Once a Reston resident

A World Defined by Construction

We traveled to Reston recently to conduct some business.  The changes in the area's infrastructure since our last trip in October of 2012 were pretty spectacular.

In October it seemed as if all of Northern Virginia was turned upside down.  This April the pieces seemed to be falling into place.  The Wiehle Silver Line Station looks the part and the new lanes on the beltway are just as confusing to a visitor as I thought they would be.

During those many years I worked in Reston I was convinced that residents operated on the theory that if you did not know exactly what lane you should be in at all times, that you had no business cluttering up the roads.

I was traveling from Southwest Virginia at the time on a regular enough basis that I could keep myself from being run over.  Now that our visits are more like every six months than every week, things are a little more challenging. 

The Toll Authority decided that I was not using my EasyPass enough so we had to send it back and they kept the money that was in the account.  Having to travel with quantities of quarters does not help the situation.

Still I am impressed with how the landscape has changed.  When I first visited the Dulles area in 1987, Route 28 was a congested two lane road.  I often wonder where it will all end.  After all the traffic jams do not seem to be disappearing only moving farther out.

We now live on the North Carolina coast, an area with almost no traffic. We are more used to land being shaped by wind and waves than man.  Here on our coast, buildings are constructed with the hope that they will survive the next storm not the pouding of millions of subway riders. 

We are actually lucky along the Crystal Coast, much of our construction is newer than what hurricane Sandy swept away in New Jersey.  When our house was built, it was constructed to the most current flood maps. We are a few miles back from the beach and are protected by Bogue Banks and its seriously strong vegetation.

Still mother nature manages to push around a lot of sand   Man's efforts at restoring sand that storms move is little more than a shell game.  In spite of that, we love the beach and do not want it to disappear so I applaud efforts to keep the inlets open and the beaches from disappearing. A lot of people benefit here from the beaches.  Also we are better protected because of dunes that are here. I am pleased that area officials value our sand and dunes so much.

I am particularly fond of the area in the town of Emerald Isle called the Point.  It is a very dynamic piece of sand.  In November of 2007 as this picture shows it was covered with water.  Today if you stand in the ocean where the sand ends and look back at where the 2007 photo was taken you will find over 1,400 feet of sand as you can see from this photo taken in April of 2013.

That is a lot of sand that mother nature has moved.  It certainly makes you appreciate the power of wind and waves and puts a little damper on any thoughts that we might have this world under control.

If you would like to read more about my most recent adventure on the Point, try this post, The End of the Sand. If all your beach memories have high rise condos in them, the Emerald Isle area is well worth visiting because that is not what beaches are really like.  Everyone needs to appreciate a strand of sand where there is almost nothing and we have places like that in Carteret County.

Emerald Isle is a place that you can have a beach vacation reminiscent of ones that we North Carolinians enjoyed so much in the fifties and sixties. Our area is not a Myrtle Beach and does not want to be Duck. We are pretty happy with our image of a family beach where everyone is welcome to enjoy the beach.

We have just published A Week at the Beach -The 2013 Travel Guide to Emerald Isle. On May 1 & 2 it is a free download.  It is a Kindle book but there is free software available to let you read it on almost anything.  Check out this webpage for details.

If you love beautiful uncrowded beaches, you will enjoy the book, its many pictures and maps and even recipes.  It is a beach lover's guide to loving a very special beach area.

Not a Reston Thanksgiving

Many people have Thanksgiving in the city. Having ours this year in Reston was one of our options. Yet we were there in October and having Thanksgiving among the forests and fields of Carteret County just seemed right.

Because the holidays are all about being with your family and friends, no matter where you get together, any place even a city can work out great. However, in my case, enjoying Thanksgiving beyond the urban sprawl makes it a little more special.  For some reason the pull of the country is especially strong at this time of year.  Being able to get some of your meal direct from the farmers is part of it. Still we each have our own reasons.

For me perhaps it all goes back to that first Thanksgiving after we graduated from college.  After finishing my degree, I managed to buy a farm on the Nova Scotia shore for $6,500.  It had an old farmhouse, a carriage house, and a barn.  The farm had 140 acres and was walking distance to the Bay of Fundy.   Three college friends came to Nova Scotia that first summer to help renovate the farmhouse.

It was a huge project and for a while we were taking showers with water warmed in a coffee pot.  But by Thanksgiving we were ready for visitors. 

The house was roofed, painted, insulated, wired, plumbed, and even had some walls.  We were still mostly sleeping on foam pads on the floor.  We had hot water, heat, and a kitchen with a dishwasher.  I had gotten a brick mason to build us a new chimney with a stone fireplace.

A number of friends from college came up to visit us that first Thanksgiving.  While most of us had spent a Thanksgiving or two away from home, it had always been in someone else's home.  This was to be our first Thanksgiving on our own.

There were a number of capable young ladies in the group, including my good friend Sally. Still none had ever attempted a turkey on their own.  Then there were all these details like what to put in the stuffing, how to make the cranberry sauce, and what vegetables to have with our meal.

