Day 18 (Charlotte, NC)

This is getting to be a routine by now, wake up, eat, pack, and hit the road. Exactly what we did. The morning was great, sunny skies, very hot and humid (great when you try to use your engineering skills on the parking lot to figure out how everything is supposed to fit back in the car and the sun is coming down at you like a Ford Excursion on a highway). After two gallons of sweat (and a trophy for Mr. Wet T-Shirt) the car was ready with the passengers strapped in. The only thing that remained was to check out and fill the cooler with ice for the food items. Turns out that every single ice machine was out of order at the hotel, every single one! Highly annoying.
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We did not have to wait too long for the first pit lane. Maaret drove like possessed when the outlet mall was the target. The male passengers had their knuckles white and knees buckling for an extended period of time afterward. We (read her) somehow found new items to fill the already full car even more. We had to leave the first outlet mall rather hastily since W launched a torpedo in one of the stores and they probably ended up evacuating the store for the afternoon. Well, the damage was contained in the diaper department but the smell, oh so fresh. One of the other things worth mentioning took place in J.Crew store, where the music was a bit more loud and rocking than the typical elevator music that you hear most of the time. Wilmer seized his moment and climbed to the store window and made it his stage for one of the best impromptu air guitar shows ever! The other customers seemed to enjoy it too, based on their smiles. Let me tell you, the sound coming from his "guitar" was quite tough, not for Yanni lovers for sure.
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Finally out of the "shopping paradises" and on the road to Charlotte, NC, where we were scheduled to arrive at 5:30 pm. I think Maaret thought she was in a NASCAR race. She really put the pedal to the metal and caught us up and we made it to Charlotte several minutes ahead of schedule to see Christopher and Bess, our long-lost German-American couple who we visited just recently, but turned out it had been 5 years from our last visit. Are you kidding me, who says the time flies? Such a cliche. They looked great, Bess had found a fountain of youth and, if you do not count Chris' slightly thinned hair and a bulging forearm, he looked like regular Chris. We had a nice quiet evening of taped French Open Men's Final, grilling, and catching up.