A Short Trip to Asheboro, North Carolina

From Fayetteville, the trip takes about an hour and thirty-five minutes mostly on Highway 24 and 705. Odd to see places named with the 705.

What instigated this trip? Much like my trip to Asheville on August 19-20, this trip was in response to Longhill Pointe Apartments Management’s notice that apartments would be inspected for termites & new filters added for the air conditioning units. *The previous trip was because there was going to be partial repaving of the apartment’s parking areas. As I left home, shortly before 9 am, my intent was to drive to Lexington, NC and “look around.” Lexington would have been about 2 hours, one way. I was also planning, not to eat breakfast in Fayetteville. Already 9 am before I was anywhere near a restaurant, I began to think that I might even skip breakfast (unusual for me) and have an early lunch somewhere.

I don’t recall exactly where, but probably before Carthage (maybe even Cameron), I recalled that there was a restaurant in Asheboro that Jeff & his family had enjoyed a couple of years ago. I had even travelled through Asheboro some time after his positive review. It was about 2 pm on the day I came through, a late lunch possible, but as I passed the restaurant their parking lot was still full, so I decided not to eat there.

I thought to myself, “Was that restaurant called ‘Davids,’ and it was. I asked, “OK Google, is there a Davids restaurant in Asheboro, North Carolina.” And in asking, somehow David’s was added to my navigation route on my phone’s GPS. The phone asked if I wanted to add this restaurant to my trip, but the question disappeared before I could respond in the affirmative. Later, when I was attempting to find the opening time for David’s, the phone asked if I wanted to remove David’s from my navigation. I didn’t know it had already been added. I found that the restaurant opened at 8am. *I didn’t think about it at the time, but 8 am seems kind of late for a breakfast restaurant to open. Still, when I actually arrived at David’s after 10 am, I saw a sign that said they served breakfast all day long. Great, so I went in and ordered breakfast.

David’s Restaurant in Asheboro, North Carolina Burge Flower Shop is located next door, and “Our State” Magazine has an article including Burge this month.

I may have already decided not to go all the way to Lexington by the time that I was sitting in David’s eating my breakfast. I ordered one egg, “over medium,” patty sausage, hash browns, and one pancake (although the menu said I could have two pancakes for the same price). I also had coffee and some ice water. I asked for some sugar free syrup and hot sauce (Tabasco was one option), ketchup was already on the table.

The food had good flavor. Everything tasted fine. The sausage patties were gigantic. I used some pancake for a savory bread to sop up some of the runny yellow of my egg. There was plenty of crispy crust on the hash browns. I think the Tabasco might have been a little off, but not completely and combined with the ketchup, it was okay. I finished the meal by eating the other half of the pancake with some sugar free syrup and a little butter.

My waitress was personable. All the staff were Hispanic. Sometime during our conversation, I asked if the restaurant had a change in ownership in the last couple of years. The waitress responded in the affirmative. I asked her how she would categorize some of the food choices, which included tacos & quesadillas. “Hispanic or Mexican?” She thought a moment and then responded as “Mexican.”

After travelling about Asheboro and visiting the Library, I returned to David’s around 2 pm for lunch. There were just a few cars in the parking lot and few customers inside still eating lunch. I ordered their Taco Special which also came with soup. I asked about the soup and later another waitress came out with a small sample of a tomato based soup (a light broth, with orzo noodles). and a creamy spinach soup. I liked the flavor of both soups, but asked for the spinach, and also because the meal came with two tacos, I asked if I could have one taco with beef and the other taco with chicken. The waitress thought a moment and then said, “I don’t see why not.” And sure enough, when she brought my tacos, I had one of each. The chicken was hidden by a copious amount of shredded ice berg lettuce and shredded cheese.

I preferred the beef taco, but both tacos had good flavor. I would take the chicken taco with me, in a small ‘to go’ box, and finish eating it one the road. I enjoyed the creamy spinach soup. *The waitress from breakfast passed by my table and recognized me from earlier. We both laughed.