There was a lot of give and take, and we eventually had a magnificent meal that I am sure most of us still remember fondly.  One of our friends died a few years ago, she is certainly missed, but the rest of us are still doing Thanksgiving dinners.  A couple of years ago we had Thanksgiving at our youngest daughter's house. 

A few weeks ago we returned from a trip back to Canada. After riding nearly 2,800 miles, my wife declared that we weren't going anywhere for a few weeks.   Since we have sold our home on the mountain and said good-bye to Roanoke, Virginia, our 2012 Thanksgiving will be here in the country along the Southern Outer Banks instead of on the mountain in Roanoke.

We are lucky to have two of our three grown children with us this Thanksgiving here on the coast. Having family or friends around at Thanksgiving just seems to make it feel right.

That the deep blue sky of Carteret County reminds me of the blue Nova Scotia sky is no accident.  I came here to the Crystal Coast because it reminded me of Nova Scotia except the weather is a lot better and the water is a lot warmer.

We could have done Christmas in Reston, where our other children live, but I feel a little trapped up in the DC area during the holidays.  The malls are packed and it is a challenge to go to the grocery store much less do any shopping.

Here we can walk by the quiet waters of our Inlet or go over to the beach for hike.  Then there are all the trails just waiting for us.   Among all the trails, the one at the Croatan National Forest access in Cedar Point are my favorites and are perfect for this time of year.  There is just enough shelter to get out of the winds.

I am hoping for an opportunity to go kayaking or boating on Thanksgiving day.  We might have a beautiful bluewater-morning on Thanksgiving day. Kayaking in Reston just isn't the same as kayaking on a pristine two mile wide tidal river.

With the beauty surrounding us and our family members already safely under our roof, Thanksgiving should  be a lot of fun.  I know there will be turkey, it has been thawing in our fridge for a few days.

Wishing for a Beach Evening in the City

'There were a lot of nights when I worked in the DC area that I wished for one of those nights when you get out of the car and you feel like you're at the beach.

Once in a while I have walked across the parking at the Kroger at Ridgewood Farms in Roanoke, VA and it briefly felt like a beach night.  I never got that feeling in Reston. Summer in the city is different. Maybe there are  too many roads or the buildings absorb too much heat.

The feeling of an evening at the beach is a curious mix of warmth, moisture, and breeze.  It is a little like the warmth encircles your body without really heating you up.  Just as you feel the heat getting ready to make the jump to your body, the breeze comes along and pushes away just enough of the heat to keep you comfortable.

Here on the Crystal Coast, it is not surprising that we often have evenings that feel like we are the beach.  The beach in fact is our neighbor and only a few miles away.  A strong sea breeze and the humidity of summer are almost always present.  We just need a day when the heat doesn't linger past six or seven PM.

Then if you are anywhere within a few miles of the beach, it still feels like you are at the beach.  That embracing warmth is a feeling that makes those of us who live here feel at home.

Heat in the city and at the beach are two different animals.  I've been really hot in the city a few times usually when I was wearing a suit and hiking to the Pentagon on an account call.

While in the city, the pavement and buildings absorb the heat, here on the coast, the water absorbs more heat that almost anything except people working outside.

Those days that I have been hot in the city, the cure is pretty simple, get into an air conditioned space and take off as many clothes as possible.  In the city it is almost like the heat is trapped in your clothing and not your body.

It's different here on the Southern Outer Banks of North Carolina. When you work outside, you start with as few clothes as possible except you add a straw hat.  If you work hard outside for a few hours even during the early morning hours, the heat will penetrate your whole body.  You can take your clothes off when you come inside, but unlike in the city, the heat is still in your body.  It is a lot like having a good workout in a very hot place.

When you come inside hot from mowing the yard, the only way to cool down is to get in the shower and turn on only the cold water.  With our waterlines not buried very deep, our summer water is never very cold, but it is the perfect temperature to cool an overheated person.

After cooling and readjusting to the inside world of little humidity, it is easy to go back into the heat as along as you don't stay for extended periods in the middle of the day. A trip outside when it is ninety degrees isn't much of a shock to system mainly because most of us on the coast don't cool our homes below 78F.If you keep your coastal home at 72F, each time you walk inside, it will feel like you have walked into a meat locker. 

There are days and nights that it never cools and never feels like you are at the beach.  You just feel like you are stuck in a sauna.  Fortunately for us those nights are rare and often confined to August with maybe a few nights in late July where the heat also never dissipates.

July 9, 2012 was a warm day across the east coast, but not as warm as the day before.  I expect as the sun gets behind the Longleaf pine trees and the bite of the heat of the day disappears, it is likely that the night like so many others will feel like a night at the beach.

While the warm feeling of being at the beach isn't as welcome in the summer as it is the cooler fall air, still it is a comfortable feeling that would have helped me get through all those nights in the city.

