2024.USA

Today is a relaxing day to spend in Charlotte, before moving onto the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We decided first to drive across the state line to South Carolina so that Andrew could say he has been in yet another state in the USA and visit a small town that looked pretty interesting and then returning to Charlotte for a secret mission (did not tell Andrew about that) on the way back on our way to the Museum of Illusions in downtown Charlotte, before returning to the hotel for the evening.

First of all, a couple of pictures from the Marriott Hotel. I was up really early to see the sunrise, once I figured out what direction the hotel was facing! They have a lounge in the hotel for their high level Bonvoy guests to use so I was sitting in there doing some work for the upcoming Celiac Trip in Ireland when the sun decided to raise its sunny head!

Now on the road south to Fort Mill, South Carolina! Just over the NC/SC state line is Fort Mill, a cute little town that has a historic downtown that I had read about. As Charlotte is quite close to the state line it did not take us long to get there and we then got out and walked around Main Street. I just love these historic small towns in the USA however it is really sad to see due to the pandemic and other issues that more and more of them have store vacancies on their main streets.

Now on our way to the museum, we had to make a slight deviation to the route so I could pick up some “rope” (see my Dubai post about “rope”) at Charlotte Yarns! What a nice knitting store it was! I bought some local fingering (thin) yarn to make a sweater and then off we went to the museum! I got to shop fast when Andrew is waiting at a yarn store!

In downtown Charlotte there is the Museum of Illusions when is highly recommended to attend. Here is its website if you want to know more: https://moicharlotte.com/ We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves – Andrew got a bit off balance with some of the optical illusions which I could not partake in as they were up some stairs and no safe for me, which was kind of amusing; the museum in general was very well laid out with marks on the floor for where to stand to take pictures and guides to help you with certain exhibits – including taking pictures with your phones! Here is a “view” of our visit:

Now back at the hotel we relaxed and watched TV and prepared for our drive tomorrow to Rocky Point, NC!

I had the pleasure of attending a Celiac conference on Saturday and Sunday. This American charity/not-for-profit’s full name is the Gluten Intolerance Group aka GIG. I pronounce it like the “GIG” in “Gig Harbour” which is in the Seattle area where GIG is based. However in North Carolina everyone calls it G I G with each letter separate and it was quite funny when someone asked me who I was talking about when I said GIG without spelling it out!

Similar to Celiac Canada, both these charities are education based and both have their own program for certifying gluten free food. GIG’s is mainly in the USA, and I would say the biggest one down here, where the Celiac Canada one is the only one in Canada. That said, there is a lot of cross border traffic of gluten free food so we see both logos in each country.

One of the speakers was Shelley Case, RD, who is a Canadian dietitian that I know from Celiac Canada – there were 3 reasons why I wanted to attend this conference – one was to hear Shelley speak about oats, as I find it a fascinating subject on how Canada started producing gluten free oats that now supply 80% of the world’s oat industry. Another reason is they had a medical person from GIG reporting live from the International Celiac Disease Symposium, which was going on concurrently in Sheffield, England. I attended ICDS about a decade ago in Chicago, and found it an amazing experience – the research and forward thinking talks that happen at the conference really are empowering to hear how a cure for Celiac Disease is in the works and to obtain a better understanding of why for some people gluten affects them so much. Lastly, while it is interesting to hear the top level doctors that Celiac Canada brings in as the CCA now holds an online conference, the list and type of speakers was really interesting to me, as they were mostly from the local community and seemed to have a diverse amount of information they wanted to speak on! So MANY notes I took! I have 30+ pages of notes on my laptop from the day and a half of speakers!

I am not going to bore you with the details here – those that want them can contact me to get my notes, which I am happy to send out once I clean up the typing and spelling mistakes!

What did I learn from a conference perspective now that we are meeting in person again?

There IS a place and time for online conferences – for a charity/not for profit, they can attract experts in their field to speak, as these experts do not have to travel which is a benefit for their busy schedules. However the biggest loss is a lack of networking that online conferences provide. For those with gluten disorders, the ability for newly diagnosed to talk with each other or people who have been diagnosed for a longer period of time, during coffee breaks and meals is invaluable. Being in person, it also allows the speakers to receive feedback on their studies and hypolthosises they are working on and if they are targeting the right population or they should adjust their theories. Normally this type of feedback is not available if you are doing a session online.

