Busy Day in Charlotte

　
　
　Saturday, May 14, 2010
Day #2 Charlotte, NC

 Yesterday, I started feeling a little headachy during the drive up from Charleston. It got worse as the day wore on. We were scheduled to go to a hockey game downtown with Jim's friends. All I wanted to do was to lie down in a dim, quiet room. I tried to beg off, but I got dragged to the hockey game anyway. Can you think of anything louder,and brighter than a hockey game? Just about the time that the headache was making my stomach feel queasy, the unthinkable happened. The guy directly in front of me came back to his seat with some horrid smelling concoction...I think it was some sort of hot dog or sausage, with some nasty yellow goo on top. As if that wasn't enough,the slop was also giving off a strange garlicky odor . Here I was in a huge arena that I've never been to before, and had no idea where the restrooms were...and I'm afraid I'm going to barf! Lucky for me, the game sucked and we left after the second period. Lucky for Jim, I didn't hurl in his lap...
　
　
Trying to get back to the RV park, proved interesting. We could see the interstate but downtown areas are notorious for having very convoluted ways to actually get ON the ramp. Jim kept saying, "Okay, I know where I am now." And just as he'd say that we'd drive past the ramp to the highway, or we'd be in the wrong lane to get over to it. We made a lot of circles in downtown Charlotte. The tall buildings are very pretty, I got to see them from all sides....
　



Site at the track


Today was warm and muggy, with storms predicted. Dragged Jim to that mall (he is soooooo not a shopper) which probably was a mistake. *I* have control,  he doesn't. I wanted a lamp for my sunroom, he said we can't get it back in one piece.
Final score: Jim - 2 pairs of shorts, 2 sport shirts...Kathy -nada, nothing, zip.

From there we went across the parking lot to an RV show. Oy. We got to climb in those mega monster motor homes. You know the ones. Gigantic, diesel pushers, with all those swirley designs on them. We watch them pull into the RV parks. They are so long they sometimes have quite the time just getting INTO a site, but when they do the fun begins. The behemoth then seems to wiggle around  leveling itself with hydrolics, then it magically expands....bump, bump, bump, bump as all the slide out rooms emerge. Finally the crowning glory, the satellite dish rises from the roof like halo. They are done. And they never come out of their 40 foot land yacht. Why should they? Those puppies have all the bells and whistles....dishwashers, washers, dryers, ice makers, some have TWO bathrooms, several TV's, computers, etc.

 My favorite of the day  at the RV show was a mere quarter million dollars, give or take a few bucks...I quite liked the white marble floors in it!


The RV show took place in front of the *THE DEAD ANIMAL STORE*...also known as 'Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World. This place creeps me out man. It's like a taxidermist heaven, from the second one walks in the entrance there are stuffed animal corpses adorning every wall. ACK! I looked up to see the most god-awful ugly, huge catfish on planet earth. Steps inside, it was even worse...hundreds, maybe thousands (seemed like it anyway) of antlers. These antlers were wrapped around every exposed beam over the check out area. Where the heck do they get that MANY antlers? I asked Jim if maybe they were fake, plastic antlers... And then there are all those deer HEADS, soooo many deer heads, with those beady glass eyes following you all over the store. Not my favorite place to shop!



Scary place



Thank God it was time for lunch. Jim's cousin (he's got 55 first cousins, no joke) lives in Charlotte and we agreed to met him and his wife for lunch. As we pulled into the parking lot it occurred to me that we haven't seen each other since 1994 at a family reunion and maybe we wouldn't recognize each other! Not to worry, this cousin is one of 13 children and the family resemblence is so strong that they recognized each other immediatley...although we all look a LOT different than we did in 1994 for sure! We had a delightful time catching up on families and all too soon we had to part, hopefully they will stop in and see us next time they are in the Charleston area.


From there we drove a few miles down the road to the IKEA store. For some reason the non-shopping half of this couple actually likes IKEA! It looks like a big, blue, super tanker looming up from the parking lot, and I mean BIG . Into the retail caverns we disappeared, following those big arrows painted on the floor,  like sheep. Good thing those arrows are there, or we'd still be trying to find our wayout! Just meandering for miles (I'm sure it was miles) through the two floors of this strange world with funny sounding names for everything. Being a Saturday, it was quite crowded...Jim and I were the only Americans in there. Oh, and our big purchase? A cutting board (because I also forgot to pack one) some AA and AAA batteries and two chocolate bars. Woo Hoo.

Before we knew  it was time to meet Jim's friends and their son, who had graduated from college that afternoon, for dinner. He's a nice young man, I have no doubt he will do well in life .




Jim and the graduate, David