Charlotte Postscript:

 Here is my sewing studio with the new IKEA wall units and cutting table fully assembled within 24 hours of our return home to Savannah. 

Actually, Dick assembled the two wall units the night we got home, after doing all the driving, because I didn't feel safe driving the car in its fully loaded state.  Isn't he wonderful!

One final thought:  Walking around center city Charlotte, any building older than thirty years or short enough to see the roof without tilting back your head stands out as really unusual.  It is an urban renewal and re-imagining effort of gargantuan proportions.  We can scarcely fathom how many hundreds (thousands?) of acres of historic neighborhoods were bulldozed to make way for the city's cosmopolitan corporate magnet reincarnation. 

We wonder what treasures are buried beneath those big glass towers, and are thankful for the preservationists that saved, and resuscitated, Savannah's charming urban core. We wouldn't have it any other way. 

Charmed by Charlotte

July 6, 2012

To get our Starbucks fix this morning we stand in a very long line of well dressed banker types, all busily interacting with their cell phones while waiting to caffeinate themselves. We take our lattes and pastries to Thomas Polk Park, where we sit at a table on the tree-shaded plaza, a peacefully plashing waterfall behind us and the bustle of morning rush hour at the park’s periphery. 

The park’s namesake, Thomas Polk, was one of the key authors of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, the first Declaration of Independence from England issued by any citizens in the colonies, predating our national Declaration of Independence by over a year.  The courthouse where it was signed is long gone—now a plaque marks its approximate location on Independence Square, an expansive brick plaza that lies below our hotel room.  Today vendors are setting up a large open air produce market on the square, and a flower vendor is arranging his wares beneath a canopy across the street as we finish our coffee.

(Taking pictures reflected in windows is fun.)

The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art is just a few blocks away.  But, we can’t resist stopping along the way at what looks like the city’s newest cultural offering, the Wells Fargo History Museum.   The exterior still has blue tape and plastic around the edges, but a sign in the window proclaims it open, and we peek in.  Expecting crass commercialism, we are surprised that it is actually a very interesting museum with cool well-designed exhibits, interactive experiences, and artifacts that celebrate gold, currency, banking, and the great job Wells Fargo has done throughout history in using advanced methods to foil robbers and make banking safe and convenient. (Okay, so that last part was pretty commercial.)

We both have the same favorite exhibit—a case with simulated chunks of copper, silver, lead and gold mounted on rods that you can lift to compare the relative weights of each  To our surprise, gold is extraordinarily heavy—we learn that a solid piece of gold the size of a gallon milk jug would weigh 194 pounds!

It’s free, it’s fun, and there are no limits to photography inside—we give it two thumbs up, and are on our way to the main event, the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art.

The museum is not just named for the Bechtler family—its collection is their collection, beginning with Andy Warhol’s individual portraits of multiple generations of family members prominently displayed in the soaring four story rotunda.  Reciprocal visitation privileges with Savannah’s Telfair Museum bring our total admission charge to $6, and acoustiguides are free with admission. 

The Museum’s architecture presents a bold and engaging artistic statement inside and out.  (Yesterday's post has our shot of the entrance to the museum with the firebird standing sentry, but we have no more pictures--they don't allow phots in the galleries.)  We love the way the museum design complements the artwork it showcases.  Unexpected features make us look at spaces more mindfully—the stairwell made with industrial materials redefines its space as art, huge glass sections in walls facing the rotunda frame views of art in galleries afar and invite us to savor interesting perspectives of deceptively simple architectural features below.  Giacometti, Miro, Picasso, Calder, Ernst--the greats of modern art are well represented, and we linger longer than we thought we would (and not just because the Director’s accoustiguide commentary is entirely too long-winded).

After a couple hours of aesthetic bliss, we are ready for lunch at Halcyon, located  next door in the Mint Museum (which we will have to come back to visit another day).  Halcyon is passionately committed to locavore dining with a contemporary flair.  Google the menu for artistic inspiration—I wish I could figure out how to copy the peach, watermelon and corn gazpacho I had for lunch.

