Charlotte's got A Lot!

oops! I thought I posted this a couple weeks ago, but I had saved it in drafts -- oh well, better late than never...

Last Thursday (8/20) Pete and I drove to Charlotte, NC for one last weekend away before the fall semester started. On our way to Charlotte we stopped in Asheville for lunch and a tour of the The Biltmore Estate
It was so much fun and we learned A TON - those Vanderbilts were really ahead of their time -- heated indoor pool, Napoleon-obsessed, St. Bernard-breeding folks.

After the Biltmore we finished driving to Charlotte, checked into our hotel, and met our friends Adam and Sarah Bitters for dinner!! We ate at a yummy pizza place called Brixx.

Friday morning we got up early to head to the U.S. National Whitewater Center. It's the main reason we chose Charlotte for our mini-vaca! We started out our morning on the rock climbing walls. (SO much fun, but MAN did our arms hurt -- and our hands were blistered)
After the rock climbing we went to the Mega-Zip Line that goes over the rapids. Then we signed up for a 12:00pm adventure raft ride. We went down the Wilderness course twice (which is more family friendly) and the Competition course twice (it was class III and IV rapids).
The rafting was done around 2pm by which point we were starving!!! We ate at the restaurant there and then went to the climbing wall again! After that we had just enough energy to do the Cimb2Zip, where you climb up a telephone pole (basically) to zip-line back down the ground. It was a little scary -- don't know if I could've jumped off the platform if Pete hadn't been there to count to three and jump the same time I did.

We were SO TIRED after our day at the whitewater center -- we went back to the hotel, showered, and had dinner at a local restaurant called Zada Jane's - yummy!

We had thought we would go to the whitewater center two days in a row but were so tired we knew we needed a different plan for Saturday...the forecast for Charleston was rain or we would've tried have a day at the beach. :(

We decided on this outdoor 'safari' ranch - The Lazy 5 Ranch. It's one of those places where you pay a few dollars to drive through with a bucket of food and all the animals come your window and eat out of your hand, etc. It was kinda crazy -- HUGE heads in our windows, GIANT longhorns rubbing against our car (pete was NOT happy).




It took much longer to drive through the Ranch than we thought it would, and it was starting to rain a bit, but we squeezed in a round of mini-golf at Queen's Landing before the downpour. (p.s. I totally kicked Pete's butt)

Back in Charlotte proper it wasn't raining at all so we called the Bitters to see what they were doing -- they were at the whitewater center!! Luckily they were just there watching other people kayak and raft so we headed back over there to join them and eat a late lunch. That evening we went to Charlotte Mills and did some outlet shopping and saw The Time Traveler's Wife -- no, it wasn't exactly the same as the movie, but I really liked it nonetheless.

Sunday morning was time to drive home - we split the drive, went to get the girls from the kennel, and called it a day!