The Crystal Coast, Salt water on my feet

How things have changed at the beach

My things have changed at the beach.  In the late sixties and early seventies, I spent a lot of time on Ocracoke Island.  Mostly I camped at the National Park, but I can still remembering checking into the only motel on Ocracoke to have a television so I could watch Neil Armstrong step on the moon.

In the nineties we used to frequent Buxton down on Hatteras Island.  The place we stayed did not even have phones in the rooms.  Of course cell phone service was almost non-existent.  The idea of Internet service in your hotel on the Outer Banks was only a gleam in someone's eye.

Fast forward to today.  Many beach homes here on the Crystal Coast come with computers, and if not, wireless computing is available to those who do not carry iPhones or Blackberries.

The one thing that has not changed besides the beautiful waters is that most area businesses are not on the Internet.  Even if they are there, they mostly have a static presence.  Some are trying to supplement their static website with a Facebook presence.

Unfortunately most people do not look at Facebook when they want to find out something about an area.  People typically Google for information.

Yesterday, I spent much of the day handing out fliers at the Bluewater Rentals Check-in.  My goal was not to sell any real estate but to build awareness for CrystalCoastNorthCarolina.us as a source of local information.

We have many people who want to know about our area, and it helps to have a central place to point them for information especially for events and business information.

I suspect that there will always be a place at the beach for strategically place hand lettered sheets advertising events, but I hope that we can get more businesses interested in the Internet.  It is a powerful tool.

One thing that has already changed for the better is the rental check-in process.  Even some of the visitors commented about how well it worked to have two drive through lanes to pick up keys.  The girls handing out keys also had a wirelessly networked laptop that let them check to see if the cleaning crew had finished or if repairs were still ongoing.

Over three hundred people were scheduled to check in yesterday at our location. It ended up being a very smooth process with minimal waiting.

The minimal waiting was a good thing since people were spending a lot of time on the bridge getting to Emerald Isle.  On the grand scale of things fifteen minutes to get through town is not much, but after a long ride of up to ten or twelve hours, any delay is tough to take.

I hope that the weather hold this week.  The last two weeks have been nearly perfect beach weather.  It is always helps when creating great memories to have great weather.

While we might have Internet in the houses and beautiful waters, we still have not figured out how to manage the weather.

Defining your own fun at the beach

One of the neat things about coming to the beach along North Carolina's Crystal Coast is that you get to create your own definition of fun.

I love beaches and do not need much more than warm water on my toes and a fishing rod in my hand to make me happy.

Perhaps that I why I enjoyed so many trips to the Buxton area of Hatteras Island.

Beyond the beach, the light house, and a few restaurants, the area had not much to offer aside from wind surfing.

When you come to the Crystal Coast, the choice is a whole lot broader. In the twenty five miles from Beaufort to Swansboro, there are a lot of choices. You can stay in anything from a fancy bed and breakfast to basic hotel or a huge sand castle on the ocean. You can choose to paddle a kayak in the sound or charter a boat to go deep sea fishing.

You can even pick from beaches. Both Cape Lookout and Hammocks Beach are only accessible by boat or ferry.  Some beaches require some walking to enjoy and others have large paved parking lots.

When it comes to activities, there is everything from swimming and fishing on the beaches to visiting the Aquarium in Pine Knoll Shores or the Maritime Museum in Beaufort.  While we are not a golf resort like Myrtle Beach, there are plenty of courses to play in the area.

Even the towns are different, Beaufort has many beautiful historic homes while Emerald Isle has great beach houses.  Swansboro still retains much of its heritage as a fishing village.

Your choice of places to dine could range from the reasonably price specials at Mike's in Emerald Isle or El's in Morehead City to a fancy meal in one of Beaufort's finest restaruants like Front Street at Stillwater, Spouters, or Blue Moon Bistro. You can find everything from local softshell crabs and grouper to fine steaks.  Morehead City has a long list of chain restuarants while the smaller towns specialize in great family owned restaurants wth wide ranging menus.