If you haven't had your escape from Northern Virginia and DC yet this year, give the Crystal Coast some thought.  We are about six hours from Reston.  Once you get here, you will find one of the greatest remaining family beaches in North Carolina.

Development hasn't been as dense as it has in many places.  Also we still have much of our natural vegetation.  In many areas you get to experience a Maritime forest.  You will also find some of the nicest and most accessible beaches on the east coast.

Our area is not an area of wall to wall high-rises and dozens of golf courses interspersed with outlet malls like Myrtle Beach.  It is a magical place protected on one side by Cape Lookout National Seashore and on the other side by the 158,000 acres of the Croatan National Forest.  The Marines at Camp Lejeune and the Atlantic ocean take care of the other two sides.

There are many special places like the Point at Emerald Isle out beyond the yellow house or the beaches of Hammocks Beach State Park that you reach by state owned pontoon boat. The Crystal Coast is a place where the residents seem to live without walls. Learning to live with the heat is just part of living in the South.  Enjoying the nights when the whole area feels like an evening at the beach is part of life on the coast.

My 87 page travel guide for Emerald Isle has all the information you need for a truly memorable holiday.  It is currently available for $4.99 in Kindle format with an iPad version in the works.  It can be read on any device by using the free kindle reader software on other devices.

If you give the Crystal Coast a chance, you might be really surprised at what a neat place it is.

Reston, the epicenter of shopping

A little over a week ago, we were listening to the NBC national news while eating our dinner at our home along North Carolina's Crystal Coast.  My wife and I both got up out of our chairs when we heard Brian Williams do the lead-in for a story about shopping from Reston Town Center.

By the time we got to the television, the cameras were rolling in front of the skating rink in Reston. It was pretty neat to see a place that has figured so prominently in our family's lives over the years on national television.

I still remember visiting Reston for the first time in 1987 when people still thought Dulles Airport would never make it.  I wonder if any of those who doubted the success of the airport are still around to see all the construction of the new rail line.

Later in 1992, I moved the base of operations for my Apple higher education team to Apple's Reston, Va office which was on Preston White Drive for many years before moving over to Town Center.  There were numerous times that I stayed at the Hyatt in Town Center. I cannot even count the number of meetings and dinners that I survived in and around Town Center.  I can even remember being snowed in there one Friday in a December long ago.

I decided to stay in Reston that night rather than risk the long drive back down Interstate 81 to Roanoke, Va.  I was excited until I figured out that all the shops and services in Town Center had closed because of the snow.  I made my way out of town early the next morning.

It was not unusual during my many years of working out of the Reston area for my wife to accompany me for at least one trip during the Christmas season. She enjoyed being overwhelmed by the Reston and Northern Virginia shopping experience.

My oldest daughter and her college roommate from Sweet Briar stayed at the town center Hyatt using some of my travel points after they graduated and embarked on their first job hunting experience.

Of course over the years I have done a fair amount of shopping at Town Center.  In a certain metaphorical way, it is the center of North Virginia shopping located between Tyson's Corner and all the more western based shopping.  It was certainly an appropriate spot for the national news to talk about Christmas shopping.

It is funny that even by 2006 which was the last year I worked in Northern Virginia, I had stopped doing my Reston Town Center shopping trips.  Though I was staying not far off of Wiehle, it was still quicker and easier to head over to Tyson's Corner if you knew exactly where you were headed.  Tyson's Corner also generally had more convenient parking, not to mention LL Bean's, Levenger, and the Apple Store.

Still if you are interesting in shopping, the Reston area has just about everything that one could imagine. There is still no LL Bean's, but I used to joke that if you couldn't find it near Reston, it probably wasn't being built anywhere.  We still enjoy visiting our grown children who live in the area.  We still hit some of our favorite spots like Trader Joe's and LL Bean.

The five years since I last worked in Reston have taken us to the Southern Outer Banks of North Carolina. It is much more peaceful on the coast of North Carolina than it is in Northern Virginia. As I am fond of mentioning, our parking spots are designed for extended cab trucks pulling a boat not a Toyota Prius with a bike rack.

The twenty minute trip to the shopping area in Morehead City is nothing like a run to Tyson's Corner.  While we find Belks, Walmart, TJ Maxx, and most of the smaller national stores, we still haven't gotten a Target.

Most of the truly local shopping has to come from Ace Hardware, Lowe's Home Improvement, Walgreen's. or some of the cute local shops in Swansboro.  It is a totally different shopping experience especially during the holiday season.  I am a little more geared to the laid back shopping experience now than I am to fighting for a parking space by Best Buy in Reston.  While we have a Best Buy in Morehead City, it is a baby one compared to the Reston one.

Every place has its good point, and shopping is one of Reston's which is why I guess it was featured on the national news.  Peace and quiet what you find at the beach in December.  The beach in the winter is about as far from the commercialism of the season as you can get.  Instead of extended hours, it is not unusual to find shortened hours. 

The different environment helps you to focus on what is important which happens to be the people in your life.  It also allows for the season to bring back some memories of Christmas trees from the past which is my favorite part of this time of year.

