Birkdale Village/Lake Norman (July 22, 2012)

 Nice motorcycle ride in the Huntersville, NC area....there are a whole lot of interesting things in that city which is sort of a suburb of Charlotte, NC. Photo at left was taken at Birkdale Village, which is both a retail place with stores, restaurants, a movie theater, and also has apartments(maybe even condo's, not sure how its set up). There are a few places like it in the Charlotte area, but this is the biggest and the best. I rode out to check out a new place I read about in the Charlotte Observer: good food and tasty beverages were found at Big Daddy's Burger Bar. I had a nice time there!     

Just down the road, is Lake Norman. I am told this was a man made lake, to provide cooling water for the nearby nuclear reactors of the power station there. It is a very popular place for fishing, boating, and there are some remarkable houses along its shoreline. It is one massive lake-really something impressive to see from the air. Huntersville is really a big retail area, with a number of shopping malls, but also a lot of neighborhoods, and a large number of apartments. Traffic in that area can be really bad, though they have expanded the main access roads-that construction just completed this year in fact. It is a nice place to visit on an early Sunday, and I enjoyed being there near the water before the activity really got going.