At the risk of boring my lovely readers, I have now been through all of my holiday pictures, plus some taken by other people, and present to you a round-up of my trip to the USA.

We had a good look around Charlotte, North Carolina, which I had not visited before. A recent and thriving banking industry means that the city centre is very clean and new looking, even the old bits. We did meet a local who complained about how many old bits got torn down to built condos but I don’t know enough of the ins and outs to comment on that.

We also went to the nearby Great Smoky Mountains and did a bit of hiking (hard work in hot sunshine).

We went to the US National White Water Center and did some rafting (great fun).

Photo by talkie_tim

And my sister got married so well done her. I was there, I performed my bridesmaidly duties including dancing as much as I could and attempting not to sing the real lyrics to that song by Cee Lo Green when a small person took a shine to dancing with me. Which was tough.

Photos by St Martin Photography (You can click on these pics to view them big.)

There were also some lovely evenings with family and friends, old and new. There were some impressive storms thanks to the big temperature changes. There were some astute observations about different races not mixing a whole lot and some less astute ones about food being a bit rubbish. But we probably just went to the wrong places. I’m sure it’s not all deep fried really.