If the cold weather holds for December 26, we are hoping to make some peanut brittle which is a tradition that my mother kept up for most of our life.  Somehow doing peanut brittle seems a little more natural overlooking the mountains than within ear shot of the Toll Road.  Still I am sure there must be some great Reston Christmas traditions, maybe even some very good peanut brittle.  We are a lot closer to fresh peanuts.

The warm early winter that has made the east coast so comfortable has made for a very nice December at the beach. In fact the whole fall has been very pleasant.

There have been some stellar days over on the beach with shorts weather being very common.  It has been a season of where the signs of the changing season have yet to pan out.  Sometime the weather has been so good that I have been afraid that it would just disappear or that it was actually a dream.

Still I love to come visit Reston just because being there puts you in the middle of everything. By the same token, I also enjoy being on the side of a mountain high above the city or down on the coast where the nearest mall is 18 miles away.  Actually I really prefer having fish in my backyard to having a Target or a Walmart.

It is interesting that some of what made Reston unique has migrated to other spots.  We recently found a Trader Joe's just off Highway 64 in Cary, North Carolina. We even heard Wilmington, NC about an hour and a half from us is getting a Trader Joe's.  However, I think it is going to be a while before Reston is replaced as the epicenter of shopping.

Summer in the city

Summer in the city obviously looks nothing like this beach picture.  If it did, we would all be flocking to the city.

There are a couple of things that I remember as being nice during a summer in Reston.  One was that traffic thinned enough to be noticed.

The other was city life itself seemed to back off from its normal intensity just a little.  Of course the morning rush hour was still there on Wiehle, and there was still plenty of traffic for most people's tastes.

It is hard not to say that there are better places to be than the Washington Metro area in summer. The truth is that almost no one wants to be in the city during the summer.  To measure the truth of the statement, just get on one of the main roads out of town on a Friday before a weekend.

I used to try to leave my Reston office on Thursdays during the summer just to stay off Interstates 66 & 81 on Fridays.  I doubt it has gotten any better in the five years since I stopped working in Reston.  I know that during our spring visit, I was impressed with the amount of road upheaval.  To an outsider it might look like the guts are being changed in the area's infrastructure.  However, they didn't live through the mixing bowl construction.

My theory on summer in the city is simple.  Streets, buildings, and concrete all absorb heat and then radiate it at night.  In spite of Reston having more trees than many urban areas, it is impossible to escape the heat.  Of course all the trees help stop any thought of cooling breezes.

Having the buildings act as a giant heat sink could be useful in winter, but unfortunately I don't think it works that way. All the concrete seems to absorb cold and intensify the cold during the winter.

So it is that everyone looks forward to getting out of the city in the summer.  People just want to get away from the heat, roads, people, and traffic.  Ideally you want to find a lake, beach or some body of water, and Reston's manmade lakes really don't count.

Virginia doesn't have a lot of lakes so there is no quick escape like Lake Norman provides for Charlotte.  Of course there is the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River, but somehow a real escape seems to demand a little more travel and a little less traffic.

Crossing over to Maryland's Eastern Shore and perhaps heading to Rehoboth Beach or one of the other Delaware beaches is an option that can be done in under 3.5 hours if there is no traffic according to Google maps.  Taking the trip to four hours can get you to Virginia Beach, but it is almost as urban as Reston.

About four hours will get you to Smith Mountain Lake near Roanoke. Four hours will also get you to Kerr/Buggs Island Lake which is the middle of lot of Virginia countryside.   All those venues have their advocates, and they certainly have the advantage of relatively short driving times.

A couple of more hours, give or take a few minutes, will get you to some serious North Carolina beaches.  Most people from the Reston area are familiar with Corolla, Duck, Kitty Hawk, and Nags Head. Add another hour and you can be on Hatteras Island waiting in line for the ferry to Ocracoke.

Depending on the traffic gods, you can probably get to North Carolina's lesser known Crystal Coast in about six hours.  My wife and I have made it from the Wiehle entrance on the toll road to the stoplight by the Emerald Isle bridge in six hours at least a couple of times even with the inevitable traffic in Fredericksburg.

I won't pretend to know about Rehoboth Beach or any of the other Delaware beaches, but I do know the North Carolina beaches very well.  I grew up going to them, and never stopped visiting until I managed to find a spot near the beach where I could live.

The area south of Ocracoke Island is sometimes called the Southern Outer Banks.  Cape Lookout National Seashore is part of the area and is only accessible by boat.  There are 56 miles or so of wild isolated beaches there.

The real attraction of the Southern Outer Banks is the Crystal Coast which stretches from Beaufort, NC to Swansboro, NC.  The heart of the area is a strand of beach which runs from Fort Macon State Park near Atlantic to the Point of Emerald Isle. 

