On the way to the fair both days we stopped for supplies at Bloom (aka Whole Foods Lion). Clearly Food Lion is trying to move into the higher end market territory occupied by WFM and H-T. Two things I especially thought were cool: a "recipe of the week" display island that had recipe cards and all the ingredients right there in one place; hand-held scanner so you can scan your purchases as you shop (there are even bags so you could bag as you shopped) and then just run the scanner thru the U-Pay machine at the end and you're good to go. That is an innovation I doubt we'll be seeing at WFM any time soon.

Saturday night we had dinner at Lava Bistro. Almost everything on the menu looked good so I made a snap decision for the blackened rib-eye. While we were waiting for the food I was regretting the choice. Blackened is too often a synonym for excess spice burned into cheap meat to disguise lack of flavor. But not at Lava. Excellent steak with just the right amount of spice. And it was served on top of bacon & bleu cheese mashed potatoes (aka the best fucking mashed potatoes evah). Sarah had shrimp and grits, which seemed pretty awesome as well. Final score? Good food. Bass on draught. Nice atmosphere of ambience. I noticed on a table nearby that they huge gignormous olives in their martinis. Best fucking mashed potatoes evah. All in all, highly recommended. Maybe not worth a 2 hour drive for dinner but next time we're in Charlotte, we'll definitely go back.

Other than the previously mentioned Unofficial Parade/Art Car Invitational, the coolest thing I saw all weekend was probably Miss Vicki (pictured above) chasing down the Monster Garage World's Fastest Golf Cart. How many times will I ever again see an art car do a donut? The Monster Garage crew had modded a golf cart with the chassis/engine of a Classics Series stock car (kinda like a mini-stock car) and they were running around the parking lot behind us while Dean was pulling out and he decided to gun it and chase them around the oval a few times. Absolute super coolness! Wish I'd had the camera out to get some video of that...