I’ve Learned How to Beat, Embrace Heat

June 24, 2007

I grew up in upstate New York and have lived in the Northeast most of my life. Three summers ago, my family and I moved to Charlotte in July. 

I thought I had landed into a drought or heat wave of Biblical proportions. I figured it would pass quickly; I was wrong. Summers in Charlotte take a lot of getting used to for Northerners, along with a good deal of living in air conditioning and planning cool escapes. 

There are ways to beat Charlotte’s heat. One easy way is to get out of it. It is only 1 ½ hours to the mountains, and the air is cool there.  We spend at least one weekend a summer in the Blue Ridge Mountains, in order to enjoy the cool evenings and lack of humidity. 

Another type of heat escape is to embrace it fully and go to the beach. Again, Charlotte’s location is wonderful for beach trips, just 3 ½ hours away. 

Another way our family survives the summer is by spending time at our neighborhood pool. I love to swim laps, and my son loves to splash and hang out with his friends. My husband is not a pool guy, but he loves the quiet and cool of the house when the rest of the family makes its noise elsewhere. 

There’s also iced lattes at Dilworth Coffee (Prosperity Church Road) and Caribou Coffee( Mallard Creek Road). There I indulge in iced, carmel, coffee wonders. A trip or four or five to Cold Stone Creamery (Mallard Creek Road) is another reward for surviving a hot, Charlotte day.

As for avoiding a large water bill while trying to keep the summer garden looking presentable, there is another University City treasure that does the trick. Buying native North Carolina perennials at the University of North Carolina Botanical Garden sale in October or March, I’ve converted my plants into ones that can sustain the blistering sun of Charlotte. 

During my first Charlotte summer, I went to the local garden stand and bought plants to spruce up my garden. Little did I know that the pretty colored bloomers were water-guzzling maniacs. I learned my lesson; after one or two years of good watering, native plants stand the heat on their own. This allows me to stand my water bill.

There are many free concerts, movies, library visits, and other events that can take one’s mind off of the summer heat. They are typically listed in the Entertainment section of the Charlotte Observer and events in University City are posted in this section of the paper. 

When you start to feel as though your skin is boiled and no amount of air conditioning is going to lower the heat of your blood, you know you’ve experienced a summer day in Charlotte. If you have any additional cool ideas, please send them to me. Together we’ll survive the heat of a Southern summer.