Hampton Inn Concord/Kannapolis

The journey home began at 6AM Venice time and even with only a one hour layover in Munich we arrived in Charlotte at 6PM est time (midnight Venice time!) a very long day. We had a trendous trip and Aunt Sue and Guido were the perfect hosts and tour guides. I almost feel like going right back but that will have to wait for now probably June 2011. The weather was cold and at times rainy so some of the things you would routinely do were just not possible.

Excited and ready to leave. The forecast does not seem very promising but it will be great to see Sue &amp; Guido again. We leave Charlotte at 5:30 PM and should be in Venice at Noon (Italian time) Wednesday. I will try to send photo's as we take them as well as update this blog. I loved this when Chris and Liana used it . <br>

... never heard of," and now I know why.<br><br>Our first performance was less than a success. It was a private performance, which means that unlike all of our other shows, where we perform in a nice big proper theatre and schools come to us, we performed in a school. And the theatre teacher, who is the ONLY person who knows anything about the electrical system in their theatre CALLED IN!!!! Which means, we were only able to use about 1/4 of our usual lights ...

I thought that I would post this picture of me and La Poderosa just before I left for the west coast a couple month's ago. She had to be sold in LA:( What an amazing bike for 700 bucks. She got me through one of the most amazing adventures that I've had to date. As soon as I can get my computer that has all the pics on it online I will have a boat load of stuff to post from this trip.<br><br>

... the eastern boarder of Iraq while I am there. Future travels with continue to take me across I believe. I am bringing the tent and sleeping bag for my days on the road so that I can stay cheap while i'm in transit. Though I have hostel reservations for the beginning and end of my trip in Istanbul.

... spots is very puzzling to my mind. You think "I KNOW you! I really KNOW you. And here you are. And here we are... and we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto!"<br><br>We have about a 2 hour wait before our evening flight across the pond. So, let's have a beer!

... kind of cool to see so many bikes on the road. Mostly Harley Davidson but some metrics and a few touring bikes like mine. There were too many choppers to count, very cool machines. I got lots of pics of them lined up on Duvall St. in Key West It was a huuuge party scene down there.<br><br>The Keys were just as expected, scenic, surreal, calm (for the most part), relaxing. It did turn out to be a 5.5 hour ride from Miami, i was beat when i got there. Later that night I ...

WW and I drove across western NC. Got to a town called Statesville and went into J&amp;R Cigars, billed as the World's largest cigar store. They ain't lying. BIg ol' CHurchills for $3 (or less).<br><br>We camped at Lake Norman, land donated to the State of NC by the Duke Power company as long as the state let them leave their nuke there. No pics. Suprisingly nice campground.

... this track is, but they have no idea. I ask him what the address is of this location so I can put it into my GPS on my phone. It takes us about 10 minutes to get to the track. The track ended up only being about 15 minutes from our hotel. I will never go by Vincent's direction again. We get into the track and tickets are about $12 a piece. Not too bad for ...

... of us. What might be considered necessary by me, might be considered frivolous to someone else. On the way back from the Speedway I drove around downtown Charlotte. There weren't many people there. Being Thanksgiving weekend I'm assuming a lot of people also had Friday off. Charlotte reminded me a lot of Calgary. Same high rise office buildings. Very few old buildings, with the exception of churches. Downtown Charlotte is smaller than Calgary's...maybe ½ the size. Charlotte is ...