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Day 5 - lunch

Skylight Inn, Ayden NC
Aahhh, this is more like it. The Skylight Inn, aka "The Bar-B-Q Capital of the World," is the first site on the east end of the NCBS Trail. They do whole hog only, which you can watch being chopped as you order. Little bits of cracklin' skin give it an occasional crunch, and the vinegar- pepper sauce applied during the chopping is just the right amount. There's more at the table if you want.

The menu is amazingly simple: You can buy a sandwich, a small, medium or large tray (differs in amount of meat), or meat, slaw, and cornbread in bulk. Tea or Pepsi. What else could you need?

The cornbread is thin, heavy, and flavored with hog drippings. Some of us weren't too impressed, but I found it growing on me as I ate it. ('Most anything tastes good with hog fat in it.) The slaw is chopped very fine and has a sort of medium taste, pretty good. The meat doesn't have much smoke flavor, but taste and texture are very good. We liked the straightforward ambience -- as if it's saying "this is a barbecue place, sit down and eat." We got there about 11:30 and went right to the counter to order. A few minutes later the line began to form, and it was still growing when we left.

Day 5 - drive-by

B's Barbecue, Greenville NC
The shame of touring the NCBS Trail is that the places are too close together to try them all, unless you have a vast amount of time and plenty of money for motels. B's (does the roadsign suggest that it's an institution?) has a walk-up window and picnic- table seating. People park haphazardly in the uneven gravel lot and eat in their cars/pickups. Jim Early's book says they have some indoor seating but we didn't notice anyone going in or out. We wished that we could sample the food -- we were just too full. We'd like to go back when we're hungry.

The bloodhound with the soulful expression and his more conventional hound friend were at a gas station between Greenville and Goldsboro. Okay, it's off-topic, but it's Southern enough to include.

Day 5 - mid-afternoon snack

Wilber's Barbecue, Goldsboro NC
Omigosh, this is good. Wilber's ranks among the top echelon of NC barbecue places, a legend and a destination for barbecue pilgrims. We were still sort of full, but we had to try Wilber's.

The waitress brought us hushpuppies at the start, and they were good. Maybe a tad sweeter than we would have preferred, but good. Even though we were still not hungry, Bob and I couldn't leave the pups alone until they were gone. We all had sandwiches (Jody and I split a large unevenly), served with slaw on top. Taste and texture were very good, the sauce was good, and we didn't waste a single bite. Ambience was nice with age-darkened knotty-pine paneling throughout, red-and-white tablecloths, and gas lights on the walls.

We chatted with the waitress, as usual, and she invited us to visit the legendary pit. Good grief, it's an industrial-scale pit. Jackie gave us the tour, and we watched him turn the half hogs he was cooking, by hand, protected only by a towel in each hand. I asked him what temperature he was cooking at and he just smiled. The pit has something cooking around the clock.

Wilber's is one of those legends that deserves its legend status. We would try never to get near Goldsboro without a stop at Wilber's.

Question: Why isn't Scott's on the NCBS list? Scott's is my favorite sauce by a country mile, and their Web site features a piece by Bob Garner that describes the Goldsboro restaurant in flattering terms. But it's not on the list, I'd guess because Jim Early didn't include it, and his book is the main source for the NCBS trail. I'll be sure to look them up next time I'm down there.

Day 5 - dinner

Parker's Barbecue, Wilson NC
Parker's is another NC barbecue legend with high name recognition. Hoping for another superb barbecue meal, we were disappointed that the chopped pork didn't measure up in taste or texture. Too much raw vinegar taste in the sauce turned off one of us. The chicken was good. Sides were okay to good. The Brunswick stew was a little bland and corn sticks were a little heavy, but like the cornbread at Skylight Inn, they grew on me as I ate them. Hushpuppies were a little sweet and a little greasy, but not bad. The boiled potatoes gave a nice contrast to the more highly flavored meat. None of us was much impressed with the ambience of the place.

Would we go back? Sure, it was good enough for a return trip, but it didn't strike us as a place we'd anticipate eagerly, more like a place we might pick after weighing whether we wanted Italian or Chinese or Mexican or barbecue.

Day 5 - drive-by

Bill's Barbecue, Wilson NC
Bill Ellis's place is huge. His own Web site calls his operation "The Microsoft of Barbecue." The lots have semi-trailers that carry barbecue all over the country. It's a buffet. We were not hungry and didn't go in. We didn't even take a picture. Maybe we missed something. Maybe that's okay.

Day 6 - whoa, the state is closed down

By the time we reached this point in our trip, having experienced one three-barbecue-meals day, we had become awed admirers of Ray Lampe and Dave DeWitt, who did 22 restaurants in 6 days, an average of 3 2/3 a day. One thing we knew for sure, they started on a Monday and ended on a Saturday. You can't get barbecue on Sunday in NC unless you know somebody or get really lucky.

Day 6 - brunch

Truck stop between Wilson and Willow Spring NC
After our triple-barbecue day, we slept in (it was the first day of Daylight Saving Time) and skipped the motel's continental breakfast. After we'd been on the road for a while we stopped at a truck stop with a buffet breakfast and filled up on all the things you'd expect on a Southern trucker's breakfast menu. Yes, we broke our resolve to avoid buffets.