I was told by Steve and Tonya that
I would always be welcome to visit if I ever came to the states. So while Sarah
and Louise went to the bright lights of Vegas I went to small town America which
couldn’t have been any more different to New York.
Things didn’t get off to the best
start when I was delayed for 2 hours flying to Charlotte made worse by the fact
we were already in the plane so no walking around or using the WI-FI.
Fortunately they had been keeping track of my flight so I got picked up fairly
quickly.
It was straight into town for
food, a couple of beers and then to see the Charlotte bobcats play the Brooklyn
nets. It was an experience in itself just to see how they do sport, The tickets
were roughly 5 pounds (you would struggle just to park the car for that amount
back home). People do a lot more simply because it’s affordable. Then there was
free programs and things like the team mascot shooting t-shirts into the crowd
during timeouts. Predictably you are almost constantly being bombarded by
advertising which obviously compensates the low ticket price. As for the event
itself it was the first basketball game I’d ever watched from start to finish.
Steve had to explain one or two bits but overall it was fairly easy to follow.
It was a very close game and the home team won 116-111. I thought playing the
“Jaws music” whenever the away side were on the attack was a bit daft and the
time wasting in the last 10 minutes was a bit annoying but it was a good night.
It was an early start due to Steve
having to drop the kids off at daycare, then we headed towards the mountains. I
seen his area Waxhaw in the daylight for the first
time. Some of it was what I expected big houses, big cars, the national flag
flying outside many houses, loads of fast food places, churches, gunshops and
law firms!!!!!!
It’s was the vast open spaces that
made things so different, every building seemed to be in a big plot of land. The
concept of being able to walk to the shop for a loaf of bread does not seem to
exist for a lot of people. In the next couple of days we would cover the best
part of 400 miles and I only ever seen 1 cyclist and a handful of pedestrians.
Later Tonya was absolutely baffled when I said I had never had a car or even a
driving lesson. I was equally baffled when she told me she had used a bus once
in her life and that was in England.
We headed to Boone where we had a walk round town,
unfortunately the pictures of this area didn’t turn out very well. I did have a
couple of photo stops on the way there.
On the way back we stopped at the
alcohol shop, (you can buy beer and wine at normal supermarkets but not
spirits). While stocking up on a few local bottles I couldn’t get back home, the
woman behind the counter told us of a distillery where the owner would give us a
look round. So armed with a phone number we headed off to Lenoir, found the place and sure enough
the owner gave us a brief 15 minute look round and explanation of the place. It
was a bit of a strange random experience but one of them things that would never
have happened without a foreign accent in a place that sees few outsiders.After
that it was food, back to Steve's, entertain the kids and then have a few drinks
on the back before it got too cold.
Friday was another long day on the
road to Myrtle beach this time with 3 year old “Lotte”
in the back. We had a brief stop at Darlington on the way. The pier was
unfortunately closed so we had some food then went a walk along the waterfront.
Then went to see Tonya's sister Amy where we were stopping the night.
The evening was spent eating pizza
and drinking with her husband Antony, his brother and his brothers girlfriend.
Some of them had been to England before and couldn't wait to go back. I was told
it was over 4 miles to the nearest pub/bar which is a difficult concept to grasp
when coming from Whitwick.
After a good evening we stopped
for breakfast the following morning at an English pub then made the long trek
back to Waxhaw.
After a brief few hours rest it
was off to the Ice hockey to see the Charlotte Checkers play Oklahoma city. Another sport
I had never watched before, but just like on Wednesday night the game went right
to the end and got decided on a shootout. Do I prefer Basketball or Ice hockey ?
Not sure to be honest the Basketball was a lot easier to follow but the Ice
hockey came with a lot less annoying stoppages, I’d have to go to a few more
games I think.
That was it America trip was over.
A lot had been packed in over the previous week and I was absolutely shattered
The following day I flew to JFK, had to wait hours for my flight to Birmingham
which connected in Shannon Ireland.
It took about a week to
recover…………………………….
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