Cruisin' to Charlotte

It is amazing the things you can do when you are single, childless and have a 3-day weekend (Well, it turned into a 5-day weekend when I used two personal days).

I am talking about my latest solo road trip from Neptune, New Jersey to Charlotte, North Carolina. It is not the first time I’ve done something like this.

My first solo road trip was in 2000 from Boston to Dallas. The trip took 27 hours and 8 minutes. I broke that trip down into three 9-hour shifts and only drove between Noon and 9 p.m.

Now, let’s fast forward to July 13th when I made the impromptu decision to drive 11 hours and 1,200 miles roundtrip to Charlotte via I-95 and I-85.

Crazy, huh?

I’m a natural-born driver and it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I drove overnight so the only thing I had to deal with was road construction and 18-wheelers. I also have E-ZPass, so I didn’t have to stop for tolls and my blue bandit is good on gas.

Going South

I left Thursday night and made my first pit stop in Newark, Delaware. I visited two of the News Journal’s outstanding interns.



We chatted for about 30 minutes and I was off again. I planned to stop in the Washington, D.C. area to visit some of my friends but none of them answered their cell phones. Instead, I refueled in Elkridge, MD and was on my way again. I made it all the way to Lexington, NC on that tank of gas. I arrived in Charlotte around 11 a.m. on Friday.

While in Charlotte

I’ve learned why it is called “the Queen City” because there are a ton of beautiful and friendly women in Charlotte. I still say the Atlanta and Washington, D.C. areas still have the most beautiful and friendly black women, respectively, in the U.S. but I have to say Charlotte is No. 3 on my list. Sadly, I couldn’t convince any of the Queens of Charlotte to come back to New Jersey.



I’ll try harder next time I visit.

The Queen City is also a very clean city (or at least the downtown area is). Downtown Charlotte reminded me of Boston in that you can walk the circumference of downtown Charlotte in about 45 minutes.

The Charlotte Observer has its headquarters in downtown




and the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats




and the NFL’s Carolina Panthers are also in the downtown area.



The cost of living in Charlotte is ridiculously cheap. My friend rents a nice one-bedroom apartment for about $400 a month. Also, a decent house with some land will cost you about $90,000-$120,000. Also, you can park in downtown Charlotte at a decent rate.



Charlotte is definitely hot (I believed the temperature was in the 90s every day) and you must have an air conditioned-car and apartment/house to live comfortably there. I was born in Jamaica so the heat doesn’t bother me too much. Humidity is another story but Charlotte’s humidity didn’t bother me as much as the summer of 2000 in Dallas.

You’ll never run out of good places to eat in Charlotte (I strongly recommend a pizza joint called Fuel Pizza on North College Street) and there are plenty of bars/lounges where you can get reasonably priced drinks.




Charlotte is also a city on the rise. New condominiums are being built in downtown, the highways are getting a major makeover and it is also the home to numerous Fortune 500 company headquarters, like Bank of America. Charlotte is also the second-largest banking center in the United States.

Going North

I left Charlotte on Tuesday evening and made a pit spot in Durham, N.C. to visit my boy Stan “the Man.”



I also needed some batteries for my digital camera and a chance to check on my fantasy baseball teams. I also got a call from my former upstate New York friend Ms. “D” and she now lives in Raleigh.



She came through Durham to say hello to me before I got back on I-85 again that night. I made it all the way to Richmond, Va. before I had to get gas and then it was all systems go to New Jersey.