After lunch we retrieve our car and drive to IKEA, where we spend more than three hours, and emerge with more furniture and accessories than I can imagine will ever fit in our car, but Dick is confident in his packing ability, and he is, amazingly, right.  This is what he stuffed into the car (unassembled):  a six foot wall storage unit, a five foot wall storage unit, a six foot kitchen island (which will be the base of my sewing studio cutting table), nine storage baskets, a bunch of glassware and a huge stainless steel bowl.  Add to all that our suitcases, tote bags, and camera equipment, and here is how the car looked when we left the hotel the next day to drive home:

 But before we leave, we have one more fine dining experience--at Carpe Diem, a perennial Charlotte People’s Choice award winner owned by two sisters since 1989, famous for its gourmet take on fried chicken (best we have ever tasted) and other creative contemporary Southern cuisine.  Carpe Diem—Seize the Day—we most certainly did.

Reviving our Travel Tradition

July 5, 2012 
We are delighted to be on the road again for purely recreational travel (as opposed to our our last few travels which could be more appropriately identified as travails—consequently unblogged.)

Nearly a year ago we were the winning bidders at a silent auction for a two-night get-away at the Omni Hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina, and we found the soon-to-expire gift certificate as we were packing for our move a couple months ago.  Best of all, as part of the package our friend Roger at Senior Citizens Inc. was our personal concierge, providing lots of suggestions for great places to dine and things to see in Charlotte.  We know we are going to have a great time there.

But, as always, we manage to find a few interesting sights to divert us on the way.

The first is Jody Pendarvis’  UFO Welcome Center in Bowman, NC.   The bottom 46-foot diameter saucer  is tethered to the ground, but the smaller saucer on top is loosely attached so that visiting aliens can tow Jody in it when they depart. We are not at all sure the upper saucer is airworthy, and the lower one is clearly disintegrating . No question, however, Jody is already in outer space.  (Having thoroughly researched the UFO Welcome Center, we ogle, photo, and leave quickly, certain that we do not want to experience a close encounter with Jody.)  

In Ridgeway, NC we stop at the world’s smallest police station, active from 1940 to 1990. Next to it is the twice as large “new” police station, needed due to excessive donut consumption. Previously, it was the town’s fire station, housing one truck.

In the outskirts of Charlotte we stop at this Metamorphosis sculpture, made of layers of stainless steel designed to rotate independently of each other forming an endless variety of faces. Although it isn’t working when we see it, several people who work in the building behind the sculpture see us studying it and testify that they have seen it moving a few times. Perhaps it is only put in motion for visiting dignitaries.

When we arrive at the Omni, we are treated like visiting dignitaries—we have a luxurious junior suite on a flat iron corner of the building with 300 degree views of uptown Charlotte. 

The city beckons. We wander the neighborhood, an urban wonderland of pocket parks and landscaped plazas with fountains and public artwork, tucked between modern sky scrapers. 

If Jody Pendarvis ever visits Charlotte, he will find a kindred spirit here—the Firebird in front of the Bechtel Museum of Modern Art conjures thoughts of a friendly flying alien.    

We are never out of sight of security guards or police officers. Why all this security? We learn that Charlotte is the second largest financial center in the country, only surpassed by New York. Who knew?

We end our first day in Charlotte with dinner at Blue, voted both best uptown restaurant and best place to hear jazz in recent Charlotte Magazine poll.  It is just a five minute walk from our hotel, and both dinner and jazz are divine.

We fall asleep to the muffled sounds of a band playing at a rooftop gathering of young professionals across the street.  We have been here less than half a day, and already we are enchanted by Charlotte.  

A Very Photogenic Day

February 24, 2012

The Chihuly Collection in St. Petersburg is the only museum-quality collection of Dale Chihuly sculptures in the world.  Unfortunately, cameras are not allowed in the galleries.  The sculptures are spectacular, and the way that they are displayed and lit-- to project color and shadows, to create reflections and enhance sparkle—adds drama and another dimension to the glassworks.  This photo from a Tampa Bay Times website review gives a clue to the drama of the theatrically lit galleries.