The area has about twenty one miles of beautiful beach with a population density of about half of what you would find in one of the Delaware beaches. The area is even on the doorstep of the 158,000 acres of the Croatan National Forest.  The National Forest and the National Seashore keep the area from becoming just another over-developed beach area.

There are a wide variety of accomodations available on the shore, but the majority of what you will find are single family homes available for weekly rentals.  There is one small oceanfront motel in Emerald Isle and a couple of larger ones up by Atlantic Beach.  There are some scattered condo complexes, but nothing like the wall to wall highrises in Myrtle Beach.

The area differs greatly from Myrtle Beach.  The main activities on the Crystal Coast are walking on the beach, fishing, boating, or visiting some of the area's historical sites. It is a peaceful area where stress is not part of the daily equation.

The Crystal Coast gets its name from the crystal clear waters that are usually found on its shores.  I have visited beaches from Assateague Island all the way to Myrtle Beach, and I think some of the best beaches on the east coast are within the town limits of Emerald Isle.  I have walked all the miles of beach within Emerald Isle's corporate boundaries at least three times since spring, and I am always amazed at the beauty of the beaches, and how there always seems to be space to enjoy the beach.

One of the unique things about the area is that the beaches face the south.  Having the ocean to the south instead of the east is a little different, but it has its advantages especially during the cooler months.

If summer in Reston has finally gotten to you, or if the 104F or 106F high temperatures in the forecast towards the end of the third week of July 2011 have you considering a quick exit from town, you can check out our forecast temperatures for Emerald Isle.

The water has been warm enough for dipping in since the end of May so it is nearly perfect now.  You can check water temperatures for much of the east coast at this link.  You will find our surf temperatures in the mid-eighties which is just enough to cool you off and to keep those super hot temperatures at bay.

Our area also has the advantage of being a great area for boating whether you choose the sound or one of the big coastal rivers.  Our traffic even on July 4th doesn't really compare to what anyone from Reston sees on a weekly basis so you can drop that worry because we are already past the season's peak traffic.

If you are planning on visiting, you can read lots more about the area at my Emerald Isle Travel Guide.

It is a unique area which has a real year round population.  So while you get the advantage of being at the beach, you don't have to give up any modern services. 

If you are a regular to Northern Outer Banks, you will be surprised at how much vegetation surrounds the homes in our beach communities and how laid back life is here on the Crystal Coast.

You might just the discover why the almost secret beaches that native North Carolinians have been enjoying for years are such a great place to live and visit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making progress on spring

Some years Northern Virginia, including Reston, goes direct from spring to summer, and then there is 2011.  Reston has seen some temperatures in the eighties followed by lows in thirties, and then there have been some days when the temperature did not get above fifty degrees Fahrenheit.

It has been a spring with even more changeable weather than normal. While April 16 will likely be another day when Reston is stuck in the fifties and gets very wet, it looks like the week of April 18 will be more reasonable with temperatures in the upper sixties heading to the mid seventies for at least a day.  More importantly the lows will be in the mid-fifties which will help greatly with the progress of spring plants.

While I have spent my share of springs in Northern Virginia, I prefer spring a litter farther south.  This year I have been able to watch spring unfold across Southwest Virginia, Central North Carolina, and NC's Crystal Coast. It has been an especially nice spring in North Carolina.

We saw the peak of spring in the Charlotte area on April 6 and in the last nine days we have watched spring roll across the coastal plains.  The weather on the coast has been close to unbelievable.  Our heat pumps haven't run for the last ten or eleven days.  I have had fun playing what I call the heat pump game. Our dogwoods have been in full bloom for a week, and now the azaleas are hitting their peak as the wisteria starts to fade.

We have had more than a few days in the eighties.  Fortunately some fog has shown up just when we needed cooling down. The fog just proved my point that Carolina fog is more useful than Canadian fog. I have managed to get out on the water in our skiff and to do a couple of early kayaking trips. We have had some especially beautiful spring mornings.

The weather has even warmed up enough that I have stuck my feet in the saltwater in order to keep cool.   We have had a fair amount of wind, but it hasn't been enough to keep me off the beaches.

Beside spring plants, construction towers often sprout in the Reston area in April  This year is no exception, and I was pleased to learn that the building of the Wiehle Ave. Metro Station has gotten started.  I am looking forward to being able to take the Metro on my Reston visits.  I might actually go into Washington more often if there is a reliable way around all the traffic.

Of course in early spring, visiting Reston or DC is way down on my list. I always want to make certain that the cold has been vanquished so I stay south usually until the summer heat appears.

First on the list in our coastal paradise is going fishing, and I have already managed a first fishing trip onto the White Oak River which is in my backyard.  Next on my list would be exploring the local beaches to see what the winter storms have wrought.  I have already done a couple surveys of the Point at Emerald Isle.  The fishing structure looks great near the shore.  Then I have to get the crop of tomatoes in the ground so I can start planning for that first tomato sandwich of the year the first week in June.  This year's tomatoes are in great shape already, and the first blooms opened on April 15.  I hope that doesn't mean the tax man gets a cut of my tomatoes.

