A Sea Of Red

Despite the GPS wisecracks on the other thread...I thought I would give y'all some landmark-directions to G-W for those of you coming down for the game. I'm giving you two routes to choose from, both are relatively equal in mileage and time, the second of which is more out-in-the-sticks country driving....

I'll assume most are coming through Charlotte on I-85....

First route:
-Take exit 10B just west of Gastonia onto US 74 west
-Continue onto US 74 into Shelby (around 10 miles or so)
-You will see a huge Wal-Mart on your right, get in your left lane at this point
-At the next traffic light, you have a BK and Walgreens on your right and a McDonalds and Shelby High School on your left, at this light, turn left onto state road 150.
-Stay on this road through lovely south Shelby (ugh) and bend around westward....you go about another 10 miles or so on this road and once you leave Shelby, the next traffic light is in downtown Boiling Springs.
-At the light, turn left, go about a half mile just past Hardees on your right and turn right onto Stadium Drive towards the south end of campus where all the atheltic facilities are...the visitor side is closest to you, plenty of parking, even at Porter Arena available.

Second route:
follow the same directions above but instead of turning left onto 150 at the Walgreen/BK/McD light:

-continue straight on US74 west, after the light just mentioned, you will go through 3 traffic lights
-as you head down a steep hill towards the third traffic light there will be an Ingles grocery store and CVS on your right....get in the left lane....
-as you go through the third light and back up a slight incline, the next left you can make, with turning lane, is onto Old Boiling Springs Road, (you'll see a G-W sign sitting in the cotton field pointing this way)
-turn left onto Old Boiling Springs road, go for 5 miles or so and the road dead-ends into the aforementioned highway 150.
-turn right and follow 150 into Boiling Springs to the light, then hang a left at light as in directions above.

Eats:

you are probably better off trying Shelby or Gastonia, not much choice in Boiling Springs and they'll be packed anyway....Bridges BBQ Lodge by the mall on US 74 in Shelby is popular, and Pleasant City Woodfired Grille and Joes Place are two good eateries in downtown Shelby.

Motels:

unless you book at the Americinn in Boiling Springs (only motel there, but new and pretty clean), I would avoid Shelby motels at all costs.....most give fleabags a bad name.....stick to Courtyard by Marriott or Comfort Suites in Gastonia at exit 20 off of I-85.


Feel free to shoot me a PM if you need any more help or opinion.....y'all be safe on your travels to the Boiling Springs metropolitan area!

For restaurants, I'd recommend Sonny's BBQ in Charlotte or the cajun restaurant in Shelby:

http://www.fatzcafe.com/

You can never go wrong with Cajun.

Fatz has cajun on the menu, but it started down in SC and exploded into a regional chain. Their specialty is actually the calabash chicken. They cater all the Bulldog Club functions during football and hoops games!

Places like Bridges in Shelby make Sonny's look like BBQ blasphemy, by the way.

Sonnys is BBQ blasphemy.

Update....

Parking could be a bit tedious now that the Big South mens soccer tourney has been moved to G-W.

Plenty of parking on campus if you go straight through the one traffic light, then at bottom of hill in a quarter mile turn left onto campus down around some dorms. You could walk around the lake to the stadium easily from there....

Sly Fox wrote:Sonnys is BBQ blasphemy.

BBQ Snob, haha

Being able to catch the mens soccer team winning the league title right next to the football team closing in on doing the same makes for a great reason for everyone to be in Boiling Springs today & tomorrow.