Tabor City, NC Yam Festival

[Skillet]

I set out last Friday for the Yam festival on Saturday because I wanted to make sure I had good parking. Friday night I stayed about an hour away on the property of a Boondockers Welcome site. Very nice site in the woods. Those tall pines with no lower branches (lob-lolly pines?) with a nice blanket of needles. Very quiet and dark but rained like crazy. The next morning I got up early and found a great spot in an empty lot as they were setting up the festival.

I would describe the event as more of a festival that happened to have some yam-related stuff. It's been going on for over 40yrs but not much yams. It had all the small town charm that I love and the citizens were great. Many were very surprised I came down from Virginia just to see it all and thanked me for coming. It was like a big block party. Plenty of vendors, music, and parade with local business' floats. The yam stuff was relegated to the single library. Every year one of the farmers brings a literal truckload of yams and gives them out for free and they were quickly snapped up. I had a great time.

My trip going down and coming back was interesting. After I made sure my tires were topped off I turned on my refrigerator. Lights came on then quickly went out. No power. Did it every time I pressed the start button. So I hoped my milk and other stuff would survive the 48hrs as is. My cb was dead quiet. Even when there was a backup on 95, nothing. I couldn't figure out why. Then it started raining hard. I glanced in my rearview and saw that my quarter wave cb antenna had broken from it's tie near the top and was whipping around the back and side as I was flying down 95. It looked like it was sword fighting all the cars behind me. I pulled off the next exit and climbed up on the roof to tie it back down with fishing line. All the time raining and cold. Slippery roof. Took about 20min to take care of that and then the Chinook wouldn't start. I left the headlights on. Used the battery booster for the first time and it fired up. Wet and fed up, I continued on to my Boondockers Welcome site. Enjoyed the festival and left in the late afternoon to do the 6hr drive home. 20min into my drive I was still bothered that my cb was so quiet. Saw that I didn't plug in my antenna... Rest of the ride was good. As I backed into my driveway late last night I clipped the curb at the bottom of my driveway. I've done it before with no issue as it's lightly curved. Hopped out to unload my dogs and gear and heard a loud hissing. I thought a pipe had burst in the cold on the side of my house while I was gone. Turned out that the inner duelly valve stem (braided extension type) had come out of the holder and I must have hit that when I hit the curb. The metal part at the end (not the braided part) was releasing all the air... I have a tire shop that does rv's and trucks about 2 miles from my house. I think I'll air it up and make my way over on my next break. I don't think that it's something I can fix myself.

[Skillet]

Inside Yam HQ!

[Skillet]

Only one place was serving a cooked yam. I was expecting it to be like a bacon-fest where it's put in everything that you could try or buy. That's a yam with cinnamon butter.
Me and Tommy Tater. He's beloved by the citizens and had been playing that role for 15yrs.
Choice parking spot right at the festival.

[chin_k]

Very interesting! I did not know we have yam festival in the US. When you mentioned in the other thread, I thought it was a misspelling. Sorry about that.

The size of the yam can be deceiving without a scale. One of my son grew some yams in the yard last year, and the largest one was like 2 lb. Those yams do not look very big to me until I read the weight.