After all the fishing, beach surveying, and tomatoes are on track, it is time to start taking care of our yard which is covered with an unusal grass called centipede.  It turns reddish brown in the winter and this year, the early greening of the yard was stopped by a late March frost.

Of course the frost only slowed it down. I took advantage of that to pull lots of wild onions.  Earlier this week I sprayed the yard for the weeds that I didn't catch with my pre-emergent weed killer.  On April 16, I will mow the yard for the first time this year. Centipede grass doesn't get fertizlized until June.  It actually doesn't grow very much in early spring which is fine with most of us here on the coast. Being used to the bluegrass yards in Southwest Virginia means that I am accustomed to mowing twice a week in the spring starting in late March.  Mowing once every two weeks like centipede yards require until late June is just fine with me.

While we are a few weeks ahead of Reston here on the coast, it won't take the Reston area long to catch up to our part of the Southern Outer Banks. Spring is a great time of year everywhere.   If the slow progress in North Virginia starts to depress you, just remember my friends in Canada sent me some pictures of their maple sugaring operation. The pictures were taken on April 10, and there was still over three feet of snow in the woods.

With luck, we will all survive the weekend of strong storms scheduled to start on April 16.  Here on the coast,  we can soon start thinking about summer while spring is hitting its stride in Northern Virginia.

This might get nasty

The Cherry Blossom festival is always a big deal in the Washington area.  I don't think you can claim to be an area resident until you have made at least one attempt at seeing the peak blooms.  

Because of all the calls that I did to Washington as director of federal sales for Apple, I managed to see more than my share of the cherry blossoms.  I can remember at least one family outing where we crawled through traffic trying to see the blooms.

This year the blooms seem to be peaking early around the end of March.  That means that this first weekend of April might well be the peak for Cherry Blossom crowds except that a number of the forecasters including the Weather Channel are talking about the potential of a major late season snowstorm.  The storm would develop Thursday night and be a Friday present for the DC area from those of us living on the North Carolina coast where all nasty Washington area snowstorms originate.

Of course with the general tendency of weather forecasters to be alarmist, the chances of this actually happening are probably rather small.

However, this has been a year of weird cold weather and abrupt changes. Part of the reason the cherry blossoms are blooming early is that the Washington area got some of the great weather that seemed to cover much of the east coast through the end of the third week in March. 

Our weather on the Southern Outer Banks was stellar.  I even got to go fishing in my skiff and kayaking late the next afternoon. We had temperatures in the eighties.  Then the bottom fell out, and I ended up covering my tomato plants to protect them from a frost that extended down to the water.

The Washington area doesn't do well in snow, and snow when lots of people are coming to town might be lots of fun.  However, everyone seems to muddle through these late season storms. Fortunately they disappear quickly.  You just end up doing what you have to do like figuring out how to clean your windshield without the right tool.  If come from the north, be prepared or you might end up buying some snow stuff which is almost as silly as me, a former hard rock farmer, buying some rocks in our coastal county where regular rocks aren't native but oyster rocks are pretty common.

Blooming cherry trees actually looking really pretty in the snow. Just do me a favor, take your great pictures with a real camera instead of smartphone camera.  Of course snow in the city only stays pretty for a few hours, and wet late season snow might be pretty for a few minutes before in turns to nasty slush.

If I were planning a trip to view the cherry blossoms this coming weekend, I just might pay attention to the weather forecasts later in the week.  I am not sure I would want to get caught in a slow moving, cherry blossom induced, snow covered traffic jam.

I think that I will just stay at home and dream of summer. Even without the snow, the traffic will be more than I would want to endure. If you do go, try to find a relative native to the area to be your guide.  It is the only way to really enjoy the festival.

A special thanks goes out to my Northern Virginia based daughter for the snow tinged flower picture from her 2011 garden.

 

And what kind of spring is in store for Reston?

This is the time to be looking for signs of spring whether you are down the Shenandoah Valley, on the North Carolina Coast, or tucked in among townhomes on an urban street in Northern Virginia.

By all reports from my Reston informants, this has been a chilly but relatively snowless Reston winter.  The few storms this year cannot hold a candle to last year.  With the predicted warm up next week, most of the traces of snow will disappear.

While we are standing on the dock on the coast contemplating when we can make our first trips out for fishing, I suspect anyone who is living in the Reston area is wondering just what kind of March might be in store for the area?

I spent many springs in Reston, and there were a couple when I felt like the snow was never going to stop.  I don't know what it is about the wooded areas of Fairfax County, but once they get snow, that snow can be very tenacious.  I have joked with my son and daughter, who both live in the Reston area, that when the snow really hits Reston, it feel more like a spot in Canada than one in Virginia.

Maybe it has something to do with the snow stacking effect.  Since there is little room in Reston parking lots for piles of snow, the whole parking lot get surrounded by a wall of snow.  When you come in the morning and get in your car, it is a little like having an igloo for a parking spot.

