Baltimore to Schenectady

This was another rather long day. We toured Baltimore in the morning (or in the part of the morning which was left after we finally got up) and had a run of very bad luck accidentally turning onto really scary ghetto streets. I have a pretty high tolerance for frightening neighborhoods, but these were like Detroit scale…

Despite all this, Baltimore is still one of my favorite places. I’ve been spending time in the region since I was a kid, and I fell in love with the city itself when my friend Duncan lived there in the late 1980s. It’s such a strange hybrid of southern and northern, and it’s just plain purty, even the decay…

Anyway, we finally found our way out and had lunch before touring the more comforting northeastern side of town, finding that the neighborhood we like in just about every other city also exists in Baltimore, along Harford and Belair Roads near Northern Parkway and the Overlea Diner, where we wouldn’t actually eat until the return trip a few days later…

We finally left Baltimore by 3:00 or so, thinking it would be about seven hours to Albany. We were a little off on the timing, and all the assorted turnpikes were absolute raging nightmares. There were, however, some bright moments, at least for me. I got my Roy Rogers fix, and also got to romp through an actual A&P in New Jersey. And Mark marvelled at a well-stocked Stop & Shop in New York…

Finally, sometime around 1:00 in the morning, we arrived in Schenectady at Duncan and Rick‘s house…

Greensboro to Baltimore

We left relatively early today for the Triangle, Richmond, and Baltimore. It was a very long day, starting with a drive-by through Durham (including my first visit to a Super Target) and lunch in Chapel Hill with Becky, with whom my contact has been too limited of late, through no fault of hers…

We also poked around Raleigh for an hour or two, and Mark seemed to rather like it there. We somehow managed not to have dinner until about 9:00 at a KFC/Taco Bell in South Hill, Virginia. It was 1:00 in the morning before we pulled into out motel in Baltimore and pounced on each other…

In Greensboro

The past few days were a rush (OK, not exactly a “rush”) or food, family, and forays about the city and countryside which were probably a little much for Mark, but he performed admirably. We saw all my relatives. I was shocked at how old some of them have gotten, but what admirable shape they’re in generally. They all seemed to like Mark unquestioningly, although I’m sure several were trying to grasp just what our relationship was all about…

On Monday, we largely just toured the city and its assorted changes, etc. On Tuesday, we visited my dad’s side of the family in Reidsville. On Wednesday, we drove to Winston-Salem and High Point…

I took Mark out the The 360 to see a Marilyn Rivers show and finally meet one of my oldest friends. As we arrived, they were playing “The Glamourous Life” by Sheila E, and I remarked that it was sort of like I’d never moved away, and that 1985 had just moved down the street into a new building. Greensboro is like that, for better or for worse, particularly with respect to nightlife…

Thursday was Thanksgiving, and we made the rounds of relatives on my mom’s side of the family. The family was good, the food was great, and the only mildly unpleasant moment was when one of my cousins made a few very presumptuous (if also very politely and sweetly-phrased) comments about how I should spend more time with my parents. She meant well, but it pissed me off just a little, particularly since a siginificant proportion of the major changes Mark and I are about to make in our lives are aimed at doing just that…

Gastronomic excess in Greensboro included Yum-Yum, J&S Cafeteria, K&W Cafeteria, Ghassan’s, and Stamey’s Barbecue…

Charlotte to Greensboro

More exploration of Charlotte today, although our attempt to see al the church ladies and their hats at McDonald’s Cafeteria was thwarted by the fact that it no longer seems to exist. Instead, we settled for tortas at a really good Mexican place in a former Bojangles at Central and Sharon-Amity. Yes, there IS real Mexican food in Charlotte now that are real Mexican people. We like…

About 3:00 or so, we left for Greensboro via the nightmare construction zone known as I-85. Another big difference about the East Coast: freeways are maintained and sometimes ever improved there, rather than demolished or just left to rot…

I was very excited about seeing my mommy and daddy…

In Charlotte

This was our big day to tour Charlotte, our potential new home. We hit most of the important and essential neighborhoods, from Fourth Ward to NoDa, from Elizabeth to Plaza-Midwood, and from Dilworth to Chantilly. And, of course, we made the annual pilgrimage to the intersection of Queens and Queens and Providence and Providence…

Being the geeks we are, we also made our way to the Map Shop, not to mention several assorted supermarkets. It’s always nice to be someplace other than the Bay Area, where the supermarkets actually sell food and manage to keep it in stock. Imagine being able to buy bread and milk, even on a weekend. What a paradise compared to the Third World country where we currently live…

We saw the current round of modifications to always-changing Charlotte, including the latest construction (destruction?) surrounding the Independence Freeway, the new Coliseum downtown (which replaces the 16-year-old one southwest of downtown), and the startling, bulldozer-assisted redevelopment of inner South Boulevard, where my former favorite queer bar has somehow been left standing, and is now a very brightly-lit Dunkin’ Donuts…

After dinner, we saw a movie at some 68-plex somewhere near the beltway — henceforth referred to as the Outerbelt so as to distinguish it from the Innerbelt and Charlotte Highway 4. Charlotte roads are always an entertaining topic of conversation…

Lunch at Gus’ Sir Beef and dinner at the Bayou Kitchen. I was close to heaven…