The gluten free food served over these two days was beyond excellent – from bbq chicken to wonderful salads and salmon and rice with fresh veggies. There was meat too but I do not eat it so I cannot comment 🙂 It was great to see how well a hotel can put together a gluten free buffet!

On the Saturday evening (Sept 7th) I went to the dinner where Shelley was presenting with Cynthia, the Executive Director of GIG, a 50 year history of the GIG organization. Shelley and Cynthia are very good friends and both dietitians. As I have also spent time in the USA and gone to GIG conferences in the past when held in the Seattle area, as usual, it was quite a fun evening! It was great to see how Celiac Canada, which is one year older, and GIG’s history has intertwined and how the Canadian government has lead and pushed the American government to develop legislation on things like oats and labeling, as it was put into place in Canada earlier. Some core people from Canada were mentioned along with a lot of Americans, like Bob from Bob’s Red Mill and his history building his business, which I was not aware of all details, which helped shape the gluten free market developing in North America over the last 50 years.

So you ask, what did Andrew do while I was at the conference? Well, he went downtown on the transit train just outside of the hotel’s door and visited the NASCAR museum and had a great time! He even raced cars with 10 other people and came in 2nd place, a mere second after the guy who placed first. The rest of the field? They left them in the dust, laps behind them! Here are his pics – and more conference info below!

While I am watching my sugars, I could not resist when on the buffet table when I was leaving (sorry no pics of the dinner buffet), there were 2 chocolate cupcakes left – so I bundled them up in my bag and brought them back to our hotel. Andrew met me half-way on my walk back to make sure I was safe in my journey. Thankfully, his cupcake in the paper napkin, made it back without much damage, however mine was like eating a pancake with some icing on top! One flat muffin, which is pretty hard to do with a product that is gluten free and has a mind of its own when it comes to “fluffiness”. Here are some pics I took over the 2 days.

September 7th – Full Day of Conference and Evening Session on History of GIG

September 8th – Half Day of Conference and Food Truck lunch

We woke up to a beautiful day in Charlotte, NC! We are on the University of North Carolina campus and it is so clean and beautiful here! After a nice breakfast in the lounge, we were off to see one of the reasons I wanted to visit Charlotte and that was the Sullenberger Aviation Museum. You can visit their website HERE. It is located next to one of the runways at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT). It recently re-opened in June, 2024 in a new, updated hanger, after the Airbus 320 plane from the famous “Miracle on the Hudson” landing on the Hudson River, New York, in 2009; was moved to the building from storage.

For me, the ultimate Aviation Museum is the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. I rate all museums dedicated to Aviation against this standard, which I have had the luxury of visiting three times now and another visit coming up shortly! While the Sully Aviation Museum is partnered with the Smithsonian, itself is one of the best Aviation displays in a museum that I have seen. Partly as it is new and uses newer technology and partly due to just how many planes they had stuffed into the hanger, yet you did not feel claustrophobic. That includes having an almost complete Airbus 320 plane inside!

I have included a selection of what we saw below however, if you want to see all the details, such as my dad and some others, I have a separate page so they can dive in! Those details can be found here (yet to be posted). First, we looked at the outside exhibits while mid-sized planes (737’s, A321’s) were actively taking off just behind the hanger. Then we went inside through the big red door, where it was a cool blue colour (eyes had to adjust from the sun) just like being up in the clouds, with important local Aviation people’s pictures being displayed on the walls of the hanger. We walked in a circle around the hanger and this is what we saw!

As we were leaving the museum, and visiting the gift shop on the way out, I overheard the gift shop attendant telling someone who wanted to visit the museum, that they only had an hour left to visit as they were closing early today at 1:30pm. Boy, was I glad we got there in good time so we (I) could spend the time visiting all the exhibits and their various displays of information! When I had selected my goodies, I was at the cash register and the same attendant told me (she did not know I was from Canada) that it was Trump coming into town and that Interstate 85 was going to be closing. I thanked her for the information, as we needed to take that highway back to the hotel. We had no issues getting back to the hotel though – you would not have known he was coming to town based on our drive along Interstate 85.

