Spring Road Trip Day 5 - Tuesday March 14th - Lynchburg VA to Charlotte NC - 3 miles hike

Our day started off by having breakfast in our hotel.  The Virginian hotel didn’t disappoint at all.  Our room was large and attractive. The enormous soaking tub was much appreciated by both of us after our long hikes.  The location was great, self parking was easy and the staff was mostly very good.

We stopped near Greensboro NC for a leg stretcher hike.  The hike described on AllTrails was a 6 mile out and back but once we parked I realized that we could turn it into several different length loops.  We opted for a relatively short loop walk.  The setting was lovely and secluded despite being literally next to an Interstate for part of the trail.








After some errands in Greensboro we completed our trip into busy Charlotte NC about 3:30 pm.  I was pretty excited to see the Hyatt Centric SouthPark since it is in a desirable neighborhood and is a Hyatt sub-brand I’ve never tried before.  Overall we have found the hotel underwhelming.  It’s certainly nice looking with modern finishes and upscale dining choices etc but it doesn’t feel very warm or inviting. Conversely, our bed’s duvet cover was suitable for a Siberian winter and even with the A/C at the lowest set point (64F) we were very warm.  




Other than a brief walk around the area of the hotel and an ice cream run, our evening was pretty uneventful.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sunday May 16th - Mohican State Park - Near Loudonville OH - Trail loop of 11 miles, about 1400 feet elevation gain

Image
 This was an epic long hike.  I had been to this park once, by myself in October of 2019 I think.  I did a beautiful walk from the covered bridge (which is the central part of the trail network for many) to the fire tower and back. This gigantic loop hike from AllTrails however was a huge connect the dots adventure from a big dam, to Lyons Falls, through Hemlock Gorge and a few other park features ending, unexpectedly for us, at the very bottom of the dam with 175 stairs leading back to the top near our parked car.   The weather was warm but mild and nearly perfect for the entirety of our hike.  There were quite a few cars parked at the various trailhead parking lots but the park was so large and our route so ambitious and spread out that there wasn’t anywhere on the trail that we saw more than maybe 2 families together.  All together we did see enough dogs to fill a medium size dog pound though! It seemed like every couple or family had at least open canin...
Read more

Wednesday May 7th 2025 - Work trip to DC and fun trip to Toronto - Day 2, DC conference - urban walks

Image
I was ready to go in the morning, recharged after a fun but long day Tuesday.  We went to the same bagel shop as the day before and my manager tried the New Jersey staple of the Pork Roll sandwich and I had the same for the 2nd day in a row.  It’s rare to fine pork roll at all outside the NYC metro area and even rarer to find some place that gets all the details right with salt, pepper and ketchup.  Pearl’s is a very cute bagel place and they even have nice outdoor seating like a little bistro or something.  Very unusual for a small shop. As soon as we went up the escalator into the main hall, it was apparent that this was not as modest a gathering as I might have imagined.  There seemed to be a ton of people milling around.  We attended one early break-out session before the keynote session started.  The keynote probably serves mentally, though not officially, as the start of the conference.  That first break-out was ok but I didn’t really get m...
Read more

March 29 - April 1, Memphis and Camping near Nashville

Image
By Brian Gilbar We both woke up on Sunday a bit congested (I suspect from the casino air) and it's also spring allergy time so we took a bit of time getting up.  We did one load of laundry while getting ready to head out.  We stopped at Zaxby's (chicken place) in Collierville for breakfast/lunch before a hike.  I had never been to one before.  The chicken was delicious but everything was quite salty.  Probably good before a long hike to have extra salt in our bodies! We then headed to do a 7 mile hike at Herb Parsons Lake.  The trail goes around the lake.  It was quite chilly at first, about 49 degrees and quite windy.  We had decided to wear shorts as it was supposed to get up to 68 degrees today.  It did warm up eventually.  The trail was beautiful and we didn't see too many people, although there was a mix of hikers, bikers and runners.  Chris had been on this trail before when he lived in Memphis, probably 7 or 8 years ago, ...
Read more