After breakfast, I had determined that I wasn’t going to continue on to Lexington, but was going to explore Asheboro and then return home. It was a sunny morning. I looked for the Little Lending Libraries in the area and saw that there were four of them. Eventually, I found one LLL in a high end neighborhood. I left two books (one Bosch & one Agatha Christie) and took one ’78 Stories…” a children’s book.

On my way back into downtown from this LLL, I stopped at a convenience store to purchase gas. The price was under $3 a gallon, but paying with my VISA it was 10 cents more per gallon, but still under $3.

I found the local library and stopped in to look around. The Library was across the street from the Courthouse. As I walked inside I saw a tall, double stairway, that led up to the main Library floor. But, I also saw that there were signs to an elevator. I navigated the narrow hallway and found the elevator just around the corner. I got in and pressed “2.” Out the elevator to my right, and then the checkout counter was to my left. There were a couple of people at the counter. There were many colorful books on display and I was quickly drawn in to pick some of them up and peruse their pages. One book was a pink themed Margot Robbie Barbie book and another was a Caribbean cook/story book. There were many other books on display and many had “interesting” titles. If I were younger, I might even be enticed to become an avid reader.

I made my way around the library floor. Eventually I found a small magazine section, a man sitting reading close by. I reached for the latest “Our State” magazine and walked to a nearby chair and started to read. There were a few pages selling items for Christmas, with North Carolina themes. One I liked was a Tree ornament that had several images included that were NC focused, a lighthouse and an outline of North Carolina being two of them. The only two I can recall at the moment. I do recall another item. It was an oyster board that had carved indentations for 12 oysters. This was for sitting and eating fresh oysters in the half shell. Although, I guess you could actually stand and eat them.

Before leaving the library I stopped to ask the Reference Librarian a question about donating a Bosch novel. I commented on the interesting book titles they had on display. She was also the Main Librarian for Adults. Downstairs before leaving, I stopped in a Local History section and struck up a conversation with a couple of these librarians. *I had seen a street sign stating that the home of Governor Jonathan Worth was a short distance away. I recalled that this just Post Civil War governor had a paddle wheel steamboat named after him. This boat would later become the “Rockledge” and carry President Cleveland and his bride on their trip to Rockledge, Florida during their Exposition visit. This vessel would also follow the railroad as it was being built down the length of Florida. It would end up in Miami, first as a gambling establishment, and later as a early hotel for those building the first Miami hotels. Years later, in 1913, the derelict vessel would be towed out several miles into the Atlantic Ocean, and sunk. Although there are copious lists of sunken vessels off the coast of Florida, and their locations, the location of the “Rockledge” remains unknown. **Governor Jonathan Worth would die in 1869, years before his namesake vessel would travel down to Florida.

After leaving the Library, I did stop to take a few pictures of the Courthouse. I took the pictures from across the street, sitting in my car, at an abandoned bank drive thru.

I found my way to McCrary Park & Stadium, home of the “ZooKeepers,” baseball team of the Coastal Plain League. I suppose their season is over for this year and I saw no one at the park. I think I found this before lunch at David’s.

There appears to be a large Hispanic population in Asheboro.

This was an enjoyable trip to and visit of another North Carolina city. Asheboro is only 30 minutes from Greensboro and about 45 minutes to Winston-Salem (an hour & a half to Raleigh).

My Amazon order of 48 glass spice jars, lids and sifter filters was waiting at my door when I got back home. I had finished my chicken taco on the way back.

[NOTE 09/12/24]: I’ve already transferred 12 spices/herbs to my new spice jars and placed “3 Letter Codes” for each e.g. CUR-curry, MAR-marjoram, TUR-turmeric. For most spices I won’t have a problem with a 3 letter code, but how about “Coriander” when it’s whole seed, or ground? Or “FEN” for fenugreek, or fennel seeds. Maybe FEG for fenugreek and FEN for fennel. I haven’t added the “warm” spices yet that I use when I fry apples.

