<p>My daughter and I visited Davidson last week (we both loved it!), and used a bit of spare time to tour Charlotte. We pre-arranged a tour with a company called "Charlotte NC Tours", which offers a number of different types of tours. We chose a tour of downtown Charlotte's historic architecture -- on Segways. We had a blast. Our tour guide, Rod, was a great Segway teacher (we were both first-time riders), and a fun and accomodating guide. Charlotte is a lot livier than I expected after 5 pm., and Segways are incredible. Sure beats sitting around a hotel room....</p>
<p>Segways tours are lots of fun…which probably has lots to do with the glowing assessment of Charlotte. Not that there’s anything wrong with Charlotte. But back when the Charlotte Bobcats were the Charlotte Hornets and played out at the hive on Tyvola Road, Dennis Rodman was credited with this quote after a visit by the Chicago Bulls: “It’s a nice place to live but I wouldn’t want to visit there.”</p>
<p>There’s nothing wrong with it. And, frankly, that’s one of the great things about Charlotte because lots of cities have all sorts of problems…so the fact that it isn’t remarkable puts it well ahead of most similarly-sized ‘burgs if you ask me. And, if you’re at Davidson, it’s definitely worth a few minutes’ drive, if only because you can patronize all the chain-establishment restaurants, like P.F. Chang’s and other staple establishments that you can find in any other top 50 MSA. But in terms of a unique soul or character, it’s a mostly plain vanilla town that is practically 'rockin when compared to the quaintness of Davidson, NC, which DOES have plenty of character and charm.</p>