We have some high hopes on the coast that we have seen the last of winter.  I managed to take my boat down the river on Sunday, February 6.  While it was a cool 50F ride, it just made me more anxious for some really warm weather.

One difference between living in Reston and living at the coast is that our coastal spring comes gradually. Another is that we do have an extended spring.  I have been in Reston a couple of years when spring seemed to be a couple of days long and then we were in summer.

Being mostly surrounded by water here on the Southern Outer Banks, it takes a while for things to warm up to summer temperatures.  That usually works in our favor.  With local strawberries getting ripe usually by mid-April, we have had years when the lack of really hot days let us enjoy local strawberries well into June.  Fortunately we are frost free from mid-March onward if you live by the water.  That lets me get ripe tomatoes usually by the first week in June.

With little water around in Reston to cool things, when the heat comes, it seems to take up residence.  I always look forward to the late March to July timeframe on the coast.  There are usually long stretches of weather when our heat pumps don't run, and we can often sleep with our windows open.

Crime isn't a huge problem in Carteret County, so we don't worry about open windows.  Also with lots of water cooled air and a night sky full of stars instead of light pollution, it is nice to have a breeze without worrying about lighting up your bedroom with the city lights.

We often make a trip up to Reston each spring for some of the famous shopping, but I have to be careful about picking my dates.  I don't want to get caught in either a spring snowstorm or in that period when you go directly from spring to summer. I also like to miss the Cherry Blossom Festival.  That is more traffic than we see in a couple of years.

I wonder how LL Beans figures out what to stock when summer comes early to NVa.? As long as they don't get rid of my favorite shorts before the end of April, I will be okay.

Anyway, I always look forward to visiting my favorite urban area so I hope the spring storms give Reston a break this year.

Not much sympathy for that Reston snow

There have been several years when I felt a good deal of sympathy for the icy world of Reston.  Last year in February Reston seemed to have moved itself to the Arctic.

This year has been different.  There has been no Snowmageddon.  In fact Reston has managed to miss almost all of the snowstorms that have rolled up the coast.

Now along North Carolina's Southern Outer Banks, we often get to enjoy some very nice winter temperatures.  Our December high temperatures average in the mid to upper fifties. This has been what my mother would have called an old-fashioned coastal winter.

We have had three snow storms.  While I would agree that Reston hasn't been basking in warmth, there has not been a lot of snow shoveling happening.

I know from experience that one of the bigger problems in most of Reston after a big storm is figuring out where to put the snow especially if you live in one of Reston's townhome complexes.  While Reston's planners thought about almost everything, they did not consider where to put snow after a series of storms.

While I have been there to do some shoveling myself, I have avoided it for the last few years.  I actually prefer my driveway shoveled by snow fairies which is what seems to happen here along the Southern Outer Banks.

We got a pretty good snow for our area, this past weekend.  Emerald Isle got seven inches and over here on the mainland a few miles from the beach we racked up four inches.  It was a pretty good snow job, but even with it sticking to the roads which is rare here, it disappeared by afternoon of the next day.

This morning we got up to a temperature of 54F which is a more normal winter temperature for us, but I know areas north and west of us, including Reston aren't having as nice a day.

It is just winter, and I have even reconciled myself to liking a storm or two down here on the coast.

Perhaps this will be a short-lived snow in Reston and not the beginning of the next Restonian ice age.

Actually I know that it does not take much snow to bring the Toll Road to a halt.  I heard a rumor that it happened with this most recent storm.  We all know the Washington area does not do well with snow, rain, or anything that might slow its world class traffic jams even further.

With that being the case, it might not be a bad idea to consider a much nicer spot if you have job that only requires an Internet connection.  The Southern Outer Banks of North Carolina is a nice mix of new and old.  You might not get all the shopping you find from living in Reston, but you might miss a few traffic jams in the process.

A holiday shopping trip to the big city

Northern Virginia is a wonderful place to shop.  I doubt  there are many places where you can find so much shopping so conveniently located.  During my career at Apple Computer when I worked out of Reston, I would always try to bring my wife up for a holiday shopping trip.

Some of the trips stick in my mind.  One particularly nice visit around 2000 was when our corporate hotel was the Ritz-Carlton in Tyson's II.  We had a beautiful room, and we even got some snow and ice to strand us in the Ritz for 24 hours.  I think we managed a dinner at Maggiano's and breakfast at one of the food court shops.

Fortunately the weather cleared so my wife could visit Tyson's I which is her favorite mall.  There was a time when we would do a lot of holiday shopping, but now that our children are in their twenties and thirties, we only buy stocking presents.

With that in mind and some potential personal shopping for us, we made a visit to Reston just before Halloween this year.  It was actually a great time to hit the stores.  Our son took a day off from work and escorted us to Tyson's I.  As always we were amazed at the variety of stores, and at how many people wander the malls.

