Guest Visitor - Mike Holt

I would like to introduce the narration for my guest post. My brother Mike Holt has traveled further than I have and significantly more than I have. If it wasn't for him, I probably would not have traveled or had as many interesting experiences as I have. I love to travel and I love to visit with my family, so when we can make those things coincide, all things are wonderful in my book. My brother has helped me to believe that I can travel and see the world, and in a lot of cases he has made that happen. Here is my guest post from my brother Mike. I hope you enjoy his enthusiastic writing style and his lovely comedic points!

The BBQ Bus

As a native of Lexington, there are few things that pique my interest more rapidly than the three letter acronym that represents everything delicious and wonderful in the world: BBQ. Although I've enjoyed immense fortune in the incredible variety of barbecue I've sampled over the years in techniques both commonplace and exotic, I'll never forget nor abandon my first step into that most delectable of delicacies, Lexington-Style BBQ. Understanding that some of the audience of this writing may have firsthand experience with the subject matter, I'll neglect to opine upon my preference of vendor within Lexington as feuds have begun for less; just know that it's all awesome and you should try it at least once in your life. In fact, this very sentiment is precisely where it all began.

The BBQ Center, where delicious
BBQ and outrageous amounts of
ice cream coincide.  

A coworker and I had ventured to a new barbecue joint just outside of Raleigh for our weekly lunch together on a sunny August afternoon. Neither of us had been there previously, but both of us enjoy pulled pork with tasty sauce, so we reckoned to give it a go. I'm fairly certain that late summer in North Carolina was the impetus for the invention of sweet iced tea, as you'll find few things more refreshing in that humid heat. After ordering at the walk-up counter, we were given order numbers and cups made of that staple substance of barbecue restaurants everywhere: Styrofoam. We made our way over to the self-serve soft drinks and each filled our glasses with generous portions of ice and then topped it off from the urn marked "T" as opposed to the vessel labeled "Unsweet". I had the poor luck of filling my cup first, and immediately took what was planned to be a long swig from the side of the glass. As soon as the glistening brown liquid touched my tongue, I knew something was wrong and recoiled visibly. My coworker looked at me questioningly, so I informed him that the beverage tasted distinctly of arm pit. This particular coworker has never been one to take advice, and was soon spitting whatever reprehensible liquid "T" stood for into the garbage can. If you've eaten barbecue as much as I have, one thing you learn is that the quality of the sweet tea served at an establishment (at least in NC, SC, and TN) serves as an incredibly accurate barometer reflecting the quality of the food. Unsurprisingly, this restaurant failed to redeem itself with the food we were served a few minutes later, and we swore never to return.

On the ride back to the office, we lamented the quality of the food and I boasted how a place like that wouldn't last a week in Lexington. My coworker, having never visited the self-proclaimed BBQ Capitol of the World, doubted my claims. More than that, he jokingly said that if the food were so good we should go there for lunch one week. If life were a cartoon, a light bulb the size of a basketball would've appeared illuminated over my head that very instant. "That's a great idea!" I exclaimed, which he assumed to be as sarcastic as his remark. Given that our workplace and my hometown were nearly two hours apart, I suppose I can't blame him. In any case, I was not joking. I was already beginning to puzzle out the logistics of taking a small group of my co-workers to Lexington for the annual Barbecue Festival so that they could be fully immersed in the culture that I grew up in.

Fast forward a few days, and I have a group of about 9 people I work with who were interested in going. That exceeds the capacity of any vehicle we had, and we were talking through who was riding with who whenever another co-worker pitched a suggestion to us that we had never considered; he had a friend who owned a 25-passenger bus that had been decked out for high-class charter gigs. As soon as I heard the term "Party Bus," I was in love. It meant no one had to drive. It meant everyone could drink for the duration of the trip. It meant we could hang out and have a good time, and let someone else deal with the traffic and the parking situation. I reached out immediately, came to terms with a price, and approached the group. The owner/driver had touted all of the amenities that his bus offered over the competitors. A 60" TV with a Playstation 3, surround sound, a wet bar, a fireplace, a drink cooler, and a stripper pole. Needless to say, I was the picture of enthusiasm. I didn't anticipate getting much use out of the stripper pole, but I (and the rest of my coworkers) was completely enthralled with the idea of a fireplace on a bus. The playstation and huge TV meant we could bring along Rock Band and have 4 players do a tour while driving down the road, which as you likely recall is pretty much exactly what happens during the opening sequence of the game. We were stoked, but as the bus wasn't inexpensive and we had a mere 9 people on board, we wanted to fill the 25 seats to reduce individual costs as much as possible.That meant we had a mere 16 additional people to recruit -- you'd think it would be easy! As it turns out, of the 200 people in our office we could only convince an additional 8 people to join us. For those of you counting along at home, that brings the total number of passengers to 17, including me.

