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Brian and I woke up early yesterday partly because we had gone to bed at a decent hour the night before and partly because his cousin had no shades or drapes on the windows, allowing the sunlight to flood the room at 6:30 in the morning! Brian was not happy. After showering and getting ready for the day, we made our way downstairs where Aunt Geri had bagels and various cream cheese spreads awaiting us. We ate and chatted for a bit before the three of us decided to make our way to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson’s self-sufficient estate is located on a mountaintop in Charlottesville. Being an inventor, he created the first domed dwelling in the United States and for that reason, along with the various other inventions/gadgets preserved in his home; Monticello is the only house in America designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations. On our tour of the house we were shown double-sided clocks Jefferson invented, the dumbwaiter he had made to transport bottles of wine upstairs, a desk device that allowed him to make a copy of everything he wrote, etc., etc., etc. He was an extremely intelligent
man who stressed education and knowledge. And although most people know him as the third president of the United States, on his tomb, he requested he be remembered for three things: 1) Writing the Declaration of Independence, 2) Writing the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and 3) Founding the University of Virginia.
It was a gorgeous morning to visit Monticello. Both Brian and I enjoyed touring the house and learning everything about Jefferson from his numerous and vast accomplishments to his much debated relationship with Sally Hemings, a slave of his.
After leaving Monticello, Brian’s aunt treated us to some gourmet sandwiches from a small shop called the Brick; we all gave each other one last hug, and Brian and I started the drive towards Charlotte, NC.
After approximately four hours of repetitive highway scenery, Brian and I saw the city of Charlotte come into view. The city is much larger than I had expected…with a similar feel to downtown Bethesda but, as Brian pointed out, much bigger since they have two professional sports teams. We thought it’d be nice to drive into town and walk around a bit before searching out the restaurants recommended in
our “Roadfood” guide. We spent about 20 minutes looking for cheap parking…narrowly avoiding turning down one-way roads, and trying to find the main part of town. It got to the point where I had to go to the bathroom so badly that I just decided to park in a garage and run across the street to a government building where the girl had to check my bag before letting me use the restroom! As it turns out we had parked in the Government/FRB (Federal Reserve Board for you non-finance majors)/Financial district and had a little bit of a walk before coming to the area of town populated by shops and bars.
Brian and I both really liked the feel of downtown Charlotte. At the time we were walking around, the workday had just ended and all the outdoor seating of bars and restaurants were filled with young businesspeople, enjoying ½ price cosmos and pints to celebrate “hump day”. After about an hour and half we decided to head back to the car and get dinner before heading to my Great Uncle Don’s (my grandma’s brother).
Of the two recommended restaurants in our guide, we decided to go for
“fried chicken nirvana” at Price’s Chicken Coop first but it was already closed by 7:30! So we crossed our fingers that the BBQ King was open and headed off in that direction. Lucky for us, it was open! Set up much like a Sonic Drive-In where you order from your car and they bring your food out to you, we had a lot of fun trying to figure out what to order. We didn’t even know what one of the drinks offered was (a Sundrop), until the lady explained it was like a Mello Yellow (some other drink I’d never heard of, but Brian had). Needless to say, we decided to get their specialty, the Cherry Sundrop, as well as BBQ Chicken & BBQ Pork, which came with rolls, cole slaw, & hushpuppies.
Brian had never been to any drive-in restaurants before so he found the whole experience especially cool. He kept going on and on about how well a place like the BBQ King would do in Rockville or Olney, especially since the food was AWESOME. You can probably tell from the pictures it was delicious…and messy! We used about 10 baby wipes combined to clean up after
that meal! We got even more excited when we noticed on their sign that the Food Network had aired a piece on the restaurant about 2 weeks earlier.
It was already 9 o’clock by the time we got to the town of Mint Hill where Uncle Don lives. I believe the only time I’d met him before that night was at least 8 years ago when he came up to visit my grandma, but the fact that he’s a talker combined with the fact that Brian does really well making conversation with complete strangers, made the visit much less awkward than you would probably imagine it to be. The stories Uncle Don had to tell were interesting too. He’s a riot. He talked to us about everything from his 5 failed marriages, to stories from his cross-country road trips, to hunting stories, to the history of Charlotte. He also inquired as to when we were planning on leaving the next morning, and when I told him we were planning to leave around 10 am, he looked so crestfallen! He explained that he had thought he’d show us around a little bit and we quickly told him how much we’d
appreciate a personal tour and had no problem leaving a few hours later. We talked until about 10:30 before deciding to call it a night.
The next morning Brian and I woke, showered, and loaded into Uncle Don’s truck to go see… what? We had no idea. With me in the middle, and Uncle Don and Brian on each side, our first stop was about 20 minutes from Uncle Don’s house. He’d actually taken us to see the small house my grandma had grown up in, which I found pretty cool! I took a picture and we continued on an hour and half drive (roundtrip) to Lake Norman. While Brian and I could have done without the trip to see the actual lake, it does hold significance to my grandma’s side of the family. Apparently, land (mostly farms) owned by my ancestors had been purchased by the government in order to build Lake Norman (which is gigantic). There’s even a neighborhood named Alexander Place (after the Alexander family…my grandma’s maiden name) in their honor. That’s all I really know about that. Overall the trip was interesting and it was good spending time with my Great Uncle Don, but the
last thing we needed was additional driving when we’re going to be on the road so often in the next month.
Anyway, by the time we got back to Uncle Don’s it was lunch time so we decided to head back to Price’s Chicken Coop for some fried chicken. If someone asked me to describe the place I would have to say it looks like the biggest dump you’ve ever seen, and under normal circumstances I would have NEVER walked through the front door to give the food a chance. BUT seeing as how it was so highly recommended by both the Food Guide AND by Uncle Don…I made my way in…and wasn’t disappointed! It was definitely the juiciest fried chicken we’d ever had and it came with tatter tots, hushpuppies, cole slaw, and rolls as well! We also got their sweet tea…sweet being an understatement! Brian thought it was amazing while I found it much like drinking liquid sugar…delicious, but a little on the overkill side of sweetness…if that’s possible. When we finished up lunch we did a good deed by giving a homeless, hungry man some food…although I’m sure he would have been happier with fried chicken
than Go Lean bars but hey! Food is food right?! Finally, we started the trip to Atlanta to visit Lorraine and Josephine.
Brian promises he’ll write about Atlanta so look forward to that!
XOXO, Allison & Brian
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Sarah J
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Sundrop ROCKS!
I can't believe you've never had Sundrop!! It's DELICIOUS!! Drink up while you're in the south you can't find it north of NC!! I'm glad you guys are having fun!! =)