Some people come to the coast to relax and read books.  Others come to kayak or fish.  Then there are those who just want to cook on the beach.  Whatever your pleasure, the Crystal Coast can accomodate you.

Being by the water

This has been an unusual spring here on the Crystal Coast.  The winds have kept most of us off the water.  While wind in the spring is not unusual, continuous wind is.  As the waters have warmed so has the desire to be out on them.

The passion for enjoying the water is so great here that our hearts often believe that the water is actually calmer than our mind knows it to be.

I spent some time surf fishing over on the beach last week.  It was very pleasant standing in the surf flipping a lure into trough between the sandbar and the beach.

Actually it was so enjoyable that I convinced myself that it might be a good idea to go kayaking on the river.  After dinner I did just that.  The winds were quiet as I left the dock, but by the time I got to the river, I knew that I would not stay long.  The river was impressive with some nice waves.

It did not take me long to get home.  That was the third time that I have pushed my luck and believed my heart over my eyes.  We will get great days soon, but waiting for them is no longer fun.

Carteret County is over one half water.  People like me move here to enjoy the water.  We often enjoy it to the point of exhaustion in the summer and fall. Right now I am running on memories of good times.

I do a lot of slide shows on the Internet.  While in theory I do the sites with slides so that people thinking about visiting the area can have an idea of the scenery before they come, one reason behind the websites with area scenery is provide to me with an escape mechanism for those times when being on the water is impossible.

Sometimes like today, I have to visit my favorite private island in Bogue Inlet.  Other days require me to take a complete trip from our dock down the White Oak, buoy by buoy, and out in the ocean by the beaches.  I call that slide show Mackerel Morning.

I am hoping to be on the water by the weekend.  I probably will not venture out into Bogue Inlet since this weekend will bring the crowds of Memorial Day, but they will gone by Monday or Tuesday.

Then the waters will be ours once again.  Hope springs eternal that the winds will drop down as the snows in Canada stop.  AS spring comes to the North,  summer can safely come to the Crystal Coast.

It is time to be fishing the sounds and beaches.  I can hear the waters calling me.

Saturday on the beach

Not many people get to do their jobs on the beach, but sometimes mine takes me over there.

This past Saturday I was over at the Spinnaker's Reach beach area taking pictures of a family reunion.  Family reunions happen all the time on the beaches of the Crystal Coast.

We are a great place to get together, relive old times and make some new memories.  Saturday was a hot day on the beach.  I suspect some good beach memories were made that day.

The people whom I had come to photograph already had some fresh memories of a little too much sun the day before.

It is not hard to explain to people that white northern bodies sunburn.  It is just very difficult to get people to pay attention.

Temperatures got into the eighties on Saturday.  It was a good dry run for this weekend when we will see the first of the much anticipated summer visitors.

Memorial Day is the traditional kick-off for the summer vacation season.  I know all of us here on the coast are ready to share our beaches and waters for a while.

At the rate the weather has been going, some visitors might get to do serious fishing before some of us locals.

In the last 36 hours the temperature dropped over thirty degrees.  We have only recovered a couple of degrees, and our rainfall total is now over two inches.

The long range forecast has us warming up by Wednesday with some really nice weather this weekend unless the storm in Florida somehow ends up impacting us.

I would rather have rain and cold now instead of this weekend.  After all we cannot complain very much, it was snowing in Edmonton, Alberta this morning.

Even wet, sixty degree beach sand looks better than snow.

I will just remember back to the nice weather last week when I wrote this piece, Peace on the Beach.

Crystal Coast weather thoughts

A comment to my previous post, How to review the reviewer, prompted me to compose this post with some comments on the weather and the area. 

We have lived in a maritime climate both in Canada and here in North Carolina.  There are similarities.

I post a lot of blue sky pictures, but we do get some not so sunny weather. 

This cloudy day shot was snapped on April 14 going across the bridge to Emerald Isle.  This morning the skies have cleared by 10 AM.

