VanLife in the ScuttleBuss.: April 21-23: Charlotte, NC

We were passing through Charlotte where a friend of the family from days long gone by now lives. It has been such a fascinating and wonderful aspect of the journey to connect with people from the past, and build many more new connections than I ever would have thought possible.

My friend (call him... Manfam. Yes, it's a name. Maybe. Long story) was a wonderful host with a beautiful family. Two adorable kids and a lovely wife, and they were all a complete joy to be around. He cooked us a delicious salmon dinner, before which he gave his brilliant 5 year old daughter a "salmple"... her first taste of the fish. She did not approve. But we did!

After dinner he showed us around a bit. We knew Charlotte was huge (population over 750,000) but didn't quite know what to expect beyond that. It is incredibly expansive. The downtown is only for commercial banking etc, and the art district is contained to one street.

The next day, we went exploring a bit. As it turns out, the family we stayed with are not fans of Charlotte. We weren't particularly fans either. It's just so darn big, but without much of a character connecting the community. It's sprawl at its most extreme. We went to the arts district, which isn't very big... we could only find one cafe on "the strip" and though it was "cool" I can't recommend eating there. How can a bagel be so bad?

We stayed there for a good long while. I wrote one of the last blogs you enjoyed. You know, the one about Dave & co.

From there we drove down the street a bit to the other cafe/bakery our friend showed us the night before. A french hot spot open 24 hours.
Then we checked out downtown a bit, here is what it looked like:

We headed back to their house, which was the best environment we found in Charlotte by far. The only slight complication happened to be: KG and his allergies. He is allergic to cats, and although sometimes it doesn't affect him too severely, there were 4. He feels guilty denying the hospitality of an offered room and comfortable place to sleep, so when he couldn't breathe at night he insisted on sneaking out to the van in secret. I didn't realize he didn't want them to know (so they wouldn't feel bad? There is nothing for them to feel bad about, of course) and I slept through his text message the second morning, so he was discovered when he sheepishly knocked on the door in his fuzzy monkey pajama pants.

For our last night in town, our friend Manfam found us the best open mic in Charlotte.
Before we left, we got to put in some quality time with those adorable little ones. We showed the gal (the lad too, but he can't talk so I won't misquote him) our van.. she gasped and sang, "how romaaaantic!" Now her parents have to fear her interest in our wild bohemian lifestyle. Woops. We sang some tunes together, and she sent us off to our open mic with good-luck-hugs. I'm even told she said she hoped we were doing well before she fell asleep. She is a wonderful friend.

The open mic was a pretty great experience. The night was packed with the most eclectic music you can imagine, and some of it was very impressive. The best transition was from filthy rap ("she had me stripper-tized") to a mousy brunette on a toy guitar singing love song covers. My other favorite rappers had a very catchy and memorable chorus "You livin in your Mama's house/Sleepin on your Mama's couch/Living on your Mama's land/ Eatin all your Papa's jam". Good stuff. We stayed to watch all the way through until the end (the full house was essentially empty by then), and the last rapper decided to get intimate with the few audience members left. He sang up close at all the remaining ladies, and I was the one lucky enough to get the line, "can I slide up in ya like a visa".. to which KG adorably replied, "No sir you may not" (after he walked away).
Here are shots I snapped of a few of my favorites...

This fella calls himself "The Funky Geezer". Probably approaching 90. Real good. He also told me our set was "killer, man.":