We visited several places new to me during our trip through the south-east earlier this month. My assumptions about Charlotte, North Carolina, proved to be mostly wrong. While it has the beauty and Southern charm I expected, it’s not the small city I imagined — not at all! Charlotte is huge and has the traffic problems of other major US cities. It reminds me of New Jersey in this regard, which is not a good thing.

In the midst of the urban hubbub, we discovered a quiet oasis for people and birds called Wing Haven Garden. In addition to being a wonderful garden, Wing Haven is a bird sanctuary. Here is a photo I took of the grounds.

Next, we visited the Mint Museum Randolph. Charlotte’s Mint Museum actually consists of two museums: Randolph, the one we visited, and Mint Uptown, which contains more of their contemporary collection. Everything cool or happening in Charlotte is in the ‘Uptown’ neighborhood, named, I think, because it’s on the rise above the rest of the city.

To underscore the importance of the Uptown Mint museum to the staff, the administrator at Randolph explained that the traditional collection was housed at the Randolph Mint, while the contemporary collection was housed at the Uptown. She made it sound as if we’d made a mistake by visiting Randolph instead of Uptown Mint. But she took it well when I explained that I avoid “contemporary” exhibits whenever I can. “‘Contemporary’ hasn’t changed in 60 years,” I told her. Small museums like the Charlotte Mint that are not blessed with a large endowment or a world-class collection try to make a virtue of necessity by emphasizing their contemporary exhibits.

The best of the smaller museums showcase local artists and collectors. Charlotte, like other places we visited along the southeastern seaboard, preserves colonial and antebellum traditions. For someone who lived in Trenton, New Jersey, close to the Delaware River and near Washington Crossing Park, I love the South for cherishing its traditions. Mint Randolph is home to a lot of collections from this time, which give it a unique personality, something hard to achieve in our deracinated age.

I had to take photos of these beautiful procelins, which made our visit worthwhile.