What we have learned about living along the coast is that maritime climates are very complex. How far you are from the coast, what kind of water you are on,  how sheltered you are, and what direction your home faces are all critical elements that often get ignored.  We were sort of oblivious to them when we picked our current home, but somehow we lucked out.

My first maritime experience was in St. Croix Cove, Nova Scotia on the shores of the Bay of Fundy. Nova Scotia is one of the foggier places on earth.  A summer ago there were places in Nova Scotia that had 85 days of fog.  That's a lot of fog.

However, there were also places that had very little fog.  When we were living on the shores of the Bay of Fundy, we often found that we could not start haying because we were covered with a fog bank.  Two miles inland, it would be hot and sunny.  We learned our lesson, and we went on to farm in central New Brunswick which actually had better weather because it had less of a maritime influence.

Things are a little different here on the Carolina coast, but our friend from Beaufort who sparked this post had this to say about the weather in Beaufort.

Yes, it doesn't have ice and snow,, well , at least not much ice. But, it doesn't break out of the 40s until past noon much of Jan. through March Then there is the issue of rain and wind. Beaufort gets more rain than most places on earth , with the exception of a rain forest.. Seriously, Beaufort is one of the wettest areas in the US.

i have to smile on reading this and some of his other comments.  We have a much different view of the area's climate, and yet we live only twenty five miles from Beaufort.  While we live on the water, we are almost surrounded by land.  Beaufort is pretty well surrounded by water.  I actually did not think a lot about all this before we chose where we are.  It was more luck than good planning that we ended up in a spot that is warmer much of the year and has more reliable cooling breezes in August and September.  The real reason for our location is that we got a lot more for our dollars where we are.

By some strange quirk, we also seem to miss some of the worst rain storms which cruise up the coast.  Cedar Point and Cape Carteret can be swamped, and we are high and dry.  It is surprising since we are only a couple of miles inland and the river where we are is two miles wide.  A couple of years ago Beaufort got hit with 11 inches of rain in relatively short period.  We had .75 inch.  Over the long term it will average out, but right now we stay dry a fair amount of the time.

Having said that, this winter was a colder than normal winter down here.  It is was by far the coldest that we have experienced.  In January of 2007 we only had nineteen hours below freezing for the whole month.  That same winter I had tomatoes ripening until late December.  We also had eleven days in January when the high temperatures got above 70F. 

We did see less than one half of inch of snow on our grass this winter.  There was no snow on our driveway or on the roads here.  What snow we saw this year is the first snow that we have seen in three winters. People tell us that it was the first seen in the area in six years.  Other areas got more snow.  We do not qualify as a snow belt.

Since our home is south facing with lots of windows, we do not use a lot of heat even in a winter like this past one.  There is an area just behind our home which is sheltered and often is warmed by the sun into the seventies even when it much cooler outside.

On moving here, I quickly learned that life and weather over by the ocean is much different.  By road we are about six or seven miles to the beach. It would be a little more than half of that if you could fly.  In spite of the short distance, it is not unusual to see the temperature drop 10-15 degrees by the time you get to the beach during the day in winter and spring.  I have recorded a number of funny moments when I felt comfortable wearing shorts near our home but ended up freezing when I got out of the car over on the beach.

While the beach gets almost continuous wind, we seem to get more nice breezes and miss some of the worst winds because we have walls of trees that slow the wind from some directions.  Of course those winds still make our life less enjoyable because taking our Sundance skiff out in heavy winds is not something I want to do or which is fun.

Weather is weather, if it is too cold, wait a while, and it will soon be too warm. I have enjoyed living in places where 20F in January felt like a heat wave.  Now when the temperature gets below sixty we act like we are going to freeze.

Going back and forth to the mountains in Virginia helps us keep a little perspective.  The mountains are definitely colder in the winter, spring, and fall.  In the summer the Va. mountains are warmer than we are on the coast.