I am also here to attend the Gluten Intolerance Group (GIG) 50th Anniversary Conference. When we got back to the hotel, I checked my e-mail just to make sure that I did not receive anything that I needed prior to registering and attending the evening reception and I had received an urgent message about checking into the hotel and how one needed to go to the back parking lot as the front of the hotel was “too busy”. While I thought it strange, some hotels do have small entrances and with a conference arriving, it can be a zoo!

Andrew and relaxed for a couple of hours (I updated my website and had a nap) and then got ready to walk to the Hilton hotel where the GIG conference was being held. It is also on the UNC campus, a 12 minute walk (exactly) for me to get to. However as we had already walked a lot today, I decided to have Andrew drive me, where it probably would have been faster to walk based on the heavy traffic we ran into. Approaching the hotel it was indeed, pretty busy and the parking lots out front were barricaded off with “Special Event” signs. I really did not think the conference was that big, however that is nice for them to reserve parking for people I thought! Well, how wrong I was!

I registered for the conference and went to the reception and found Shelley Case, who is a celiac dietitian from Calgary, AB that I know, and is speaking at the conference. She is one of 3 speakers that I am looking forward to listening to their talks. She was happy to see me and then pulled out her phone and showed me all her pictures of Trump visiting the hotel only a few hours prior to speak at the Police convention that was going on! All the motorcycles, limos, a command centre, etc she took pictures of as her room looks down on the front of the hotel. Now everything makes sense! You take I85 to get to the Hilton, the reason why they wanted GIG conference guests to stay away from the front of the hotel and why all the parking lots were “reserved” for a special event. Apparently Trump was at the Hilton for his talk and then off he went – when I arrived at 6pm he was gone, which was good to hear!

The reception was excellent – they had made some GF mac&cheese, pulled port sliders and a couple of salads (one of which was a watermelon/feta) for the appetizers – all were delicious! I then walked home, where Andrew met me halfway, as it was a very beautiful night!

We had a nice breakfast at the Residence Inn in Roanoke, however I was suffering from GF waffle withdraw! Needless to say, the breakfast was fine. Still to find some grits, places serving oatmeal instead, however the eggs, yogurt, fruit and various nut toppings are keeping me happy! We have about a 4 hour drive to Charlotte, our southernmost destination today and where I will be attending a conference, so we were up early and out so that we could at least enjoy one attraction in Roanoke! That was the Virginia Museum of Transportation. It is a fairly small museum in what looks to be an old rail building – they have various gauges of model railroads, old cars, a Greyhound bus display, a section on airline history and then trains, trains and more trains with some older vehicles like fire engines, busses (school and public), police cars and even a tug from the Panama Canal thrown in! Andrew recognized the Panama canal tug, also called a mule, as we have watched the mules in action when taking a cruise through the canal many years ago.

Now, to drive to Charlotte! We did a split of highway driving along I81 South and then got off and joined the Blue Ridge Parkway again and drove through some beautiful countryside and some small towns until we arrived at I85/I77 and then drove into Charlotte to our hotel which is the UNC Marriott. The Gluten Intolerance Conference (GIG) that I am going to is at the Hilton however the prices were pretty steep there and as the Marriott very close (about a 10 minute walk on campus) it seemed like a nice place to stay and use my points. We arrived in good time, about 5pm after about a 4.5 hour drive and were glad to park the car and relax in the lounge! Andrew enjoyed a beer I picked out for him (inside joke as I do not drink beer and have to trust the bartenders and apparently it was a good “local” IPA selection) while we had some snacks and I enjoyed some ginger ale! The ONE peeve that I have with Marriott is that they are a Pepsi loyalist and I cannot drink that soapy stuff – Coke Zero all the way!

Here is the approximate route that we took:

You know that expression “Blow my Socks off”? Yup, that happened to me today. We are staying at a Fairfield Inn, which is a basic Marriott hotel. I chose it as it was on the Blue Ridge Parkway and 90 minutes from Dulles and would provide an easy drive for Andrew to get us to our next stop in Roanoke, VA. Also, in reading about the city it seemed to have a pretty cool downtown!