Still, the consistency and orderliness of these glass vials makes everything line up so nice and neat. The jars were packed using a plastic matrix for the top & bottom of the jars. I may be able to just put all the jars in either the top or bottom matrix, or cut smaller matrices for “fried apple” spices, or the “hot pepper” selection.

[end NOTE]

And by now, after midnight, almost 3 am, I have filled 34 of the new glass vials with spices I already had and a few I bought last morning. I now have one jar of ground mustard, and one of whole mustard seeds. I have Tamarind powder and Garam Marsala. *I also decided to have a separate, and slightly larger jar of the “warm” spices that I use when I fry apples: ground – cinnamon, cloves, ginger, mace, nutmeg, coriander & pumpkin spice which is a mixture of some of the already listed spices. I’m not sure if All Spice is included, but it might fit in with the others. And thinking now, the Tamarind might provide an interesting addition too. A little sweetener and those spices make for a delicious fried apple, and add to that, pepper bacon for a deliciously savory juxtapostion.

[NOTE 09/16/24]: I was looking for one of my electric hair trimmers yesterday and happened to find a shoebox of empty/recycled spice jars. These were like the jars I just ordered from Amazon but most did not have lids. I’ve found the lids are subject to rust or corrosion.

The Amazon jars came packed in a box with a flexible plastic matrix on the top and bottom in which each jar fit snuggly. I decided to use one of these to house my spices on my counter top. It fits almost perfectly, however I still have some items that I don’t quite know where to put. [end NOTE]

I’ve moved my plastic sandwich bags which were against the counter wall, right next to the stove. They are handy there. But, I also have a Tupperware container for butter. I keep the larger Country Crock plastic container in the refrigerator and fill the smaller container periodically as needed. I found if I left the larger container out for a long time eventually the margarine starts to mold. I also have a salt container in which I keep my salt mix. I take regular Morton’s Salt and I grind it with the Pink Sea Salt. This ends up as a fine grained pinkish salt that I use for everything. *It doesn’t taste any better than regular salt, but I just like doing it this way.

My predicament is that I have two bamboo spice racks that are tiered and fit next to the counter wall, and I need some of those for the spices that don’t go into the new jars. I have three grinders for pepper, and I mix two of those with black, green, white & red (not really a pepper). One of the mixed peppers grinds super fine, and the other grinds coarse. The third grinder is specifically for my Indian Long Pepper. I think it was a couple of years ago that I was cleaning out a few items. I will buy some new spice or curry or other food flavor enhancing item and then not use it… and not use it… and continue to not use it for years sometimes. So, I came across a plastic pouch that had some Long Pepper in it. I had never tried this and when I opened it, the pepper was indeed long and gnarly. This pepper didn’t fit in a standard grinder so at first I used a small. grey stone mortar & pestle that I have. This worked to grind the Long Pepper and I found this pepper very pungent and exactly what I wanted in a ground black pepper. But the mortar & pestle wasn’t ideal for grinding because some of the pepper would hop out over the edge and I would have to cover the pestle, with my hand, as I was grinding. So, I went online and found a grinder (not specifically for the Long Pepper) that had a microplane at it’s base. You could grind nutmeg or other hard spices, but I think the hard nutmeg nuts are too much for this grinder. However, this grinder is a well thought-out piece of kitchen equipment.

This grinder has a storage compartment in the top (handle) part. This is the part that you turn when manually grinding. But, that is the one flaw that I have found with this grinder. The screws for the storage compartment are plastic (the whole grinder is a sturdy black plastic) and they have frozen together so that I cannot open the storage compartment. Not a game ender, but just minorly annoying, and every once in a while they unfreeze, but I haven’t found a way to stop the freezing. I’ve put on olive oil but they still bind together. The grinder works fine. I have a glass jar nearby that has the whole Indian Long Peppers and periodically I take out a few and put them in this microplane grinder and grind as needed. I need to fill it up about every couple of days. I can’t control the size of the grains and all come out fine grained, but this pepper is pleasantly pungent. *How did I put up with McCormick’s Black Pepper in that one metal container that we kept for years & years… & years. And, that is NOT exaggerating. I guess it was made of steel and painted red & white and eventually, after years of use rust would appear in the corners of this little box. I know now that freshly ground pepper is pungent at first but quickly loses it’s pungency (my word) so using the “store bought – already ground” McCormick’s Black Pepper seems an act of idiocy for someone that appreciates the taste of their food.