Our first stop as always was LL Bean's.   I made a quick trip to the men's department, found a pair of jeans, and then visited the sale racks where I found a couple of items.  My wife was still checking out the ladies clothes with our son when I took off to visit the Apple Store.  I wanted a copy of the newly released Microsoft Office for the Mac, and a firewire adapter cable.  After getting those items, I managed to have some hands on time with the new MacBook Air systems.

While I love Apple hardware, even I find it hard to justify their pricing.  I did finally buy my first new Mac in four years this fall.  It was an I5 iMac, and it is a great machine, but I do have a few bones to pick with Apple over the design.

After my wife finally decided that there were no clothes in LL Bean's that she needed, I got her to swing by the Apple Store for a quick look at the iPad.  It took her about one minute to decide that she would rather keep her laptop.  She did tell me that if we won the lottery, I could buy her a new MacBook Air.

Our next stop was the Vera Bradley Store.  I was pleased that they have a nice sofa for husbands.  It is great to have a place to relax while all the patterns are examined and debated.  The three ladies in our family are all multiple bag carrying Vera women.  When they all end up traveling together it looks like a Vera Bradley convention.

The staff at the Vera Bradley Store even gave bottles of water to my son and me to keep us hydrated during our shopping experience.  We managed to get out of the store without any purchases and wandered on through the mall.

I was surprised to see a Lego Store and a Steinway Store.  We had lunch at Coastal Flats.  I was amazed to find out that no cell phone worked there. According to my son, who is enough of a regular there to be welcomed by the staff,  I guess it has something to do with the movie theater being above the restaurant.  I am always suspicious in Northern Virginia when my cell phone doesn't work.  I end up looking for unlabeled buildings that might be jamming my signal

It was a great lunch, and a nice follow-up to our dinner the night before at their sister restaurant, Sweetwater Taver.  As we left the mall we visited a couple of children's stores to look for bargains for our granddaughter, and I made a stop at Levenger's just to look at all the neat things that I don't really need.

My wife made it through Tyson's I without buying anything.  I was not surprised. She is a frugal shopper, and she will only buy something when she has found a deal.

She convinced me to drive by our old apartment (now condominium) just north of Tyson's on Chain Bridge Road. I shared the apartment in McLean for a couple of years with my daughter and son just after they got out of college and started working.  Of course the road in the area has doubled or tripled in size.  It must be ten lanes wide at least.  As we passed our old home away from home, we noticed that the southbound lanes of Chain Bridge (Va. 123 or Dolly Madison) were completely stopped.  We had planned on turning around and heading south, but we ended up taking Lewinsville Road back to Spring Hill Road so we could get on the Toll Road without sitting in Friday afternoon, grid-locked traffic.

Of course you rarely avoid even stop and go traffic in Northern Virginia.  On the Toll Road back to Reston we had to exit at Hunter Mill Road to avoid stop and go rubber necking at an accident site.  I guess all the construction for the transit system will make holiday shopping lots of fun.

When we got back to the townhouse, I got to go shopping in my son's closet.  Both he and I have lost substantial weight so I was given a number of his outside jackets, a couple pair of jeans, and several short sleeved shirts.  He buys great stuff, and it is sort of neat to be able to recycle stuff within the family.  If we both keep losing weight, perhaps we can do it again next year.

That evening my wife treated the kids to a home cooked meal which we rustled up from ingredients purchased at the local Whole Foods.   While I wouldn't make Whole Foods my only grocery store, it is certainly a treat once in a while.  Where else could you find an ostrich egg when you need it?

Our entertainment to close the day was watching the Blueray version of Ironman 2 on my son's giant Sony TV.  Saturday morning, our last day in town, we visited for a while, I used my portable, traveling electric blower to clean the leaves off the deck, and then  we headed out for lunch at Chicken Out which used to be one of my evening favorites.

During our trip, we managed to hit most of our favorite spots, but we did not get to drive through Town Center or visit Trader Joe's.  I was diappointed that the Reston Ritz Camera shop has closed, but I am sure that something will spring up to take it's place.

The Northern Virginia area continues to be a neat spot to visit and to live if the traffic doesn't get to you.  We left Reston in early afternoon.  In spite of being in stop and go traffic just north of Fredericksburg for twenty minutes on a Saturday afternoon no less, we were at the stoplight just north of the Emerald Isle Bridge only six hours later. It was a reasonable drive considering all things.

While we are headed into a cold spell of weather down here on the coast, I am glad that I will be missing holiday traffic during construction and winter weather on the Toll Road.  The Southern Outer Banks feels like home these days, even when we get visited with some cold Canadian air.  Things are pretty quiet this time of year along the beach, and it is always a pleasure to get back to pick-up-truck-sized parking spaces instead of the tiny Northern Virginia ones.

I will use the current cold weather as time to work on my HouseVision project and my real estate websites.  We have had a busy fall in real estate, but after four years we are due some activity.  Still I will look forward to my next trip to Northern Virgina, the shopping mecca of the US.

Spring will be here soon in the South, and when Northern Virginia thaws out in April, it might be time for another visit.