On the 14th of September, I flew to Charlotte to do a class for Wachovia Bank at their data processing center in northwest Charlotte. I stayed near Davidson, and the class was quite successful. I have not put this trip on the page for other business trips since I did not take any pictures having to do with it. But on Saturday, I visited Ted in Charlotte, and on Sunday and Monday I stayed with Judy in Elon, and took lots of pictures at both places. So I'm going to include those pictures in this part of the album.

September 18: Visiting Ted in Charlotte

After my class was done on Friday, I drove down to Charlotte to have dinner with Ted, his new wife, Jen, Jen's daughter, Lauren Claire, and Jen's parents. They lived just off Scalybark in Charlotte, quite near Myers Park High School. I went ahead and stayed at my hotel near Davidson that night, and then went to visit Ted at their new house on Hough Road in far east Charlotte.

Getting to Ted's house, with his excellent directions, was pretty easy. My hotel was right on I-75 at Huntersville, so I just headed down the Interstate the 12 miles to Charlotte, and then headed east on I-85. I could have taken that to I-485, the new belt expressway around Charlotte, but I knew how to take NC 49 east to pick it up and cut off some distance.

Then Ted told me to go down to Albemarle Road, exit, and then follow local streets to his house.

Going east on Albemarle Road, there is a cut-off along Cabarrus Road that takes you to Arlington Church Road south to Hough Road- Ted's street.

Hough Road is like a country road at first, but after it passes Ted's property, it turns into more of a city street, because the is a housing development east and northeast of him. But from his house and pasture, you can't really see very much of it, which makes Ted's environment very rural.

Ted's house looks very nice from the street, with a big front yard, a large tree and enough plants and shrubs to offer a lot of interest. A closer view shows the two‑car, unfinished garage at one end of the house, and you can tell that there is a room above the garage (one that Ted is in the middle of finishing out). The middle of the house is kitchen and living/dining/utility, and the bedrooms are at the far end.

Ted took me on a tour of the house, and you can see it, too, through the pictures and movies that I took. I have put little thumbnails below for the pictures (I apologize for their quality; I should have been using the flash right along) and movies. As for the pictures, you can have a look at the family room and the kitchen, and then you can use the movie players below to see other parts of the house:

Bedrooms Bedrooms

Living Room

Next, Ted and LC took me on a tour of the property itself. We walked around the garage side of the house and came up to the pasture. You can follow along with the movie players below:

Around the Garage Up to the Pasture

As you can probably figure out from the inset picture left, LC has a horse of her own. I don't think that she is as intensely involved with it as Judy was with her horses when she was younger, but she has it nevertheless. Here is a picture of LC and her horse. There is another horse here, too, and I got the impression that it belonged to one of LC's friends, and that LC boarded it here for her, but I am not sure of that. Ted continued our tour as we walked along the west side of the property, pointing things out and describing his own land.

You can follow along on the continuation of our tour with the movie players below:

Both Horses Through the Pasture

Pasture and Property Boundary

When we got to the northernmost point of the property, Ted and his dog paused so we could look back at the house across the pasture. Then we went down the east side of the property to the street, and you can see that new housing I was talking about. LC joined us again here, and LC and Ted and I walked back to the house.

I stayed for a while longer, and then it was time to head up to my sister's house in Elon.

September 18: Visiting Patrick's House in Winston-Salem

From Ted's house, I headed up I-85 towards Greensboro and then followed it east towards Raleigh. Just before Burlington, there is a new exit that takes one to Elon.

This route takes you through a new shopping center that has been built by I-85 and then onto a bypass that circles around Elon and Burlington. This is the same bypass that Judy feared some years ago might come very close to her property, but the actual route ended up being closer in. Then it is a short turn-off onto Elon-Ossipee Road and from there to Lowe Road, the road my sister is on.

As soon as I got to her house, she was ready to head over to Winston-Salem to help Patrick (Kinney) to do something at his house, and so we jumped right back in the car and drove the 50 miles over there along I-40 south of Greensboro.

Patrick is renovating a house near downtown Winston-Salem on Poplar Street, at the corner of Poplar and First. It is a two-story older house, but he has done a great deal of work on it. Judy, apparently, has been helping him with the stuff she can do, but Patrick is the electrician, plumber, carpenter and all.

Rather than try to describe the house in detail with either pictures or words, I thought that a series of movies would be better. So below are players for each of these movies, labeled so you'll know what you are looking at:

Patio View East Kitchen Area

Living Room Outside Left

Outside Left Corner Stairway to Second Floor

Street View Front Porch

Front Porch Swing Outside Stairway

Second Floor

Here are thumbnails for three interior shots you might find interesting; just click on them to view the full-size pictures:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

And, finally, before we all left to go back to Judy's house, Judy and Patrick on the swing.

September 19: Visiting With Judy in Elon

I always enjoy spending a day with Judy; her property is so peaceful, and she has done so much with it, what with the entire nature trail and fake stream that she has built in the copse of woods in front of her house. We are just relaxing today, waiting for the arrival of Judy's old friend Wilbur and a friend of his, who apparently have some arrowheads and pottery shards they would like Judy to take a look at.

They arrived in mid-morning and brought with them some things they had found in a vacant lot over in Burlington that had been plowed and was in the process of being cleared for something to be built there. I'll admit that I didn't know much about what they (and Patrick) were discussing, but Judy was obviously intrigued with what they found. I took four movies of my sister going through the stuff they had brought. My camera is limited to 30-second movies, so that is why it took four of them to cover pretty much what she was doing. Use the players below to play these four movies in the correct sequence:

Movie 1 Movie 2

Movie 3 Movie 4

Judy and Patrick were so interested in what Wilbur's friend had found, that she thought the three of us should go over to find the lot and walk around and see what we could find, and after lunch we did just that. I made the movie you can watch with the player at left as we were walking around the cleared land; it was certainly interesting. Judy found a few things, but I don't recall finding anything.

While we were over in Burlington, Judy and Patrick thought we ought to drop in on the Carousel Festival (origins and purpose totally unknown). It seemed to be a combination art fair and carnival, held in Burlington Park- near where we were tromping around looking for arrowheads. All we did was wander around the fair/carnival for a while, and I took a few pictures, but none of any particular interest. You can look at a typical festival scene and at least one vendor who had some quirky merchandise.

I also took a few movies that might be of interest, and you can watch them with the players below:

The Carousel Festival Patrick and Judy at Greyhound Rescue

An Actual Carousel A Pristine Park Stream

I had a good time spending a few days with Ted and Judy, but I had some more work to do the next week, so on Monday morning I drove back to Charlotte to catch a flight home.

	October 3, 2004: A Visit to the Arboretum
	August 28 - September 5, 2004: A Business Trip to Japan
	Return to Index for 2004