Surprising Charlotte and The Case of the Difficult Hot Soak

With a little more time to investigate Charlotte, I find it's quite nice. Some impressive statues (for a change, these are not of Civil War generals) and groovy architecture, this "Queen City" has more style than I perceived on first glance. From architecture that manages to be both modern and retro to a plethora of water features, Charlotte is definitely a Southern Belle - she's made up and coiffed perfectly.

But that means absolutely nothing if there is nobody about. Tuesday night, it was a ghost town. Wednesday, the opposite. It's warm but a cool breeze slipped in and out of the buildings to make ambling along Tryon enjoyable. Dinner at Rock Bottom was a treat for this beer lover and the walk back in the dark was the perfect moment for Charlotte to show off her many well-lit charms.

My idea of the perfect relaxing evening. I'm so old.

Then, of course, we come to the Difficult Hot Soak. I was so excited to have a whirlpool tub in my room! But I had no idea how difficult these puppies could be to operate. It took 20 minutes to fill with water (I am NOT complaining, because it's so big I actually floated!) and then it took me 15 minutes to figure out how to turn on the jets. You can see from the photo below that the instructions were a bit... worse for the wear and hard to read. I finally won my bubbly soak by going cromagnon and pounding on the damn button repeatedly until I was rewarded with jetty goodness. But after all that effort, I didn't feel very relaxed. In fact, I spent 10 minutes in the bubbles and that was enough.



This is why I need a servant boy. I can't be bothered with minutiae like preparing a whirlpool bath. I want to just walk in the room, get in the tub and have my cabana boy pumice my feet and serve me a fruity drink. But how to expense him...

Flights

None. Rental car: 883 miles driven.

Bags

The usual demo gear/backpack combo. My huge pink suitcase (I was mocked, finally, for this girlie monstrosity) was stuffed to the gills since I didn't have to worry about flight restrictions.