Our perspective on the weather is helped by our not being in a town or having houses close around us. It is almost if the shape of the cleared area where our subdivision is and its position relative to the river enhances summer breezes.  When the construction crew was doing our home, I can remember being told more than once that they were pleasantly surprised with how cool it stayed in the heat.

Of course that is all relative.  It you are living in air conditioning turned down to 68F, and you expect our summer breezes to feel cool, you will feel disappointed.  We even keep our air conditioning on 78F most of the time. 

You also get used to the climate if you spent plenty of time out in it.   I grew up in NC around Winston-Salem, NC.  We did not even have an air conditioner until I was eight or nine years old.  You live with what you have, and perhaps the weather always looks nicer some place else, but as I child I can only remember one or two nights of retreating to our air conditioned living room for a night's sleep.

Anytime you write about the weather and come close to bragging, you are likely to be humbled quickly. The day after I wrote the fog post, we had one of the three foggy days that we have seen since we moved here nearly three years ago.  Not long after I proclaimed we rarely get snow, we saw our 1/2 inch of snow.  Perhaps we will get whacked by a rainstorm of historic proportions this weekend.  In which case I will not have to water the yard that is close to needing it right now. 

I have been over in Beaufort for a couple of those August days when the heat and humidity are so bad that a three block walk looks impossible without the help of an air conditioned car.  I have seen Swansboro that way once. There was no sea breeze.

Still I will take our area to any that I have seen.  No area is perfect.  Most places are what you make of them.  Lots of people love living in the Seattle area.  There not much sunshine up there.  A standard present for attending a convention in Seattle is an umbrella.

We enjoyed living in New Brunswick for eleven years, but it was nice when we moved to Halifax, NS and the black fly bites on the kids necks could finally heal.  There are different challenges here.  The waters are shallow and take some skill to navigate, but the diversity of marine life is hard to beat in an area with at least three seasons.  I am not a fan of California style weather where things stay much the same. California appeals to lots of folks but I would not want to be in San Jose tomorrow when the temperature hits 98. 

Yet you cannot appreciate the heat without some cold.  I could not feel the benefits of living where I do if I had not lived and worked in cities.  We looked very hard at the Beaufort area, and I still enjoy visiting it.  The reality was that we could not afford to live on the water in Beaufort. It turned out to a positive switch for us.

For far less than what it would have cost in Beaufort, we got a brand new home on water that is three feet deep and under ten minutes by boat from the Intracoastal.  We can fish Bogue Inlet and up and down the beaches with little trouble once the spring winds die down.

Other times I fish in sheltered areas in my kayak or wander the beaches with a surf rod. Time has shown that our place in western Carteret is a better spot for us.  Others will have different experiences.

There is a lot about buying a place that you never know until you have bought it and lived in it for a few years.

I am looking forward to the heat of the summer, but it can strain your body.  I solve the heat problem in three ways.  My first choice is a quick dip in the pool that it just across the cul de sac from our home.  If I can make time, getting out on the water with my kayak or the skiff ends up being a cooling experience that also lets me relax.

However, there are some weeks when the waters in the river and swimming pool warm to the point that they are no longer cool.  Then the only solution is jumping in the ocean and letting the cool ocean water hit the middle of my back.  That never fails to cool me down. It is the magic spot on my body for releasing hit.  Fortunately we are never more than ten minutes away from the beach so I do not suffer a lot from the few weeks of hot weather.

In the end weather is more about what you make of it than how hot, cold or wet it can be.  It you are going to be on the east coast, Carteret County is not a bad place to be.  You can find some great places on the water for reasonable prices.  Those prices just might not be as reasonable in certain parts of Beaufort, but Beaufort has its charm.

I will venture that Beaufort has no lock on friendly people. I have found lots of those almost everywhere.

How to review the reviewer

In this day of the Internet and social networking, it is popular for people to rely on information that they find in online forums. Some people have decided that it is better to trust someone on the Internet than work with a professional whose paycheck depends on doing a good job.

