A weekend in Charlotte

Since both of my siblings now live in Charlotte, which is a mere 150 miles away, this past weekend Catie and I decided to pack a bag and make a mini-road trip to visit them. Catie’s pretty easy to travel with, and we thought it would be fun to check out Charlotte for the first time. I mean, I’ve been to the airport a few times, and I’ve driven through Charlotte, but I’ve never really checked out the city before.

Since my sister Tracy just moved from NYC (she lived in Manhattan, and yes I’m still slightly bitter that she moved in April instead of August, because I could’ve totally had a free place to stay for BlogHer!), she thought it might help her transition to life in the South if she moved downtown, instead of out in the suburbs. I think that makes sense, and it helps that Charlotte has one of the prettiest downtown areas I’ve ever seen (with exceptions for Seattle and Portland). She found this really cool building that had been a department store in the 1920’s or 30’s, and it’s now been converted to condos. It has these amazing huge ceilings with giant windows in her living room.

Tracy & Catie in the window

Playing peekaboo in the windows

Those windowsills are just about the only place to sit too, because Tracy has no furniture, since her movers are scheduled to show up with her stuff from NYC this week. But Catie travels with her own little suitcase full of toys for entertainment purposes, we had an air mattress for Catie and I to crash on, and we had a great time.

Catie & Chris playing peekaboo

I also got to see my brother’s apartment for the first time, which I felt slightly bad about, since we’ve lived in North Carolina for a year & a half, and this was our first trip there to visit him. (Forgot my camera for that part!) It wasn’t an intentional slight at him, just the way it works out. He usually comes to our house when we visit each other.

There wasn’t anything major that happened – we hung out together, we rigged up some iPod speakers and danced to silly kids’ music around Tracy’s empty living room, we ate out at a couple of really great restaurants, and we walked around downtown Charlotte a bit to explore Tracy’s new digs.

My view on the walk to brunch

yelling to Tracy & Chris to come see the "waterfall" (fountain)

And best of all, Catie got to hang out with a couple of her favorite people. (Two of my favorite people too, actually.)
Chris, Catie & Tracy

It was a really good weekend.