A dream when I was younger was to have a house with a basketball court in the basement. A full-size court, with a knee-friendly synthetic surface. With backboards that dropped to dunk-friendly heights for an Earth-bound 5’9” guard. Throw in my vintage red, white and blue ABA ball, my knee-high tube socks and my Converse All-Stars … . Heaven, I’m in heaven …
It’s not your stuffed-up imagination; the spring allergy season really is off to early start this year (and, thanks to climate change, may be trending in this direction). You can read all about it in today’s Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer, in a story I contributed to.
In the mid-1990s the Triangle’s greenway system wasn’t a system. It was a disjointed connection of asphalt strips scattered hither and yon. If you lived a block or two away from one of these strips, you probably paid it an occasional visit. If you didn’t live within a block or two, you probably had no idea the Triangle even had greenways.
It’s one of the cheapest recreation deals going: for as little as $5 an hour you can captain your own ship on any number of waterways throughout North Carolina. These bargain basement deals are offered at various county, municipal and state parks throughout the state.
Monday is never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast, especially come summer. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy.
To help ease this trying transition from out-in-the-Sun-day to Mon-I-wish-I-were-back-in-the-sun-day, we’re running a new feature every Monday, at least during the summer, called 90-Second Escape. Essentially, it’s a 90-second mini-movie of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s out in the sun. Because there’s a good chance you might want to make such an escape yourself, we’ll include a resource list with each escape showing where and how to make it happen.