My week in North Carolina is already over, and as of yesterday, I’ve arrived on the coastline of South Carolina in the city of Charleston. Apart from a few hiking trips, I’d say North Carolina was also somewhat uneventful. One of my favorite parts of the state was driving through the Appalachian Mountains when I was traveling in from Tennessee, but otherwise, I spent a lot of this time catching up on more of the “mundane” parts of my life.
My hotel of choice in Charlotte was the SpringHill Suites by Marriott Charlotte Huntersville. I’d say it was probably my favorite hotel room so far throughout my road trip. As you might already know, I’m not really the biggest fan of flashy or fancy hotel rooms, and SpringHill Suites gave me all the essentials and none of the extras. The hotel was new, the room was large, the location was great, the gym was decent, and the staff was friendly and helpful.
The first week of each month is usually the busiest time for me, and my time in Charlotte basically coincided nearly perfectly with the first week of October. I had to get end-of-month finance tasks done for September, including cash flow transaction itemization and independent contractor payroll, and I also had a few special legal projects that I needed to wrap up leading into the launch of the closed beta testing period for The Bazaar coming up soon.
Usually, I like to go to the most popular tourist attractions in each city, specifically focusing on what the city is particularly known for. Charlotte is best known for NASCAR and is home to its Hall of Fame, which acts as a museum. However, seeing as I’m not really that much of a racing enthusiast, and I also recently went to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, I decided to pass on the NASCAR Hall of Fame in lieu of going on another hiking trip.
This was at the Clarks Creek Greenway, which was nestled in more of a residential area and was an out-and-back type of trail. I ended up parking at a local middle school near one of the trailheads, walked all the way out to the edge of the path, and came back.
After arriving in Charleston, there was basically only one thought I had in my mind, and it was how unbearably and debilitatingly humid it was. The rain was obviously making things worse, but the weather apparently said that the relative humidity was 98%, which is literally the highest I have ever seen in my life. The worst part is that my hotel is in North Charleston by Charleston International Airport, so I can’t imagine how bad it’s going to be in the actual city of Charleston, closer to the Atlantic Ocean.
Although nowhere near as nice as the newly-constructed SpringHill Suites I mentioned above, my hotel for this week of my trip is still pretty good—I’m in the Courtyard by Marriott Charleston-North Charleston. The room is definitely much smaller, but the good news is that the cost per night is much more affordable than being in Charleston, and even better, air conditioning works very well, so the humidity is actually bearable inside my room. (Though, if I literally just open the door to my room and step out into the hallway, the humidity becomes overwhelming again.)
Because of the rain, I’m not quite sure how viable it’s going to be for me to squeeze in some hiking trips to what I imagine will be extremely muddy trails. However, I’ll be attending a wedding in Charleston this coming weekend, and another one of the attendees is one of my co-workers, so we will probably be going on some indoor tourist activities before and after the event.