My Final Spring Break.

That title is incorrect, because 'final' infers that there has been more than one. There has not. I am a slave to the restaurant industry, and I have worked a full-time job the entire time I have been in school. Every spring break I have worked, and as this is my senior year, I say Enough!. So I'm stopping in Charlotte for a night, then trekking to Atlanta to run the ING Georgia Half-Marathon and then traveling down to Fort Lauderdale for a real, live vacation. Fortunately I will be able to fly back since a friend just moved there and I am simply taking him his car!



Now, technically, I did visit Minnesota last March. But does an adventure to the coldest, most winter-abused state in the country really count as a "Spring Break"?

America's Healthiest Cities.

"Healthy". That's generally the one-word definition of my dream city. Not necessarily as in fit or active, but overall healthy--culturally active, economically vibrant, bustling city-folk, high-quality of life, etc. That's why I'm obsessed with Minneapolis (and recently Seattle), since they both seem to be consummate examples of the kind of city I want to live in.

Well, Outside Magazine seems to agree with me. They've put together their annual list of the "Best Healthy Towns in 2009", and my favorite cities all seemed to make the list: Charlotte, Seattle, Minneapolis and even Cincinnati! (Don't mock me. I love it there.)

First, we started with the 100 most populated cities in America, using public data to rank them on factors like cost of living, unemployment, nightlife, commute time and access to green space. Then we took the 28 candidates with the highest overall averages and put them through a second round of number crunching, comparing things like the percentage of the population with college degrees, income level in relation to home prices, and weather. The wild card? Our own multisport factor, which rated each of our finalists on a scale of 1 to 5 for quality and proximity to biking, running, paddling, hiking, and skiing. After adding it all up, we had our top ten.

10. Charlotte, North Carolina
9. Cincinnati, Ohio
8. Minneapolis, Minnesota
7. Portland, Oregon
6. Albuquerque, New Mexico
5. Boston, Massachusetts
4. Austin, Texas
3. Atlanta, Georgia
2. Seattle, Washington
1. Colorado Springs, Colorado

Another Trip!

Oh, I forgot! I'm going to one of my favorite cities next week--Charlotte, North Carolina!





I'll be there for three days. It should be fun :-).

News from "The New South"!

I love Charlotte, North Carolina. If you haven't been there, it's a fun town with tons of bars and crazy southern partiers, a great downtown (which they call "uptown"), a beautiful skyline, fantastic weather and also is home to some of the country's largest banks (Bank of America, Wachovia, etc.). It's growing as fast as Phoenix, Columbus and Minneapolis, and is one of the few cities that hasn't been hit too hard from the mortgage crisis.

On top of that, after only 9 months of operation, Charlotte's brand new light rail system is almost at ridership projections... for 2025. Looks like people are finally getting with the program!

(Streetcar? Columbus? Anyone?)