"We take debit cards only. If it doesn't have a pin to enter, it ain't gonna work!" "Okay, that will be fine, I have a Visa." Well, we can only do it to the tens. We can do it to 90 and you pay me the extra in cash or we can do it to 100 and we'll pay you."

Is this 2008? Yes, it's Fish Camp 2008 in North Carolina. The Wildes are visiting Dale's sister in Gastonia, North Carolina. They were excited to give us the "fish camp" experience which is a grand encounter with boatloads of artery-stopping fried varieties of nearly all imaginable food items.

The evening began by first going to two other "fish camps" only to discover that they are only open Wednesday through Sunday. Good southern Christians apparently eat fish on Sunday, but not Monday or Tuesday. So, we settled on Twin Tops Fish Camp. They seated our party of ten and drink orders were placed. The drinks hadn't been there long before Daniel's Sprite was tipped by a ghost of fish gone by directly onto his lap. A large stack of napkins later we were back to waiting for our food, sticky table and all. That's okay the kids were packing away the fried hush puppies.

Bring on the food. At our table alone, we had three kinds of fried shrimp, fried perch, fried catfish, fried flounder, deviled crab, fried mozzarella cheese, fried dill pickle slices, fried apples, french fries, and one very loaded baked potato. Did I mention the food was fried?

Wow, with this kind of spread, we really should get a picture. Dale hasn't been in any other pictures. Let's ask the waitress with the greasy hands to take a shot of all of us. So, it took her three tries, but she's gonna show us it's good. Oh, it's lovely, let's hand it back to Dale - directly over his water glass. Oops! Must've been the greasy fingers. Now it's bobbing for cameras. Suddenly, this meal has gotten more expensive. (It's been a week now and the camera still works!)

So, we gorge. We eat, the kids play with the catfish skeletons, we eat, we wipe our hands, eat, catch another near Sprite spill, wipe our hands, eat, catch another "almost" drink spill, you get the picture. Yes, we'd like some boxes. We decide to box it up with like items together. As we filled one with fries, one with fish, one with shrimp, etc. we're certain we've witnessed a modern-day miracle of the fries and the fishes. We have enough food to stage our own home-version fish camp in a couple days when we can consider grease again.

Let's go out and pay for it on one credit card. That way we'll have a line that says "Tip" and we can write, "Don't drop the customer's camera in the water." But alas, we may never have that chance 'cause she can "only do it to the ten," we can't be that specific.