Tall Tales & Falsehoods

The past couple of weeks I have been looking for inspiration for a custom made grill. While the internet can provide you with lots of information and insight sometimes it is best to go out and experience the real thing. So when the opportunity came up to judge the Kingstree Pig Pickin Festival I jumped all over it.

The festival is a real treat of Lowcountry Style BBQ. They serve it two ways down here, hot and hotter! With over 60 teams this year I knew I would get to sample a few really good BBQ plates. I was not let down! However after judging my taste buds had just about enough of the hot pepper vinegar based BBQ, so I decided to see how each cook was set-up to to prepare these great samples.

The big difference about this competition verses others that I have attended is that this competition brings out a bunch of what I like to call “backwood cookers.” These cooks are traditionalist. They still cook and prepare the BBQ the same way that their Grandfather’s once did. I love to see it. It gets away from all the glitz and glam of most competition and gets right down to the meat of it all, The Q!

While I didn’t find much inspiration for building my own rig I did find tons of fundamental principals in BBQ itself. It was a fun competition and I took away a lot of valuable information.

Below is a few photos of the different ways people were cooking at the Kingstree Festival.

What a great weekend. I have been planning a little outing for my father, my and I for about two months now. The whole time I wanted to keep it a secret. To kick start everything I sent an cryptic email to both my brother and father to meet me at exit 447 off of I40 in Tenn. I didn’t give them any other directions other than that and the time. Noticing that them may require some special gear for the trip I sent them other email stating to bring a bunch of random stuff to try and throw them off of the what we were actually going to be doing. So when my brother and I arrived at Exit 447 at the allotted time to meet my father they were pleasantly surprised to find out that we were going on a whitewater trip.

None of us have ever been on a white water adventure before so It was a great family experience. I booked everything online at . It turned out perfect. They were a smaller outfitter and it ended up being just us three plus the guide on on own raft. We tackled 3 class four rapids and a few class three as well along the Pigeon River. It really was a great time for the Pope boys to get together and have a little fun.

After returning home on Sunday , I decided to call up Mikey and see if he wanted to take the canoe out for a little bit. After a short stop at the inlet where we experienced our first low tide canoe trip (we were stupid) we headed over to the Intercoastal/Waccamaw. I have always heard of Sandy Island but never knew exactly where/what it was. To sun it up, it is a an island located in the Waccamaw River system that has a little community on it. There is a public school boat that takes kids back and froth from the island to the bus stop as well as waterway taxis that do the same for the islanders. It was a fun trip and we even got to see Brookgreen Gardens back door.

Thanks to the love of my work I have be able to start to explore the world of Google Maps. In doing so I have got to apply for a Google Maps API, and start a little on programing. I am very new to this but have found a joy in experimenting with all of the features of it. From a very basic point of view I have learned how to plot instances on a map, change marker icons, add info text and photos, I have even started to learn how to plot tracks from my GPS.

This last feature is very exciting. I can now combine a few of my new hobbies together and share them with others thanks to Google Maps. The other day I recently tracked one of my new adventures. My friend Mikey (RedLine13) and I plotted our first canoe trip along the Waccamaw into Kingston Lake. By combining my track that I set-up on my Garmin 60CSx and a communicator (GPSBabel), I was able to export a KML file that I uploaded to Google Earth. Now I can view my journey through Google Earth (if I was thinking I would have taken photos along the journey and geoTagged them as well) as well as create a My Maps section and share with you here.

View First Canoe Trip in a larger map

I have always been into maps and now this gives me a reason to learn even more. I know there is a lot that you can do with them and have a few little projects that I want to get up and running. But for now I have to learn more info than I think I can (JavaScript). However if I can get the basics down I can port that knowledge over to future projects.

I have really enjoyed geocaching as of late. I have started taking out friends and family with me to see if they would gain interest in my little past time. I have started to set up my own mini-rules within the geocaching world to help me see and explore more. I have even started to place my very own caches!

Last month I attended my very first Grand Strand Geocachers Meeting. I discovered that I already knew a few people who were into it and meet a few new ones as well. During that meeting there was a discussion of coming up with a logo for the geocachers group. Somehow I have carved out a little time to throw something together. I have also made a sticker for the back of my car. I think it really bridges the official geocaching logo with the feel of the Grand Strand. Noting to exotic or cheesy.

I have also bought the domain name www.grandstrandgeocaching.com in order to possibly set up a group blog. There was mention of a possible newsletter at the last meeting and I thought that this could serve either in conjunction with a printed newsletter or in lieu of.

The next Grand Strand Geocachers meeting is this Sat at the Little River Bowling Alley. I plan on throwing all of this up for discussion there. However I will have to hustle back from Orangeberg, SC, where I will be attending the first BBQ competition of the year, in order to make it in time. If any of you would like to join in on the get together I would love to have you as my personal guest!