Liberty, NC

Pick your own Blueberries in North Carolina? YES! We've been picking our own strawberries for years at Greeson's , but recently we stumbled upon a place where you can pick your own blueberries. Not only can you pick them right off the vine, but they have several other home-made products that will blow your mind (ice-cream, cakes, squishees). Well worth a lazy-day's drive, thirty miles into the country in my opinion. The place? Millstone Creek Orchards , near Ramseur, NC. It's a little farm in the middle of nowhere, that sells touristy style, farm-fresh foods, but are really darn good. My favorite? Organic real-juice raspberry and apple cider slushies. They're out of this world, and perfect for these hot-summer days. You will get brain freeze, but that's part of the fun! Check their facebook page  for picking "forecasts", and enjoy the freshest fruits you've ever picked. Most delicious pineapple cake I've ever eaten. Millstone ...

Found my new summer hot-spot for cold drinks at the most unusual of places: Millstone Creek Orchards . It's a pick-your-own blueberry and apple orchard with swinging tires in the trees, honey on the shelves, and the best part of it all: organic, all-juice, no-sugar added squishees (also known as Icees or slushies). These aren't your Kool-Aid version, they're made from the fruit on premise (we assume) and are considerably better tasting and healthy for you. If only we would have brought that airplane sized vodka with us, we would have been making mixed-iced-drinks on the way home. Last time I popped in I grabbed a blue raspberry squishee and it was out of this world, and I wished I would have ordered two. However from time to time (like this Friday, Saturday and Sunday) they're whipping up some Apple Cider squishees which I highly recommend you grab, while you can. Now they do sell other things too, and I'm certain they're awesome too, it's just ...

Kids had a camping trip out at Lake Jordan, so we stopped on the 501 in Pittsboro at a little house tucked on the side of a ridge in the middle of nowhere for lunch. The place: Allen & Son's BBQ. It's about 50 minutes from Liberty, but well worth the drive. It's a old home on the side of the road with a pick-up window in the front of the house (perfect for those drives home from RDU), and a dining room in the back. Here they sell one of the best darn double cheeseburgers and homemade BBQ you can find. Hand cut fresh French fries, fresh squeezed lemonade, and homemade buns make this an insanely cool place that people literally pull over on the side of the road and eat. It's cash only, and about $10 a person, but my double cheeseburger was HUGE, as were the platters. I'd grab a bottle of their BBQ vinaigrette sauce even if you don't order the BBQ and slather it all over the burger and fries too. It's out of this world! The food was tasty, gr...

The Acre Burger: 12 Ounces of beef, all-the-way with mustard, chili, onion, & slaw Five words to describe the Daddy Acre Burger  (yes that's what it's called) at Elois: EPIC, AWESOME, AMAZING, DELICIOUS, HUGE! Still not sure how to pronounce it. E-lois, or Eloise? It's a choke-and-puke on US-421, just south of Siler City, and they have the most incredible burger in the world. Screw Diner's Drive-In's & Dives,  this is truck-stops, grease-pits and cardiac arrest food of exponential epic proportions. It's 12 ounces of beef, covered in greasy drippy cheese, chili, and condiments. Cut it in half and you could still feed a pre-school, it's the burger you want, when YOU LOVE cheeseburgers and the dainty normal size of most hamburger shops leave you longing for more. It's keeps coming though, with five types of fries (regular, seasoned, tots, home-fries, or steak fries), and homemade dessert (like peach cobbler or brownies and cream). Ther...

Rollie, Rollie, Rollie, Rollie. Rollie Burger So just twelve short minutes from downtown Liberty is Siler City. We can just call it a suburb as far as I'm concerned. That said, there's considerable debate about a particular burger from Chris's Drive-In, situated on the back streets (North Second) of the old-town less frequented by the newer US-64 traffic. The conundrum is the Rollie Burger. Is it pronounced Roll-EE or R'Ollie? I turned to my lunch partner last week after she continuously pronounced it the later of the two (similar to Raleigh) ways, and explained to her it's a drive-in, and "there's a lowered S-10 with a V-8 and fuel cell parked out front, IT'S ROLLIE (like roll-E)". She disagreed. The debate continues till today. Does sort of look like a drive-in snack bar, doesn't it? What we didn't debate was how much we loved the Rollie Burger or Chris's Drive-In, though I will admit it's a bit of a weird take on my...