Having a royal time in the Queen City

Pretty scary, huh?

Prior to this trip Betsy and I had been to Charlotte one time each (on separate trips, many years ago, to attend work-related conferences). Neither of us were very impressed with the city on those visits, and my stay came to an abrupt and memorable end – exactly 23 years ago today – when I got an early morning call telling me that my Dad had died.

Needless to say we had low expectations for our second visits, but they were far exceeded. Charlotte is an impressive city and we liked it a lot better the second time around.

The city is named for King George III’s wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (who gave birth to 15 children). It's a clean, bustling city with an impressive skyline and a prosperous vibe. On our various stops around town the people were friendly, it was easy to get around and the city appears to be doing a lot of things right; including a beautiful downtown baseball stadium, an extensive light rail system to the suburbs and a downtown streetcar connector.

San Antonio, of course, hasn’t been able to do any of those things and it was natural for us to compare the two cities.

Bexar County has nearly twice the population of Mecklenburg County, closing in on 2 million while Mecklenburg just passed the million mark. While both places have “majority-minority” populations with declining percentages of whites there are some substantial differences.

The most obvious is the number of blacks. One third of the people in Mecklenburg County are black compared to less than 10 percent in Bexar County. On the other hand, the non-Hispanic white presence in Mecklenburg is much greater than it is in Bexar; 48 percent to 28 percent.

The median income in Mecklenburg County is significantly higher ($6,000-plus per household) than Bexar and the percent in poverty is one point less. However, the demographic difference between the two cities that really stands out to me is the whopping 42-plus percent of people in Mecklenburg over the age of 25 with a college degree compared to less than 27 percent in Bexar County.

Bottom line, Charlotte is an impressive city doing a lot of things right; clearly a rising star on the East Coast.

My cousin’s daughter lives in Charlotte and she invited us over to her house for Sunday dinner with her husband and two adorable kids. It was a great visit and fun to get to know them a little better. 

We were just beginning to digest the peach pie when then they mentioned they had a Tesla!  

What the…a Tesla? Would we like to take a ride in the Tesla? Hell yes!

 

A glimpse of the future?

From there we (sheepishly) drove our old school gasoline-powered truck (that I had to steer and brake myself) to the baseball game at the very nice, new downtown ballpark. 

The stadium itself was great but the thing about it that is really spectacular is the view of the downtown skyline. I’d rank the setting of BB&T Ballpark in Charlotte up there with any stadium in the Major Leagues.

 

Take a guess why this big, fuzzy green thing (the one on the left) is the mascot (named Homer) of the Charlotte Knights AAA baseball team?

Answer: it's a dragon! Get it? Knights and dragons?

One thing Charlotte does lack is quality, convenient RV parks. So, with limited options, we decided to stay at a massive RV park(ing lot) adjacent to the Charlotte Motor Speedway in the suburb of Concord. 

Betsy is pointing to the Charlotte Motor Speedway in the distance. I'm sure the RV Park(ing lot) has a few more customers on race day.

It’s butt-ugly, but functional and convenient for a lot of the things we needed to do; which included some truck maintenance and a second minor league baseball game in the Charlotte suburb of Kannapolis.

Supposedly, the Billy Graham Library and Home is the top-rated attraction in Charlotte. We are not so sure about that.

For some reason many of the cell towers in Charlotte are "disguised" as trees.

Price's Chicken Coop is supposed to have the best fried chicken in Charlotte and we have no reason to disagree with that assessment. The fried shrimp is pretty darn good too!

My distant relative, the 11th President of the United States James K. Polk was born in Pineville which is now a suburb of Charlotte so we paid a visit to this state historic site.

We are not, to say the least, fans of NASCAR so it was not readily apparent to us why the name of the "low" Class A baseball team in the Charlotte suburb of Kannapolis is "Terminators". Apparently "Terminator" is a nickname for the race car driver Dale Earnhardt, who was born in Kannapolis. OK, fine. But that raises a second question. What is the mascot for a "Terninator"?

Answer: Timmy Gator, the Terminator. I swear I'm not making this up.

If they had not bused in a bunch of kids from summer camps it would have been pretty lonely at the game between the Kannapolis Terminators and the Delmarva (Delaware) Shore Birds.

 

On the other hand, pretty good seats huh?

I’ll close out this post, and our stay in Charlotte, with a shout out to my Dad - John Pasley. He’s been an angel on my shoulder for 23 years now, and counting.