairgrounds Campground. We did so because the state parks have a 14 day maximum stay which we exhausted. The fairgrounds also has a 14 day limit but on occasion will extend stays on a case by case basis. Our hope is to stay through labor day as it is always difficult finding places to stay during that holiday weekend.

Our weeks have zoomed by and we have settled into a nice routine of playing disc golf during the week and visiting our daughter on the weekends. There are lots of really nice disc golf courses in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area and we have been taking full advantage.

Disc golf is a great substitute for hiking in the east where there are fewer trails. Although there are Greenways set aside for walking/hiking they are mostly in urban areas and more like walks than hike. We have visited the William B. Umstead State Park for a real hike but we have also done that hike many times in past visits.. Therefore disc golf  has become our diversion for some pleasant walks in the woods.

Weekends are filled with family time where we spend some quality time with our newest grandchild, Allie. We also use this time to make some fabulous meals. Katie always has her list of requests for traditional family meal favorites and Brooks takes full advantage of using his smoker to make some smoky delights.

Brooks had never made a full sized cryovac brisket before and wanted my advice for doing one. We drove over to Sam’s Club and picked out a good one to grill. I like to pick one that I can fold in half rather easily. If there is a lot of resistance when bending the brisket in half I have found they are a bit tougher and fattier than the ones that bend easily.

We put a good rub on the brisket and placed it on the smoker at midnight. Seventeen hours later it came off the pit for an hours rest before I sliced it up. It was indeed a fine, perfectly tender brisket with a very definite smoke ring. I made a point of bringing Brooks some of my mesquite to use in his smoker as it imparts the best smoke flavor on brisket in my very humble opinion.

Life has been very  good here in NC but we are looking ahead and starting to plot out our winter plans