I was numb and beat from the drive the night before, but that didn’t stop me from going to work bright and early the next day. I had work to do and a new site to launch. No rest for the weary.

I also ended having to go back to work after dinner to finish up a new Hold Em’ Table design for Kevin - one that had to be completed in time for an October 8th Clerks 2 kickoff party at the house. I hope O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson and Rosario Dawson dig it.

Some trip stats:

• Miles driven with a 6 month old baby: appx 1200
• PNC Park was the 3rd new ballpark that I visited this year after Yankee and Shea. It was my 5th MLB game attended this year.
• BBQ sandwiches eaten: 2
• Stops we had to make for the kid: 7 I think
• Junk food eaten: Chips, cookies, fruit snacks, Chex Mix
• Average Gas Milage: about 27 MPG

Here’s an article I found about Tepee Tim’s:

Chief and chef at his own tepee

Thursday, August 18, 2005

By Rebekah Scott, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A tepee towers over the fast-food franchises surrounding the New Stanton interstate highway junction in Westmoreland County. It sends smoke signals to passing truckers and travelers.

The aroma’s message is simple and clear: “The barbecue grill is fired-up at Tepee Tim’s.”

Pull off at Byers Avenue and alongside the 40-foot canvas tent, and you’ll likely meet “Tepee Tim” Bossart, the decidedly non-American Indian who’s chief of this new roadside enterprise.

He’s a professional ironworker with an entrepreneurial spirit, a taste for slow-roasted pork ribs, and a fascination for tepees.

“It occurred to me that a tepee is really a big chimney, and I could put a big smoker full of chicken and ribs underneath one without it getting too hot. The smoke coming out the top is my calling card,” said Bossart, 51, of Arona.

His customers are from everywhere. New Stanton stands at the intersection of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Interstate 70, and State Route 119, and is a popular pit stop for long-distance drivers.

The tepee came from Canada. It’s 33 feet in diameter, 30 feet high, and stands on a skeleton of 18 lodge-pole pine trunks. Bossart bought it from an aging hippie in British Columbia in the Canadian northwest, and put it up in April on a long-abandoned gas-station site.

The cooker comes from a steel plant in Madison, a tiny town a few miles away. Bossart said he designed the big black roasting, grilling, smoking, and warming apparatus himself. The oak and cherry wood burning in its heart was cut at a New Stanton wood lot.

Menu items come from several sources. Like many locals, Bossart fell in love with barbecue at Clem’s, a Blairsville landmark. He learned the barbecue business in Omaha, Neb., from a man who became his best friend. His cole slaw, chili, and wild rice soup recipes came from there.

His pulled pork is done Carolina style, he said; it’s sold by the quart for taking home. The sealed-in moist texture of the chicken quarters comes from the unique smoker design. The cornbread that comes with every dinner is a recipe he created himself.

Tepee Tim’s opened in mid-May.

“It’s kind of neat to have a tepee right in the middle of town,” said New Stanton borough secretary Mary Ann Roll. “Tim’s always busy, there’s always lots of cars over there, especially at lunch. I think it adds some pizazz to the area, especially for the kids. For a younger kid who’s been driving in the car all day, you can just hear him saying ‘Wow, look a tepee!’ ”

Roll confirmed the Tim went through the whole planning commission process before applying for his occupancy permits, just to make sure the tepee was a legal structure. No problems, everything proceeded as usual, she said.

No problems weathering the searing summer or a few fierce thunderstorms, either.

“Wind worries me, but I hope to keep open most of the year. This place will stay really warm in winter, and I’m hoping to add a nice fire pit out back. It will be a nice cozy stop in the winter.”

Business is good so far, he said, as word — and the roasting-meat aroma — spreads over the area.

“My friends think I’m crazy, but I just ask them ‘when’s the last time you ate something great inside a tepee?’ Bossart said. “It’s a fun thing to do, and the food is tasty too.”