Whether people just do not just their ability to judge people in person or they just feel more comfortable on the web, using information from the web is part of today's life. Yet, the Internet is no different than any other information source.  You need to evaluate not only the information but also the source of the information.

While it is true that the Internet is all about marketing so also is much of the information you find in the world of print. You need to use your best analytical skills on Internet information.

So how do you tell if someone is a reliable source of information?

First people who communicate a lot on the Internet often have public profiles which let you look at their resumes and comments about them made by people who really know them.  It is my first choice when trying to figure out whether or not someone has anything valuable to add to a conversation.

Some of the forums keep people's names hidden behind "user handles" but usually you can figure out who someone is. I have found the value of the information is often inversely related to the difficulty of finding out about the person.  In other words if the person is well hidden and hard to research, their information is likely suspect.  If someone is easy to find and open about their qualifications, then it is usually safe to assume their information is good.  Someone who has a good public reputation likely wants to keep it that way.

After trying to find a public profile, my next line of defense is to look at the actual information that has been provided.  People, who are pushing a particular idea to the exclusion of all else, usually are unreliable sources of information.  You want to get your information from someone who has a broad enough view of the issues to provide you with the best possible information. Good information usually ends up providing you with a few options.

Those, who can only see one possible response to a question, often have not had the experience to offer more than one answer.

As a Realtor®, it is not unusual to receive criticism that you are just doing something in order to get someone to buy a home in your area.  This suggestion is probably about the only thing funny going around in the real estate business these days.  First, only someone who is clueless about the way people buy homes would make the suggestion. 

People are very picky these days about their home purchases. What I say on an online forum has to match reality, or I lose credibility and clients quickly.  You just do not trick people into buying homes.  Buying a home takes weeks if not months or years. There are multiple opportunities for potential buyers to evaluate their real estate agents and quickly ditch them for another one.  My job and income depends on providing accurate information.

People end up contacting you only if have some sense of trust by seeing that what you have said matches what they have seen.  Or in the real estate world if you happen to have a property that interests them, they will sometimes call without any thought to what real estate agent they are calling.

It is important to remember that multiple people can look at the same situation (or house in the case of real estate) and come up with different scenarios and thoughts.  That is just human nature.  People who write a lot and work at being impartial try to remove their biases but it is hard to accomplish.

Still by having my opinions out on the web, I am putting my opinion out in the public sphere where criticism and discussion can happen.  There is some similarity to the world of open source software which believe that software code should be open for inspection, criticism, and improvement.  I welcome intelligent discussions of different points of view.  It is healthy for all of us.

I do end up with people contacting me who see things similarly to the way I do.  It provides both client and Realtor® with a better relationship.  Not surprisingly some of my clients end up being very good friends because we see the world very similarly.  That is not always the case, but it is a very pleasant experience when it does happen.

So what are some of the danger signs in Internet information?

The biggest one is the personal attack.  It someone resorts to attacking someone's imagined motives, it usually shows that the person does not have much of an argument worth considering.  There are exceptions to this rule, I have seen people call down people for business practices that give all professions a bad name.  One I saw recently involved a real estate agent using his kids as bait to get potential buyers in his office.  I am sure the agent is probably sorry he ever did that now.

Still if someone is attacking another person for imagined motives, you can likely be sure the person is not a trusted source of information.

One of the best ways to figure out is someone is giving out good information is read several pieces of advice that they have given.  If they are well reasoned, well supported, and sounds reasonable, there is a good chance that they are useful.  If someone backs up the suggestions, then that is another clue that the information is good.  If someone offers a counterpoint but has little to support it, that also adds credibility to the original information.  If you cannot find real support for a counter view, the first information looks pretty good.

When all else fails, ask the person tough questions and see how they respond.  If there is no response or the response is weak, you have your answer.

The Internet is a challenging spot, but among all the conflicting information there is good information, you just have to know how to find and verify it.

Speaking of good information, check out my recent post on how to be a good local expert for the Crystal Coast.

