Welcome to Charlotte

Saturday, April 02, 2016
Charlotte, North Carolina, United States
After a late arrival on Friday night, we slept in a bit before venturing out for some breakfast. It had rained in the early morning but had stopped by the time we headed out for the day. Just a block away we found a Dean and Deluca for breakfast and coffee.

After breakfast we walked a few blocks to the NASCAR museum and hall of fame . We enjoyed a introduction video that told the story of NASCAR. How it was started by competing moonshine drivers and now has races on hundreds of tracks all across America. The museum features cars from all generations of NASCAR racing and has exhibits on the today's technology of racing and the safety that has developed over the years.

After the museum we headed out for a quick lunch at Zoe's Kitchen, an upscale fast food chain that serves Mediterranean food. It was very good and they offered many gluten free options.

Off to Charlotte Motor Speedway for some speed racing. We are signed up to take rides in an actual NASCAR race car! We arrive, check in an await our turn. Our numbers are called and we get our helmets and instructions. Grace and I are in the cars and ready to go when another car already out on the track losses an oil line and drops a line of slippery oil in turns 1 and 2. The track workers go to work cleaning up the track to ensure it is safe to go racing . Grace and I waited in the cars for quiet a while, then they had us get out and wait, then they got us back in the cars, then they got me out and left Grace in. They needed my driver to test the track without a victim, er passenger in the car. Grace went out, my driver returned, I got in for the third time and finally away we went. WOW. 150MPH and a foot away from the wall on the back stretch. Next Jack, and finally Lauralee. Everyone exited the car with a big grin on.

Our friends Joy and Eddie came out to watch our fun and were excellent at videoing and photographing our experience.

Next we made a quick stop at a busy outlet mall for some pants for Jack before we headed back to our hotel to clean up for our dinner.

We were invited to Bob and Susan Salvin's house for dinner along with Joy and Eddie. We arrived and quickly Bob loaded us into his car for a quick tour and history lesson of Charlotte. It was great to have a locals perspective and personal tour. Back at Salvin's we enjoyed conversation about business, travel, photography and of course dentistry. Susan prepared a wonderful steak and potatoes meal (Jacks favorite). Finally after watching the last few minutes of the North Carolina basketball win of Syracuse we said good night and headed back our hotel.

Another long and full day.

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