As the Fairfield provides a free breakfast, Andrew and I went down to check it out. Now I have a limited amount of food with me and in hotels like this I normally can have a boiled egg, fruit, yogurt, juice and tea. That is sufficient for me for breakfast and I do have a couple of protein bars with me – having Celiac Disease and being a Diabetic now, I never travel without them. We have stayed at a bunch of Fairfields over the last few years and their breakfasts are almost always the same – I can count on the items above.

You can imagine my surprise when I rounded the corner to the breakfast area and saw this:

Yup, there went my socks! They just blew off – they are gone! I have NEVER in all my travels (so 40+ years as a Celiac) been presented with a gluten free waffle machine to make waffles! Holy smokes! To have a “Gluten Free Section” was just down right amazing! The only thing that was kind of amusing to me is the basket of Udi’s muffins and bagels – as I was standing there two ladies came up and one took half of what is in the basket after I took this picture! This brought back memories of last year and the Celiac Tour of Italy where other tour groups were taking our GF Schar goodies! I said to the lady who took all the items, “is it just awesome to have all this gluten free food AND to be able to make your own waffles? You must be so excited like I am!” She looked at me, the items in her hands and said “I do not want these if they are gluten free!” She put them back and left pretty quickly and went back to her table. The other lady who was NCGS (non celiac gluten sensitive) DID share in my excitement! Andrew basically had to peel me off the ceiling so that I ate before the placed closed! I did return to the waffle maker and made another waffle to go (along with an Udi’s bagel and muffin just for safe keeping)!

As I had read about Staunton being a cool town, we went to the Visitors Centre to pick up a couple of brochures – I wanted to see if they had a map of the Blue Ridge Parkway and a map of Virginia. I had my phone with me however having a map does not hurt and that was the map that BCAA was out of. I received both things plus a package of brochures and a bit of a dissertation of all the places we should visit in Staunton. Luckily some new prey entered the Visitor Center and I could make a break for it as Andrew was waiting in the car! So we drove around Staunton and looked at some of the things on the map and then stopped at where I really wanted to go which was the Sun Spots Glass Blowing factory.

What a great experience that was! I have had the luxury of seeing glass blowing in Hawaii at a couple of different places, in Okinawa, Japan and most recently on the island of Murano, near Venice in Italy. This process always intrigues me – how something so hot can be handled and such beautiful glass items created when the glass cools and melds. The difference from the other glass blowing that I have seen is prior demonstrations were all done in teams of 2 people (mostly men) with one being the designer and the other one being the “assistant” who does the oven work and some of the prep work of the glass. At Sun Spots they do not work in teams for the most part – they work alone – which was fascinating to see done. We saw the glass blower create a heart with a curly Q on the top so it can hang and then a glass which had a mottled glass and a translucent spray embedded in it so it had a silver tone. He had wanted it to have lines going up the side too but that did not happen. The most surprising thing was the prices in the store were VERY reasonable compared to other glass companies stores that I have also visited. Yup, had to buy something very little to commemorate the occasion!

Now back at the hotel, we got on our way to drive to Roanoke. Somehow I could not figure how to get ont the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP), so we drove a bit on Highway 81 south and then took an exit and what I thought was the BRP, but instead was a country highway one earlier than we were supposed to turn. No issues – it was a beautiful drive and we still ended up where we wanted to – the Natural Bridge! This is a phenomenon that has happened where basically there is a rock bridge where the sandstone below the rock across the top has over time, disappeared. There is a huge amount of stairs to get down to the path to the Natural Bridge, so they let us drive down a one way road to the ticket taker and walk in from there. Access is pretty good in the USA I am finding! Here are the pictures below.

I now knew where we were on the BRP, so we easily joined it and drove it down to Roanoke – basically you drive along the ridge of the mountains where there are incredible views! Not as high as the Rockies, however as high as the Coastal Mountains. We stopped at some view points so you can see above what we enjoyed!

We got to Roanoke in good time and settled in for the evening. Part of the Marriott program at my level is you get to choose points (500) or a free items from the pantry when staying at certain lower end hotels. As the points are worth less than $4 I try and find a pantry item that is acceptable to me first, and if not I will take the points. Alas, tonight there was a pepperoni pizza in the freezer perfect for Andrew and greater than $4! I selected that so he could have something to eat for dinner while I chowed down on my waffles, turkey and cheese leftovers that we had transported from Toronto and Staunton on ice packs. It was an early night!