Doing the math for a move

There are all sorts of things that should be taken into consideration before you embark on a move from one state to another.   Some of the calculations are complex, some are easy, and some you just will have to wait and see.

Figuring out what your home is going to cost you is the first big calculation.  Houses can be found from $ 160K to whatever you are willing to pay.  Downsizing can help the math look better and get rid of a lot of stuff.

When moving to Carteret County there are a couple of things that really work to your favor.  The first is property taxes.  Our home here on the coast has a tax value of around $600K.  Our property taxes are $1750 per year.  We came from Roanoke, Virginia where our similarly valued home had property taxes of $6,100 per year.

That seems like a huge savings but a lot of it gets eaten up with higher insurance costs.  Our Roanoke home had a premium of $1,100 a year for insurance.  Our Carteret County home has a current insurance bill of $2,750 plus since we live on the water, we pay $600 in flood insurance annually.  There is a good chance that coastal insurance will go up substantially in the near future.

We still save a couple of thousand dollars a year in total costs for taxes and insurance.

I do not have as clean a comparision on utilities costs since the houses are different in size and heat type.

However our electricity, heating and cooling bill for our approximately 2,400 sq ft home in Carteret County has averaged about $2,200 per year over the last two years.  Our costs for May, June, and July have averaged $105 per month.  Our most expensive month has been August at $240.  These costs include the $300 per year that we pay for propane which runs our gas stove, gas fireplace, and outside grill.

I think we are saving about $1,850 per year in utilities costs because Roanoke is both colder in the winter and warmer in the summer.  Living right on the water has some advantages.

In addition we pay $605 annual homeowners association fees to maintain the pool, clubhouse, dock, boat ramp, and keep our boat channel dredged.  We did not have that expense in Virginia but for many years we were a member of a country club so I could swim.  It was much more expensive.

We pay around $20 per month to have our trash picked up.  It was in our taxes in Roanoke.

Car insurance is more expensive in North Carolina, but as we found out years ago Roanoke, Va has some of the lowest car and home insurance premiums around. 

You will also pay some sales tax on cars you already own once you register them in North Carolina.

We find groceries very similar in price to the ones we are used to buying in Virginia.  Gasoline is more expensive in North Carolina.  Our current price for regular is about $2 per gallon.  Dining out is a toss-up, it just depends on where you eat.

Fresh seafood is much more readily available, and farm fresh produce is easily found from April until early August on the coast.  We also had good sources in Roanoke for fresh produce.  We were not nearly as lucky with seafood.

One big plus for the coast is that I can once again grow tomatoes without the deer destroying them like they have been for the last several years in Roanoke.  We eat a lot of tomatoes and have been able to enjoy them from June 1 through December some years on the coast.  We had given up growing them in Roanoke.

It boils down to everyone doing their own math.  Southwest Virginia is one of the lower cost places in the US to live.  Carteret County is even less expensive, but your actual results might vary from mine.

If you are planning on moving from another state to North Carolina, try using this cost of living calculator.

In the end there are always trade offs.  My dream was to live on the water so I could slide a kayak in the water and go for a paddle whenever I wanted.  Being able to drop our skiff in the water and head for the Intracoastal is just another benefit to weigh along with the beaches and trails.

Moving to the coast is not right for everyone, but if it is burning in your soul and the numbers look favorable you owe it to yourself to give it a try.

Waiting for spring

Nice weather has paid some brief visits to the Crystal Coast, but it has been a little like riding a roller coaster. There can be cloudy, gloomy weather when you go in a building and sunny, warm weather when you come out fifteen minutes later. I guess that is the mark of spring weather.

We stopped to view some exhibits at a local museum the other day.  Our plans were to go hiking when we came out. We only tarried in the museum for an hour or so. In that short time whitecaps had formed on Bogue Sound, and the wind started blowing at twenty miles per hour.

In spite of the impossibility of out guessing the weather, we have had an enjoyable few days. Visiting some of our favorite places while we wait for spring to make our beach walks pleasant excursions is a great way to finish out winter.