I don’t do it regularly, but quite often I have ground (verb not adjective) pepper at home, put it in a plastic sandwich bag and taken it with me to a restaurant to put on my eggs or potatoes. Normally when I do this, I add several other spices & salt to make a spice blend to enhance the flavor of the food. I like curry powder, dulse, celery seeds, thyme, marjoram, and oregano. *This started years ago when I ate at Burger King regularly. I put this spice blend on my hash rounds, and added some ketchup or their honey mustard sauce. At some point Burger King started charging an extra 10 cents for each honey mustard container. *I’m not sure why I stopped going to Burger King for their breakfast (a Croisandwich Value Meal with Ham). but it has been a long while, and just writing about it here reminds me of how long.

That takes me in a different direction. I was reminiscing the other day (to myself) of the various places that I used to eat at regularly through most of my working years. And, let me preface this with, “Covid ended many buffets, which I enjoyed eating at for lunch.” I would eat at Golden Corral once or twice a week. Golden Corral is still in town but I haven’t eaten there in a couple of years. I would eat at Wendy’s once of twice a week. I liked their basic hamburger, and their chili, and their baked potato. At some point, I stopped liking their hamburger and then I realized (after going online) that they had changed how they made their basic burger, and it wasn’t for the better for me. I think they steamed their buns and this moistness in the bread made the burger more delicious to me. I think their buns used to have sesame seeds on it. I liked those buns. *At some point I realized that their Chili gave me indigestion, although I really did like the flavor. And the baked potato became anathema because of my Type 2 Diabetes. It’s not that I don’t eat baked potatoes any more, but the ones I fix at home are smaller (or halved larger ones). And when I do eat a baked potato I still like to add butter & sour cream. **I just bought a bag of small Russet potatoes. I mention “small” because they were ALL small potatoes, and just the size I now like, but rare to find in a bag because most bags of potatoes contain a mixture of various sizes of potatoes. And these Russets had a darker brown skin. I haven’t tried them yet, but their smaller size is actually a positive selling point for me.

I moved to Fayetteville in 1995 to work at Fayetteville State University. A few years later, they built a new Golden Corral near the Lowes (Home Improvement, not high-end grocery) on Ramsey Street. This was perfect for me because it was “on my way” between home and FSU. But normally I would only eat at Golden Corral for lunch. However, I recall that the Golden Corral near the Mall would have a breakfast buffet on Saturday mornings that I loved to go to. Oh, all the glorious breakfast foods… think of me dancing and twirling about as I view all the choices. Something special for breakfast would be some corned beef hash, and add a little bacon with that, and some scrambled eggs, and maybe some of those sauteed onions & peppers, and a biscuit, with maybe a little sausage gravy. Some milk & some orange juice and maybe even hot tea. I’m through, I think I’ll go back for a second helping of all of this. And, I would quite often, but maybe leaving out the biscuit on the second go through. *DeWayne was a long-time favorite waiter at GC for me and he did move to the new GC once the Ramsey Street location was abandoned, but he seemed rushed and not having time to be friendly. And, I don’t think it was his fault. Management. Yeah, I think it was management’s fault.

The new GC wasn’t as inviting. The buffet counter was straight, not undulating as the old one had been. This meant that as you moved about for food, you always had someone coming at you (another customer), another useless confrontation, whether you turned left or right along the long counter. And the new GC was loud. Sound bounced off the walls and wasn’t pleasant. And, in a couple of places the aisles between tables were just a bit too close to each other, which meant that staff and other customers passed by uncomfortably close, or someone had to wait for others to pass before they continued on. *You could probably write a small volume on “How to Not Improve an Eating Experience” from this one location. “Gosh, how many years has it been since I ate at the new GC?”

