A Living Magazine - Day 230 - Homecoming - Belmont to Charlotte

I must have been comfortable, because I slept all the way until 7:00 a.m., right past my 6:00 watch alarm. I was ready for a morning of walking and wanted to get started right away. Slipping out of the warm sleeping bag, I got packed up and then disassembled the tent and was out of there within half an hour. The sun was rising earlier each day. Only a short time back I had until 8:00 before daylight. On this morning sunrise was at 7:12. I caught this shot at about 7:40...  

Belmont sunrise.

Never actually saw the church.

When I got to Walgreens, I went in to see if they had any Gaston Gazettes. They didn't, so I walked back out. In the parking lot I saw this...

Probably my favorite picture in the last few months.

One can just imagine the story behind it.

Broken glass, pennies, barrettes and bullets. I kept the pennies and bullets. 

Probably because I was distracted, I took the wrong road. I was supposed to stay on 74 (Andrew Jackson Highway) and Charlotte would only be another four miles. Instead, I took 273 north to Mt. Holly...

Nice stone house with a small guest house.

I realized my mistake when I saw signs for downtown Mt. Holly. Had no choice but to keep walking until I found an eastward running road. And, I did. It was Route 27. I would have taken it anyway because it was the only logical course of action, but I also recognized the route number from the Google image of a street that came out in downtown Charlotte. However, in calculating the distance I'd traveled north, I realized that I wouldn't reach the city for another three miles or so, and then it would be a two mile walk to the downtown. I'd traveled twice as far as I'd planned.

Turning right onto 27 I just kept going east, knowing that I would have to cross the Catawba River at some point. When it came into view I began to see planes taking off and landing beyond it. That was a good sign, since the airport is in the west of the city and I knew I could reach it eventually...

Catawba River.

After crossing it, I noticed that city buses (the transit system is called, Cats--Charlotte Area Transit System) were going by occasionally. It looked like Mt. Holly Road (where I was) was served by bus Number 1. I scouted around for bus stops on the other side of the road as I passed into the city limits...

Wow. Seems to always be a needle on the way into these Carolina (South and North) towns.

Another favorite photo. This was just sitting in the woods.

When I got to a bus stop, I searched for silver coins in my pack - finding about $1.50 - and pulled out one of my last dollar bills. It would definitely be worth the ride. The bus had passed me going the other direction and I was at the edge of town, so I knew he'd be back around within a half hour or so. 

In less time than that a bus showed up and I got on it, asking what the fare was. It was $2.20--kind of steep and an unusual amount. But I jammed my coins in. It was relief to sit down. I discovered that I had made another potential mistake, when I viewed the digital bus number. It wasn't 1, but 945. Yet all buses eventually lead to Rome (or, downtown Charlotte in this case). So, I just stayed put. The bus filled up with riders as we approached the city.

The tall buildings eventually came into view and we drove right into their center. I pulled the cord when I determined that we were all the way downtown (actually, called "uptown" here)...

The gold windows on the building to the right reflected sunlight

onto the Wells Fargo History Museum.

I hope to get to know you soon.

I tried two different Starbucks, but they were both closed. I thought this was very odd. Starbucks, closed on a Saturday? I asked a security guard outside one of the hotels, and he suggested going to the Charlotte Convention Center. I found it and went in, wading through a thousand high school girls and their families, there for a volleyball tournament...

Twelve courts. Never seen that many games at the same time.

When I located the Starbucks, it was one of those counter/kiosks, without its own eating area. There was a food court upstairs and a dark little nook of several tables with outlets. That would work. I stood in line for a good ten minutes. You can imagine how many people they were serving. I got my usual and headed straight for a table in the darker area. Waiting for a woman to unplug her laptop, I  took her seat when and plugged in when she left. 

The Wi-Fi was not the fast connection I was used to for Starbucks. Rather, it was the convention center's guest signal. I was able to do a little bit of work, but the signal was slow. I couldn't upload photos, nor look around on Google Earth very much (it always hogs as much bandwidth as just about everything else together). But I did locate another Starbucks in the far eastern part of town, along with a possible sleep spot for this night. 

I memorized the route there. It was north on College, east on 11th Street, then merge with 10th Street which turned into Central Ave (about two miles)...

Ever wonder what a site looks like before a strip mall is built?

Seen along 11th Street.

Daytime skyline.

It was easy to find Starbucks and for once on this day, I didn't screw up the trip. It turned out that this was just another grocery store branch of Starbucks, at a food market and pharmacy called, Harris Teeter. In my experience, these Starbucks are always long lines, crappy attitudes and slow internet. This one was certainly the first two, but had a fairly nice dining area on the second floor, and moderate speed for a signal. It did have one things that most grocery store branches lack--AC outlets.

It was as good as anything else I could find on this day. I settled into get a post published. It took a lot longer than I thought it would. The sun had gone down by the time I was ready to leave. Now it was off to the Hawthorne area I'd seen on Google to look for a sleep spot...  

The inner-illuminated stained glass of a church near the sleep spot.

It was in less than two kilometers (about a mile and a quarter) that I saw my woodsy area. It looked great from the street, which was also not very busy. I was able to cross the road and get into the woods with no cars around. The woods were just perfect, except for the brittle and noisy leaves. 

When I found a good spot, I cleared away the leaves around it, but not from under where the tent would go (needed those as a cushion). In this way, I could set up the tent without making a lot of racket. As I faced the street, there was a neighborhood behind me arching around from the right flank to all the way across the back of the woods. On my left was a warehouse or factory of some kind. there were no signs around...

Again, the temperature dropped dramatically and I crawled into the tent. It was a bit later than I'm used to turning in. But I lay down and almost instantly fell asleep.

Charlotte Sleep Spot.

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