Our first choice for fun was a visit to the Aquarium in Pine Knoll Shores. It has been one of our favorite places since we moved here. This time we decided to take the plunge and buy a family membership so we could enjoy visits even more frequently.

We were lucky to catch a presentation on North Carolina snakes as we walked into the building. My wife was very impressed with the corn snake that managed to crawl around the presenter's neck. I just wanted to get on to the fish.

After having all my Boy Scout snake knowledge refreshed, we got to the large aquarium tank just in time to see the divers descend. I actually only had eyes for three Red Drum that were swimming around the tank, but I will admit to enjoying the Goliath Grouper. I would like to see him when he reaches his maximum size of five hundred pounds. I would need more than a shark guidance pole before I went swimming with the sharks.

After the inside exhibits, we headed outside to check out the boardwalk and trails. The wind had picked up and kept us off the trails, but we saw a very cooperative juvenile Blue Heron who was quite happy to pose for pictures. I was very happy about that since the Great Blue Heron who lives behind our home in Bluewater Cove is telepathic. I know he knows when I start thinking about trying to sneak out to get a picture of him.

I posted some pictures of our trip to the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. I can highly recommend a visit.

Saturday it was warm enough for us to go on a short hike. Aside from the 1.5 inches of rain we got last Monday, we have had very little precipitation so the waters are very clear in the rivers. It was easy to see some oysters growing on the bottom along the dock at Bluewater Cove. The oysters reminded me that we have the annual Oyster Roast coming up soon on March 21 from 5 to 8 pm at the Swansboro Rotary Civic Center. Now there is an event no oyster lover should miss.

Sunday afternoon we decided to visit another of my favorite museums, the Maritime Museum in Beaufort. Not only is the Maritime Museum a great place to spend an afternoon, but it is also so free. They just ask for a donation. It is interesting to drop into the Museum on a windy cool day because we have used it as place to retreat from the August heat in Beaufort. Beaufort usually has a breeze, but when it does not and the heat is on, it is a good idea to find a cool spot like the museum.

It is hard to say what is my favorite part of the Maritime Museum, but I think it is all the different models of boats that have had such an important part in the history of North Carolina. Of course I love all the old motors and the exhibit of the life saving tools.

There are lots of interesting things on display from a few Blackbeard artifacts to whale bones. It is just a great place to visit. This is the only museum which has even entertained my son who enjoyed it even at the age of 29.

I also posted pictures of our visit to the Maritime Museum at Beaufort. The pictures do not do it justice, so take my suggestion and plan a trip there soon.

Just to finish our spurt of activities to distract us from the weather, we drove up to Harkers Island today. That is where I took the picture in this post. Of course the picture is of the Cape Lookout Lighthouse taken from the shore parking lot.

If you are interesting in seeing more of my pictures and having them placed on a map, visit my Panoramio site.

The where do I live equation

I have had the pleasure and honor of working with many young people over the years as they have tried to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives and where they wanted to do it.

As almost anyone knows, there is no easy solution.  Many times a job dictates where you live.  Sometimes a job takes you to a place, and you never leave.  You end up loving the place, and everyone lives happily ever after.

There are people among us who need to be inspired by where they live. I will admit to being one of those people. For years I wanted to live in Canada.  There were a lot of reasons, but the challenge of the climate, the beauty of the wilderness, and the sense of having survived in a tough environment all played a part.

When I got a job with Apple Computer in 1984, where I lived ended up not being as important as working for Apple.  Eventually with growing children, where I lived once again became very important to me.  I even took myself off the management track so that we could settle on the side of a mountain overlooking Roanoke, Virgina.  It turned out to be a wonderful place to raise a family, and I ended up a manager at Apple in spite of where I was living.

Once I became a manager, I had the choice of moving away from Roanoke back to Northern Virginia where my office was located.  We weighed the decision and decided that we were done moving while our kids were in school.  Three moves over the space of five years was plenty to absorb.