The Saturday of the festival finally arrives in Mid-October, and we all meet in the parking lot of our workplace at around 9 AM. When the bus pulls up, we're standing in the parking lot with seemingly about 50 Bojangles biscuits, a cooler full of beer, wine, and liquor, the full setup for Rock Band for PS3, a few decks of cards, and a round conference table we've nabbed from the office. You see, we decided to fill the extra room from the missing 8 people with a poker tournament complete with chips and a dealer. Anyway, as the bus rolls to a stop and opens up, we begin to board. A few folks begin taking Rock Band equipment on the bus, and I talk to the driver. A few moments later, one of the other guys on the trip come around and get my attention, saying there was a problem with Rock Band. When I board the bus to check it out, I find that we have been slightly oversold on the amenities. Instead of a 60" TV and Playstation 3, we have a 32" TV and a PS2. Surround sound apparently means the speakers built into the television, the wet bar is a non-functioning sink basin installed in the top of a Halloween-quality LED fireplace presumably designed for an elementary school play of some sort. There isn't a cooler at all, and the stripper pole is, well, a stripper pole. Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed in the accommodations, but at this point we had already paid. I decided not to put the trip in jeopardy on account of the owner's, erm, optimistic? description of his bus. We put the Rock Band equipment back into someone's trunk, but still bring the poker table on the bus as well as our hundreds of breakfast sandwiches.

As it turns out, we were very lucky that we didn't sell those additional 8 seats. The 17 of us filled the horseshoe-shaped bench seating completely, to the point that I actually ended up standing for the majority of the ride. Now, I don't want to generalize, but I suppose that 17 people who are willing to ride two hours for some barbecue just may take up about as much room as 25 random people off the street, so I won't give the driver too much flak about the coziness of the cabin. We ended up departing the parking lot around 10 AM, and were happy to be on the road. The entire morning had been a bit cloudy, but it was purported to be around a 20% chance of rain so we weren't worried. That is, until we hit the highway. It was as if the driver suddenly drove into a 90-mile poorly lit automated car wash. The rain was such that you couldn't see the highway below out of the windows, and our driver's mild swerving didn't give us the highest level of confidence in his ability to negotiate the route to our intended destination. Beyond that, it started to become warm and muggy on the bus. Windows began to fog up, and people began to sweat. Then, a couple of folks who were sitting over the rear wheel wells on the bus began to complain about worrying levels of heat coming from beneath their seats. As the official conduit to the driver, I opened the little sliding window to the front seat and asked him to turn on the air conditioning. I also mentioned the heated seats, as it were, but he seemed nonplussed. He said he would turn on the air, so I slid the window back and returned to my conversation.

About three minutes later, the vents in the back began pumping air into the passenger cabin as expected. There was only one small problem: the driver had apparently switched on the heat. I approached him again, and he cursed and said the air conditioner must be broken again. I asked if there was anything we could do to cool it down in the back, and he suggested to open one of the roof emergency exits to allow some outside air to come in. I asked if the rain would come through, and he gave instructions on how to pop up just one side facing the rear, so that water wouldn't come in. I passed the information back, and someone tall opened the door as prescribed. It wasn't much air, but it was a vast improvement over the stale hot air that had been smothering us, so we thanked him appreciatively.

This is a good time to give you a mental image of the layout of the back of the bus. If you imagine a bus and yank out all the seats so that you have a large open space, then put bench seats against both sides facing the center of the bus and connect them at the back of the bus with another bench seat facing forward, that's the basic layout. Effectively, if you ripped the top off and looked at it from the air, the seats were shaped like a U with the bottom of the letter against the back wall of the bus. Additionally, right over the top of the far back seats (where there would normally be an emergency exit in most buses) the 32" television was installed. That means if you were sitting at the back of the bus in the center, you had a TV right over your head. I only mention this because 30 minutes or so after we opened the ceiling emergency hatch as a vent, water began gushing out of the television onto the guy that was sitting underneath it. He was decidedly unhappy, and made no pretense about it. When I told the bus driver, he cursed back and pulled over underneath a bridge on the side of the highway. He then exited the driver's seat, walked around the bus, and boarded into the passenger cabin. He walked back and cursed again, and said it was because the hatch was open in the rain. When I reminded him that he had suggested opening it, he said he didn't suggest it in the rain, which was exactly the opposite of the truth. In any case, after unplugging the TV he pulled out some towels and dried off the seat before returning to the driver's seat, still cursing. A smarter person than I may have suggested returning at this point in the trip, but I charged that we maintain course. After all, we had already had so much fun... how could we turn around now?