I have never heard him say so in an interview, but I always think that Dr. Seuss illustrations must have been one of his major artistic influences, in addition to Murano glass.  This photo is from the museum website--we didn't cheat and sneak in a camera.

Dale Chihuly does not actually blow glass anymore.  Back in the 1970s he was in a bad auto accident, and lost an eye, which limited his peripheral vision and his depth perception.  Then in the late 1970s he badly injured a shoulder body surfing, which made it difficult for him to do the heavy physical labor of blowing his large scale works.  Since then, he has designed his glass installations and led his team of over 100 workers who create, assemble and install the works that bear his name.  He is like a composer and conductor of music—he doesn’t actually play the instruments, but it is his vision and his direction of the process that determines the outcome.

Here are a few pictures we could take of his small pieces for sale in the gift shop.  

You can have this beautiful Jaffa Orange Persian Set for $24,000.  It is sitting right out there on a countertop in the gift shop where an unattended child could cost his parent a lot of money.

And, here is a pair of shoes inspired by Dale Chihuly’s shoes.  Dale Chihuly does his design work using acrylic paint in squeeze bottles.  He stands over a large sheet of water color paper placed on the floor, and enthusiastically squeezes and spreads the paint, resulting in lots of paint spatters on his shoes.  Emulating the master, many members of the staff have spattered their shoes with paint.  (Our docent claims she has ten pair.  I am sorry I didn’t get a photo of her shoes—they were beautiful, with finely lined almost zebra-like swizzles of paint.)

After lunch at a trendy bistro next door to the museum, we went retro, visiting the Sunken Gardens, a St. Petersburg landmark since 1935.

A plumber who liked to garden in his spare time bought the four acre property in 1903, and drained a large shallow lake on it, exposing rich soil where he planted fruits and exotic tropical plants from all over the world.  As his garden grew, so did the number of visitors, until he began to charge admission in the 1920s, and then officially opened it as a tourist attraction in 1935.

We can’t say exactly why we were a bit disappointed.  Maybe we expected more flowers or more exotic atmosphere.  But, the garden was a lovely little oasis with lots of shade and plashing water on a record-setting hot sunny day. 

Pretty in Pink

Is pink the official color of Florida? 

Roseate Spoonbills and White Ibises gather at a pond beside busy Highway 41:

Rose crystal column in front of the Chihuly Collection:

Vinoy Resort and Golf Club in St. Petersburg. The tower reminds me of a wedding cake:

Flamingo at Sunken Gardens:

Bougainvillea at Sunken Gardens:

Family Fun

February 23, 2012

Yippeee—my sister Patti put me in the driver’s seat of her Miata convertible today!  My first time driving a convertible was grand, after I got over feeling a little overexposed to the elements at high speed.  Some jerk in a little red sports car honked at us, and I scowled and said “What’d I do!?”  Patti just laughed and said, “Girls in a convertible.” I got the idea that guys honk at her all the time when she tools around town in her cute convertible.

                                     

Our husbands couldn’t fit in the Miata, so they followed in the Lexus, and we left them in the dust.  They eventually caught up with us for lunch at a great Punta Gorda restaurant overlooking Charlotte Harbor.

We had a wonderful time visiting with Patti and Al, rocking the afternoon away on their back porch, shaded by live oaks and palm trees, with lots of colorful tropical foliage all around.  It was so great to spend time with them, and it was so comfortable hanging out in their little corner of paradise that it took a real effort to get together the energy to get up and go back to Ruskin.  (Hope they weren’t wondering if we would ever leave.)

It took us less than an hour and a half to get to their house in Port Charlotte, but it took us far longer to get back to our condo, because we took the scenic route” and left ourselves open to distractions.