That decision meant a lot of travel for me. Specifically three weeks out of the month, I would leave Roanoke and drive nearly four hours to my office.  For years I stayed in hotels until my daughter graduated college and ended up in a town house where I managed to secure a bedroom.

Our living in Roanoke came down to my willingness to accept the burden of travel and make the best of it.

Tonight I was reading the response of a forum member on City-Data to someone who wants to live on the North Carolina coast near the beach.  The forum member found travel in Eastern, NC "tedious."

As someone who traveled the Shenandoah Valley so much that I could estimate my arrival time to within a minute, I probably could have found my travel "tedious."  But I did not.  Travel was my willing sacrifice for living where we wanted to live.  I might complain about it, but it became part of my life.

I would never discourage someone from making the necessary trade-off in order to able to live in a place that inspires them or makes their heart beat a little faster.  Life is too short.

Perhaps our forum member would suggest that the young person yearning to live near a beach pick a town along Interstate 95 and live there because travel is "easier."  It might be easier but the beach is over 100 miles away instead of ten minutes.

Choosing to live along Interstate 95 is a lousy decision to make if you are already fortunate enough to be able to pick where you live.  Who cares how much you have to travel if you are happy?

Why not pick a place where you will be happy and consider whatever extra travel that necessitates a price well worth paying?

After all, I doubt that you can find a place nicer than the North Carolina coast on February 8, 2009.  It was one spectacular day.

There are more thoughts on this on my View from the Mountain blog.

Thoughts of spring strawberries

This was written on April 14, 2007.  Unfortunately Bucks Corner Farm is no longer operating, but my understanding is that someone leased their strawberry patch and that there will be 2009 berries available.

This is published to help us survive until spring.

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The local strawberries are here. As far as I am concerned they are the first taste of summer.  It is a delicious way to start the local produce season.  This afternoon I dropped by Bucks Corner Farm, just off of Route 58 a little less than two miles before the intersection with Route 24 in Cape Carteret.

Bucks Corner Farm has signs out on 58 or you can call them at 252 241-2755, 241-2240, or 241-4854 for more information or to place orders.  It is obviously a great family operation which works very hard to put quality fresh produce on our tables.

I managed to get to the farm just as they were about to sell out of today's berries, but the ladies assured me there would be lots more on Saturday.  The buying experience does not get any better, fresh berries and friendly ladies.

We first discovered Bucks Corner Farm last summer when we were getting ready to close on our house in Bluewater Cove.  We managed to sample lots of their produce including tomatoes and those famous watermelons.  I really looking forward to enjoying all the vegetables as they come in this spring. 

I believe I heard them say that there will some hot house tomatoes ready soon.  They can't be soon enough for that first tomato sandwich of the year.

I certainly I enjoyed the strawberries this afternoon.   It is not often you get produce right from the farm these days. Later this evening I made myself a strawberry-banana smoothie so I am down to half a box and will have try to get some more in the next few days. 

We are really blessed to have strawberry fields this close to Cape Carteret.  Folks who have lived here a while might take them for granted, but once you live in the city and are forced to accept strawberries shipped in from California, your really appreciate what our local farmers can produce. The California berries are not nearly as good as the local ones.

I am really happy that the folks over at Bucks Corner Farm were able to protect their strawberries from the big freeze and snow last week. The farmers up the central part of North Carolina or  the mountain valleys near Roanoke, Va. where our other home is were not able to do anything to save their berries from what I've heard.

We need to enjoy wonderful berries.  I have a feeling that fresh strawberries and other fruits are going to be valuable items this year thanks to that Canadian cold that hit us. 

Now if I just had my old White Mountain ice cream freezer down here, I might be convinced to make some homemade ice cream.  I am sure someone would prevent me from using all the cream that it needs so I would be content if we could just make some strawberry freezer jam like we did last year.  When you open a jar of that in the winter time, it is like opening a jar of summer.