Charlotte

Vacation ended yesterday with an early morning flight from Charlotte back to Houston.  As soon as we got home, it was back to life as usual — cleaning up the house, beginning to take down Christmas decorations, and spending another mind-numbing two hours on my bike trainer since I missed the BAM group’s mad spin on Sunday.  (I can’t believe I’m actually looking FORWARD to this weekend’s mad spin, but I am — spinning with a group is infinitely better than spinning alone!)

Our five days in Charlotte went by in a flash. I’m always worried that we will be bored, but we never are.  We shopped, we ate LOTS of good food, and played Wii games.  My parents particularly enjoy Wii bowling, as you can see from the video above…heehee!  I ran one day and walked with Mom on two other mornings, and generally lamented the fact that there’s not a single place in Houston where I can run (except perhaps Memorial Park) that’s even CLOSE to being as lovely as my parents neighborhood.

We even did a couple touristy things that are new to Charlotte since I graduated from high school and left.  On Friday afternoon we went to a Bobcats game which was fun — except for the fact that I kept trying to call them the Hornets.  Oops.  Their arena is about 5 years old and is right downtown.  (I think part of the reason the Hornets left is because the city wouldn’t build them a new arena.  So then they turned around and…built a new arena for the Bobcats.  Go figure.)

I had never been inside before, and have to say they did a really nice job.  The lower level was much smaller than the Toyota Center here in Houston, which made our seats on the first row of the upper deck feel much closer to the action.  Unfortunately the Bobcats played rather sloppily, and ended up losing to the Warriors by a point — which in itself was a much closer score than it really should have been.

My favorite thing in the whole arena was the scoreboard, which featured a surprisingly accurate Charlotte skyline above the jumbotron.  The screen behind it showed all kinds of things — when the players were introduced, there was a fierce virtual lightning storm going on behind the skyscrapers.  That was later replaced by a spinning team logo, and eventually by a snow-filled scene that Santa would periodically fly through with his reindeer.

On Sunday we spent a couple hours downtown at the new Bechtler Museum of Modern Art.  It opened only a year ago, and while it’s not very big, there have some nice works to enjoy.  The building itself was just as cool as the artwork — a large rectangular structure covered in orange terra cotta tiles that definitely stands out from the surrounding office buildings.  Next door is the Mint Museum of Craft and Design, which I’ve also never visited, so that will be on the list for the next time we’re in Charlotte!

Charlotte really is a lovely city.  The city has changed a lot since I left (14 years ago, which is kind of unbelievable), but in good ways — there are so many cool things to do and neat places to go that weren’t there 14 years ago.  I didn’t fully appreciate Charlotte as a great place to live until I no longer lived there myself, and now each time I visit, I find myself wishing we lived a little closer.  Nevertheless, I’m glad I can still call it home.