Where has the time gone?

I feel like the last almost 3 weeks have flown by! Maybe because I've been so busy with work and seeing what's out there. The 4-10 hr days sometimes seem long when it's not that busy but it's a nice break with a 3 day weekend. It has allowed me to travel around without feeling rushed or too tired afterwards.

The first weekend after the football game I returned to Charlotte to visit with my friend, the OT traveler, for what was initially going to be a wild, well, sort of, wild weekend. It didn't turn out that way. I guess you could say we weren't as young as we used to be. I arrived in Charlotte around 5pm and met up with my friend Molly at her place. It was a little rainy which was par for the course for that day. We ended up going to an area known as NoDo which is a shortform for north downtown. It's supposed to be the artsy area with restaurants and small drinking establishments. We had a good meal and then went down the street to listen to some local music. It was fun but we were both exhausted by the time we got home about 1230am.

The next morning we slept in and then got on the road to the Lexington bbq festival, reportedly the best in the area. We both had a taste of NC bbq and it's very different than what I'm used to. The bbq sauce is more vinegar based rather than tomato based so it doesn't color the pork, it doesn't drip and get messy like the usual bbq sauce and there's none of the usual bbq taste to it. Honestly, it's really not to my liking. In addition, they give you the option of coleslaw with the meat...crazy, don't you think? There were several smaller stages and a grandstand for music. The highlight was the main concert where Lee Ann Womack was the featured performer, singing with acoustic guitar accompanionment, along with 3 other male performers. It actually was enjoyable..I think country music is beginning to grow on me!

We got home and had to take a nap. When we woke up, we barely had enough energy to force ourselves to get dressed to get something to eat. We drove to downtown which is actually uptown, can you say confusing? We ate at this Irish pub which had pretty good food. Since it was the Saturday before Halloween, there were costumed people running amuck which was quite hilarious. It was a fairly early night for us.

The next morning we woke up and went for a walk around her area, saw the Bank of America football stadium in the light of day, saw tailgaters whooping it up for that afternoon's game and sat on top of the world (actually a huge globe by the stadium). We had brunch at a nearby restaurant which was yummy and filling! We went back to her place and watched the Panthers game on tv. I left at halftime so that I would miss the stadium crowd leaving and to get home at a decent time to relax before going back to work the next day. What a weekend!

The following weekend I went overnight to Myrtle Beach, SC which is only 2 hrs away. I had a late start and figured I'd be there mid-afternoon. But noooo, I get caught up in a triathalon that is going on in Wilmington which is about halfway and backs up traffic for what seems like miles. I try and work my way around it, only to be led astray and after having found my way back I realized that if I had been patient I would have gotten back on the right track within a few hundred yards after detouring. I finally was on my way to SC and to the outlet mall! I figured while I was there I would take advantage of the mall and go Christmas shopping for my family as well as myself. As it turned out, I think I bought more for myself than for them. I spent so much time at the mall and because of my late arrival, I completely missed out on the Christmas show that I was interested in seeing. Oh, well!

The next day I spent some time on the beach in front of the place I was staying. It was such a beautiful day, sunny and warm in the 70s with the sun reflecting off the water. The beach here was different than on the west coast, particularly southern CA, because the sand grains seemed bigger and there were so many seashells. I was told later that the seashells, both complete and broken, were due to the many storms that pass by the area. It was so warm that I could have easily gotten a tan. As it was, I had to drive back to NC.

Last weekend I drove to Cedar Island, NC and took a 2.5h ferry ride to Ocracoke Island on the southern part of the Outer Banks. The island is small and most of the things to see are right off the ferry within 1-1.5 miles so I spent a little over an hour walking around and went right back on the next ferry to return to the mainland. A lot of people took their cars so that they could drive to the other end of the island north where you can ferry it to Cape Hatteras. I didn't do that because of the time factor and that the ferry between the Cape and the Island only runs a couple of times in the evening and I wouldn't have made the schedule. The ferry ride to the Island was wonderful, it was warm, sunny and of course, breezy. It wasn't crowded so I was able to sit up on the upper deck and enjoy the rays and catch up on some reading. I spent more time reading that day than I have the whole rest of the time in NC. How relaxing!

The next day I went to another outlet mall where I really did do some damage with Christmas shopping for everyone including myself. Again it was a warm and sunny day. I arrived just before noon and started out. Within a couple of hours and few dollars spent, I noticed people driving around to find a parking spot...the mall was getting crowded. There were plenty of sales going on and I was in spending heaven...however, my credit card was smoking and my bank account wasn't going to like it! Hey, you only live once and that's what credit's for anyways, right? Honestly, I'm glad I was able to find what I did and I didn't break the bank so it's all good.

How's your all's Christmas shopping going?

It's only 5 more weeks to go here in NC and then home for 2 weeks with the family. How excited am I?