Time For A Road Trip… Mantuary Style
I remember a time when packing into a car at 01:00 and “heading East till we hit the ocean” was nothing outside the norm for my college buddies and I. Now married with 2 kids those impromptu getaways are a distant memory. And although the opportunities for random road trips are now few and far between, my lust for them never waned. Its been a rough week after losing my dog, so I think its the perfect time to find myself once again by revisiting my love for road trips: time to fill up the tank, buy a fresh tin of Kodiak and hit the highway. But where is a Man who needs to be home for dinner by 18:00 going to go? Seeing the ocean at 04:00 did the trick back in college, but now older, much wiser, and with a tad more responsibility on my plate, my journey needs to be a bit more planned and ultimately yield something more substantial… something like lump charcoal!
Yes at 05:00 this Friday morning, at an hour I used to be heading home from my college day road trips, I’ll be heading out with a buddy of mine to buy a summer’s worth of lump charcoal. With the new BBQ equipment under my belt, I quickly came to realize lump charcoal’s superiority over briquettes. With further experimenting, I have also discovered that all lumps are not created equal. Specifically, I’d sooner use a gas grill before trying to cook with a bag of Cowboy again (that crap found at Home Cheapo)… conversely, I can justify a 12 hour road trip to pick up 4 pallets of the good stuff.
Yeah, by the time you slackers read this, I’ll have a full load of the best lump charcoal out there with an entire left arm that’s sunburn. Here is the itinerary:
04:00 wake up, tell the boy he’s man of the house for the day
04:30 meet my buddy at work
05:00 “borrow” the company’s 16 foot box truck and hit the open road
08:00 stop for breakfast. My plan is to drive till I find 2 eggs, ham, toast and coffee for under $3
10:00 arrive at Humphry Charcoal. Pickup 2 pallets of the best lump charcoal made.
10:30 head home
14:00 stop for lunch. I’ll be looking for a local BBQ restaurant, hopefully worth writing about.
18:00 arrive home, just in time for dinner.
I’ll update with pictures as soon as I get the chance. Till then, enjoy work you suckers and don’t forget…
Be A Man.
-The Founding Father
Filed under: BBQ, Grilling, Seasonal, Stuff You Should Own