Our drive today – not very straight but we got there…:

Up early! Time to move onwards and that is to fly to Dulles Airport in Virginia, which is the major airport that serves Washington DC. Today we are flying to Dulles and then driving south west to Staunton, VA, our first overnight stop and where we are going to hopefully join the Blue Ridge Mountain drive south to Charlotte, NC via an overnight in Roanoke, VA.

To start, we filled up on yet another awesome buffet by the Westin and were off to Union Station where we would take the UP (that stands for Union station Pearson airport) train back to the airport to fly with Air Canada to the USA. This UP train, like our Canada Line, is a great service! In some ways it is better than the Canada Line as it only makes 2 stops, one at each TTC subway connection point prior to arriving at Union Station. The time takes about the same however it is a bit more expensive with $25 for a return ticket. As I am checking out accessibility when at these different airports, and in Canada the airport is to provide service from the curb (in this case the UP station) to the check-in for the airline, I emailed Air Canada as the website suggested that I do and you would never imagine what happened – no one showed up! It is a bit of a walk from the UP station to the Air Canada check-in for Transborder flights, however we made it! Also traveling with less luggage seems to help! As we are flying Business Class, we went to the Priority Line as I noticed several people already at/in the Special Services desk/area. Now, we are on vacation and so not wearing business attire – I believe, based on the response from the agent when we walked up, that he though we were in the wrong line. Low and behold – do not judge a book by its cover! We were in the right place. After getting checked in, we went through secuirty and up to the Maple Leaf lounge. Our flight was at 1:45pm and they told me at the lounge that I would be picked up in a wheelchair at 12:45pm no later. I thought that was awfully early and asked if I could just walk there and they said no – you are going by wheelchair and be at the desk at 12:45pm. I was able to charge some things and Andrew had his Guiness and cookies and we relaxed for about 2 hours prior to getting assistance getting to the flight. Now I know why they wanted me to take a wheelchair and they needed to leave an hour prior to the flight – that is a LONG walk to the gate! It is about twice the distance from the C gates to the last E gate at YVR. They have the wheelchair service really well set up though with a handoff point and various people able to push and rotate in and out. We got to our gate and then waited…. and waited…. and waited… at 1:30pm they explained that they were waiting on flight attendant for the flight and that it will not be long. Finally at 2:20pm we were able to board and we took off an hour late at 2:45pm. The captain did come on the overhead and welcomed us to the flight and indicated that the flight attendant on the inbound flight had gotten sick so they had to request a new one for this flight. Thus the delay. So off we fly to Washington, DC!

Very nice flight on a CanadaAir Regional Jet down to the DC area. We were also really lucky that Air Canada’s gates are in the main terminal so we did not have to take those lovely “transporters” with the fin on the back to look like a blunt plane, to get to the other terminals. I understand now that there might be tunnels below the tarmac to allow people to walk between the terminals like in Chicago between B and C terminals.

After we got our luggage and I had an enchanting experience with a IAD volunteer who should probably not be volunteering as he gave me incorrect directions, we were off to get our rental car from Avis. It was SO NICE of Avis to “upgrade” us from the small SUV like a Rav4 that I had booked to a humongous black SUV – so large I would have problems getting into it and Andrew refused to drive it. So back to the priority book to downgrade. Now we are in a nice Chevy SUV that works just perfectly and is a breeze to drive. Now, off to Staunton we go! As the flight was late and it was now 5pm we had to miss the activity I had planned for when we arrived which is an aviation museum that is next to Dulles airport and while part of the Smithsonian system of museums, some people say that it is better than the one in downtown Washington DC, which I find hard to believe as I LOVE the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum! The drive to Staunton took us about 90 minutes and we were easily able to avoid the toll roads which is good as Virginia now has tollbooth free (so electronic) toll lanes which car rental companies charge you very dearly to use (toll plus $7.00 EACH TIME) unless you are at a tolling station with a person where you can pay. Google Maps makes it easy to avoid toll roads it seems so we gave it a try and worked on our way to Staunton!

The drive we made to Staunton – avoiding tolls the whole way!