Day 028 – Wilmington, NC – Matt’s in town

I will be meeting Matt around 3PM today at the Inn at Wilmington so I have a nice slow morning ahead of me to catch up on my bike maintenance and repack all my bags to see what I have left behind and where I’ve put what, which changes quickly. I’ve managed to leave behind my Brooklyn bike hat somewhere in the Outer Banks so I hope who ever has it enjoys it. I also left my expensive 30 SPF medicated lip balm that still has a lot left in it. It’s tough to keep track of everything especially when I am visiting with people and set things down or tired or in a rush or all three together.

I switched the front and rear tires (pic). Always bring two types of rope with you – the thin kind (orange paracord) at least 50 feet for hanging clothes on to dry and the thick type (nylon) to make an impromptu bike repair stand, tie people up who are naughty or to hang things like food to keep it from bears. I still can’t believe how quickly my rear tire wore down (pic). I also cleaned and lubed my chain, checked all the bolts on the racks and bags and tire pressure.

I rode 16 miles back into town to meet up with Matt and after we got cleaned up it was straight to the Front Street Brewery for a tour (pics). I was really hungry so as our tour guide, Greg?, was passing around various roasted barley I had to both smell and taste, very good. I also stuffed some of the hops pellets in my mouth even after being warned how bitter they would be. They did taste bitter, but I was so hungry it really didn’t matter. We got to sample four of the beers, Costal Kolsch, Dram Team Scottish Ale, Swamp Lager, Battle Ship Pacific Pale Ale, and they were all really good with the Costal Kolsch being my dinner drink of choice.

During dinner we watched the Belmont Stakes (pics). I didn’t realize that there was such a back story behind California Chrome – I actually had no idea that the Belmont Stakes was happening at all. Matt was very into it as was the rest of the bar. I do understand how passionate people can become, but the owner of California Chrome seems to be taking the loss of his Triple Crown a bit tough from what I’ve seen of his post race interviews.

After diner and a lot of beer (me more than Matt) we took a walk around historic downtown (pics) and got ice cream. I was of course petting every dog in sight (pic) and we were both chatting up a lot of people. We got an after dinner drink at a seafood place on the water and met Mat our server (pic). He has dreams of moving to Oregon to become a writer. Go Mat go! We ended the night in a gay friendly piano bar because we met Stephanie and her two dogs as we were walking back to the car and she insisted we stop in for a drink. The piano music was good, the drinks were excellent (thanks Evan) as was the company. We sat next to Braxton and his cousin Candice, who went to the University of Washington pre-med and was planning to become a doctor(surgeon?), but got into car accident with a car crushing her hand so she couldn’t pursue it :(.  It was a nice way to end the night.

Matt has been telling me about how hard it is to meet single women our age while he has been living in Charlotte. I got a real taste of what he meant as we were walking around Wilmington.  From what I could see single women were in their early to mid 20s and the rest were married. Granted my sampling size was small, but I did feel old in a few places we went to. Matt we are some of the only single men our age I know. Ha ha, oh.