But after years, they tore down the Golden Corral by the Mall and rebuilt it. *I actually remember riding by the destroyed building (I have a picture or two of the remains.) and being shocked. I had to turn the car around and ride through the parking lot. I didn’t know if the building had burned down, but later found they had intentionally demolished it. And not too long after they had the new Golden Corral, they left their building on Ramsey Street. They didn’t tear down the Ramsey Street building and so there eventually were two other restaurants that found their home in that building.

I don’t recall the order in which the new restaurants inhabited the old Ramsey Street GC location, but one was an oriental restaurant and the other a country cooking (Chaisson’s Grandson’s). Before the oriental restaurant (a buffet) opened, I remember thinking “why would you want another oriental restaurant this close to an already existing one.” The existing Chinese restaurant may have been called “China II” or as I see it on Google Maps, “Little China.” But, I was a regular customer. They had a small buffet, and they had some items (which I don’t recall specifically now) which I really liked. The irony? After the new restaurant came into the old GC location, I became a regular customer and rarely, if ever, visited Little China. That is until the newer Chinese restaurant (after several years) went out of business. Then I visited Little China once again, but I think they no longer offered a buffet, and there was no reason to return.

And for a while, there was a Chaisson’s Grandsons restaurant (country cooking buffet) in the old GC location. They had good food and I liked going there also. Maybe I just liked eating at this location no matter what type of food was being served. And then whichever restaurant finally closed up shop and left the location empty, it remained empty for a while and then one day I was passing by and they had already demolished most of the building. I think I got a picture of one little corner wall standing alone. The signs went up that there was a new 7-11 Convenience Store coming to this location, and eventually it did. And, I buy gas there often but not regularly as there are other locations in town that offer better gas prices.

Cracker Barrell, the one next to I95, was a regular breakfast stop every Sunday for several years. It was too far away from where I lived and worked to visit on weekday mornings, but sometimes Saturdays and almost every Sunday I was in town I would ride across town to eat at the Cracker Barrell. There were several waitresses I liked. I don’t recall the older waitress’ name, but her husband had a beautiful deep speaking voice. I think he was a mechanic, or worked with trucks, maybe drove them. And there was a younger “country” girl named… Brandy, was her name Brandy? I must have been completely oblivious to her before she changed her hair style. I recall her mentioning this once or twice, so it was probably true. But after the change, and I don’t recall what she looked like previously, she was quite a physically attractive woman;-) She had a pretty face and she was “round like I like ’em.” But, she was “country,” and I’m not “country.” My childhood, in the country of eastern North Carolina, but with copious amounts of TV watching on which I gravitated not to “country” but to other worldly environs, made me a different character than a country boy. I’m not sure if TV was the sole contributor. I’m sure there is something inside each of us that determines the choices we make and the paths we choose. Is that question, “nurture or nature?” Environment does play a part on who we become. If the TV or the personal computer hadn’t been invented before I came along, what choices would I have made? I don’t think I would have become a doctor or a lawyer. I’m not committed enough. “Committed” isn’t the right word, but the right word is not within my grasp at the moment. Perseverance or persistence? Formal structure? Yeah, I don’t like formal structure, although I do like structure.

Even in my chosen profession, my education, knowledge, talents and experience all were fraught with holes or gaps. Like Swiss cheese. I understood some basic programming, but I wasn’t good enough to make my living programming. I didn’t comprehend all the concepts to become a network administrator. It wasn’t just a lack of knowledge, it was an ability to gain and keep knowledge in various areas. I might even understand, briefly, a concept or idea, and then it would fleetingly disappear. I’m not sure if that is a flaw or just a human personality trait. Oh, but I also couldn’t manage others. What I am saying is that if you are really good at managing people you can make more money. If you can program well, you can make more money. If you organize well, you can make more money. I made enough, or so far it seems, even with the holes. However, one of the really big holes was in myself, and that meant I could never commit to another (woman, or man). Not sure of what all was lacking, but even at 70 years old, I do not know, do not have “it” and never will, or there is no point at the end of my life to go, “Oh, there it is!”