The rest of the ride to the festival went more or less without incident, but not without consumption of alcohol. By the time we reached Lexington, most of the passengers were fairly inebriated. Miraculously, as we pulled into town from the highway, the skies cleared and the sun came out. By the time we were parking, it didn't even look like it had rained. As soon as we stopped, we all immediately exited the bus and made a beeline for the nearest restrooms. A few folks stayed behind and opted to relieve themselves in the parking lot, but that story both involved the local police department and details that we won't get into here. The rest of us began perusing the Barbecue festival and looking for -- yep, you guessed it -- barbecue.

Now, I will admit that when I made the plans to go to the festival to show off Lexington BBQ, I hadn't been to the festival in at least 5 years. Living a couple of hours away takes away from the appeal of seeing 100,000 tourists eating barbecue and otherwise doing things that locals can do any day of the week. Anyway, the festival this particular year was not exactly as I recall it from my youth. I remember going up and down a maze of BBQ stands with other carnival-style food being hocked from the backs of pickup trucks and portable food dispensaries, and somewhere in that labyrinth of amazing food there were also craft stands and live performers. This time around, however, it was different. There were exactly three barbecue stands in the entire festival, and they all were supplied by the same restaurants. Apparently, for this festival all of the BBQ restaurants in town opted to throw in together and make one huge batch of homogenized pulled pork. I cannot overstate how disappointing it was to bring a bunch of people to this festival to try out a bunch of barbecue only to discover that the focus of the BARBECUE festival was no longer actually barbecue! There were enough knick-knacks, pig shaped purses and pork-infused potpourri to make a person wish to never even hear of porcine products again, but exactly one variety of barbecue! I haven't been back to the festival since this experience, so I can only hope that they've refocused appropriately.

One of the many locations in Lexington where you can
grab some delicious BBQ!

After wandering around the pork-packed downtown area of the festival, we eventually decide to return to the bus. Once the last stragglers were back aboard, we pulled out of the parking area and right into a combination Bojangles/Gas Station. All of the women and half of the men ran in to use the restroom, and we bought some more booze. Upon boarding the bus again, we had a bunch of booze, about 20 Bojangles breakfast sandwiches (from earlier, not fresh ones) and a strong desire to get home. The bus driver did not disappoint, and drove as fast as I imagine that bus has even been driven back to Raleigh. Thankfully, with the exception of a couple of people falling asleep while sitting straight up and some less than professional conversations, there were no incidents on the ride back. Once we arrived back in our parking lot, though, things got a little weird again.

Although we had nearly all used the restroom at the gas station right before leaving Lexington, most of us needed to go again. Alcohol will do this, so it wasn't unexpected. When we stopped in the parking lot, the driver put the bus into park, put down the parking brake, and pressed the door release button. We were all lined up ready to disembark, and were not entirely surprised when the doors didn't actually open. He was so wrapped up on his cell phone that he didn't notice the door hadn't opened, so I said something to him. He seemed a bit surprised, and hit the button again. Again, nothing happened. He then said just to hit the release handle above the door, and he would fix it later. Upon inspecting the door, there didn't appear to be any obvious handle. Meanwhile, folks who had to hit the restroom were getting pretty antsy. He said to look again, and we did, and as it turned out a release handle hadn't magically grown between inspections. He insisted it was there, and said just to "pull back the wooden cover" for the handle. The paneling around the door seemed to all be of one piece, and we told him so. He again insisted, and said just to pull it open. One of my coworkers grabbed the wooden paneling and started gently tugging it away from the door. A slight but audible cracking noise began, and he stopped. We told the driver what we had observed, and he said to just yank it... so we did. The panel ripped off and wooden splinters went everywhere. There was still no release. The driver hopped out and went around to the back of the bus. At this point, someone climbed through the window from the passenger cabin into the driver's cabin, and exited out the driver's door.

Although my brother had a time visiting the BBQ
Festival, you can still come to Lexington for a
good time! Here is a shot of John eating the
world famous ice cream sundae from
The BBQ Center!!

Over the course of the next 15 minutes, the driver beat on things with a crescent wrench, called tech support (for buses, I guess?), tried to pry the doors open from the outside, and eventually was in the process of telling us to just climb through the window like the first passenger to disembark had, when he suddenly said, "Oh." The door then opened, and we disembarked. Turns out when he had engaged the parking brake, he had bumped some sort of security setting with his knee that disabled the door's opening mechanism. The train of people flooding into the office restrooms on Saturday evening was an impressive sight that made our 73 year old security guard stand up he was so unnerved. If you knew him, you'd know that over the course of two years I think I saw him stand up twice.

My 16 coworkers and I felt incredibly lucky to have survived this perilous journey, and the BBQ Bus of Doom was the topic of conversation for about a year or so. I've since left the company and the state, but I still keep in contact with several of the other passengers on the bus. Last month, I sent around an email asking who would be interested in a bus trip to the TMBBQ Fest in October in Austin, and surprisingly no one has responded yet.. Are you interested?