self walking tour of Charlotte - NASCAR, World's Strongest Man, The Green, Niki De Saint Phalle

In an earlier post I mentioned the Carolina Panther sculptures that I had to go see in person after the excitement I felt looking at them as we drove by on our way into town. Fortunately our hotel was just steps away from many sites of downtown Charlotte.

I don't know what is housed in this building but we thought it was pretty neat and made a nice background for a photo. Later we chanced upon a very cool sculpture garden "The Green" with a literary theme and nice fountains. Fountains that appear to not be working at the particular moment that one is standing over one of the spouts. One of the hidden spouts in the ground where one walks in a circle reading the literary quotes which surround the HUGE FISH fountain which is clearly spouting and splashing water. Oh, and then... the hidden, non-working fountain springs to life and totally wets the dumb person standing directly over one of the spouts. Yes, that would be me. It was like taking a garden hose and spraying my crotch. It looked like I had wet my pants. So, what does an intelligent girl do who doesn't want everyone on the street to think she had an accident? She moves over to the left and then to the right so as to soak her entire lower body... including shoes. What was I supposed to do? We were blocks from the hotel and had no intention of going back right away. So, I walked on with my soaked drawers.

http://youtu.be/daqI52W3v6I This is a short video I shot walking around the sculpture.

We then headed towards the NASCAR Hall of Fame Museum. How could we not? We were jus steps away from the fastest growing sport in the world. hahahahahaha

We didn't pay to go inside but I did snap this photo of some of the cars. I would have liked to go in and look at all of the artifacts but we didn't have time and it wasn't free. HOWEVER, the bonus the day we were there was taking place outside.

THE WORLD'S STRONGEST MAN COMPETITION! ok, I admit, I'd NEVER heard of this until we walked up and Tracy explained it to me. CRAZY!

http://youtu.be/yVD0L2XNgkI Here is a video of the US contestant. Yes, he is carrying a car. A Yugo I believe. A car. Carrying a car. I'm sure some of the 'stuff' has been taken out of the car. Well, wait... did Yugos have anything extra in them to begin with???

http://youtu.be/W2nGKl5kPeM Here's another video. I'm not sure which country this Strong Man represents but he did a fine job as well.

I know most of you reading this really want to know what happened with my wet drawers. Well, we had the bright idea of using the hand dryer in the NASCAR museum. Great idea right! Well, those cheapskates don't have a blow dryer in there. So, I walked around the city as-is and the pants eventually dried. I got a few looks at first but who cares! It could have been worse. I could have really had an accident in my pants.