 Our first distraction was an amazing bird feeding frenzy on Siesta Key.  There were at least a couple hundred pelicans and mergansers, plus a few egrets and herons working together as a group to herd fish along a sand bar, grabbing and gobbling fish as they swam. Nearing the end of the bar, they would turn in unison and herd the fish in the opposite direction.  Gulls and terns swooped in from above to horn in on the bounty.  We have never seen multiple species of birds work together so effectively to accomplish a common objective.  Five minutes later, they dispersed.  How lucky we were to be in the right place at the right time.

Jammed in Sarasota rush hour traffic, we saw this 26 foot tall statue based on the famous LIFE magazine photograph of a soldier and nurse kissing in Times Square at the end of World War II.  Roadside attraction!  We had to turn around for a closer look.  Titled “Unconditional Surrender,” the statue is by artist J. Seward Johnson.  Like the Airstream Ranch we saw a few days ago, the art-worthiness of this installation is in dispute.  Panned by critics and loved by the public, it is photographed hundreds of times a day. 

We are sure that the people who own the marina restaurant near the statue love it.  The marina/restaurant overflow parking lot is next to the statue, and then, once you are parked, the restaurant is an enticing spot to stop for a bite afterward.  That’s what we did. 

Dinner on the dock with a steel drum player in the background—we couldn’t think of a better way to end the day.

A Bit of Grisly Geocaching

February 22, 2012

Front page news today:  Richard Gonzmart, the President of Columbia Restaurant-- one of our Florida favorites, where we ate dinner a couple nights ago—has been nominated for the James Beard Outstanding Restauranteur Award.  We read this as validation of our excellent culinary taste, while we are waiting for our bargain breakfasts at a local dive full of Sun City codgers nursing their bottomless coffee cups and blue collar types grabbing a bite on their way to work.  

 

No vacation is complete without the thrill of the hunt for geocaches, and we fill the time between breakfast and lunch with a bit of searching, which reminds us how frustrating the Florida style of cache hiding can be.  We fail to locate about half of the caches we hunt, but we are rewarded with a few memorable finds—including a cache hidden in a decoy dove perched deep in a dense bush, a tiny one hanging from a Halloween finger nailed to a tree, and this cache bucket deep in the woods guarded by a skeleton.

 

We buy picnic ingredients at Publix and take them to nearby Little Manatee River State Park, where we share a riverside picnic pavilion with some kayakers.  We could rent kayaks and paddle down the river this afternoon just like they are doing, but we are too lazy. 

 
Instead, we pick up a couple more geocaches on the way back to our resort (taking our grand total to 952), then just curl up with our books on the very comfortable outdoor furniture in a conversation corner of the promenade overlooking the marina.

Manatees in Hot Water

February 21, 2012

Today’s highlight was a visit to the Tampa Electric Company’s Manatee Viewing Center—a canal where water taken from Tampa Bay to cool electricity generators is discharged (“clean and warm,” as their brochure says) back into the Bay.  Although dumping scalding water into the ecosystem sounds like a bad thing, the manatees and lots of fish really love the warm water, as we observed while strolling the boardwalks that line the discharge canal.  (Thermometers along the boardwalk indicated that the canal temperature was ninety degrees, while the water in the estuary outside the canal was below seventy degrees.)

Looking down from the raised boardwalk, we could see lots of manatees lolling in the clear water beneath us.  Not one was free of scars from close encounters with boats.

A volunteer on the boardwalk had a cart full of manatee bones, and was giving a talk, but when we approached and heard him say, “When we was born, God gave us two sets of teeth. . .” we decided to just skip his presentation.

We had a fresh caught fish lunch overlooking the Apollo Beach Marina, then explored a little nature trail and beach nearby, at the inlet to the Tampa Electric Company  discharge canal (lots of people catching fish here and a few wading out to be among the passing manatees).  We enjoyed the antics of the pelicans that were hanging around hopefully watching the fishing folk.

Back at Little Harbor, we donned our bathing suits and headed to a shady corner of the pool deck to read until the sun got so low that we felt a bit chilly. 

 We feel as though we are really excelling at this exercise in relaxation.