Saturday

Our road trip got off to an earlier start than normal Friday, but there seems to be no way to get started early enough to avoid the bad weekend traffic. Even though we hit the road an hour and a half earlier, it still took twice as long to make it from the Capital Beltway to Quantico than it does when I return late at night. The rest of the trip was very smooth, however, and it didn't take us much over six hours to make the five-hour drive. Thus, we were able to meet with several friends at our favorite Greensboro bar after arriving, pick up on some old patterns, and I didn't get into the hotel bed until around three thirty. Saturday was a wonderful day. I got to sleep late without too much guilt while Sunshine shopped for work clothes light enough to be useful in Saigon. Then we headed down to the UNCG campus where Tate Street had been blocked off for an autumn festival. It was a little too hot in the sun, and a little too populated to know whether I managed to bump into the friends that were hiding in the crowd; but I did what I could. I also ate lunch in the fabulous new Don restaurant, where I was served unagi over rice in a brass-banded granite bowl so hot that it proceeded to cook the dish for me. I had to eat it, or at least keep stirring it, so the rice wouldn't burn to the surface of the stone. It was a dexterous and sporty method of eating, and the resulting barbecued eel bits in hot teriyaki rice outcome, after the rigorous constant stirring, seemed very much like the basis for all those questionable US Japanese steakhouses. [Cavin]