View from the Mountain

Signs of fall in Roanoke

There is finally some color in the Roanoke Valley.  Thing aren't nearly as gorgeous as they can be, but with weather and leaves, you take what you can get.

The drought earlier in the summer has taken a toll on things, but there will still be some pretty colors.

I seriously doubt that the colors will get as nice as they were a few years ago in this shot that I took which doesn't show up on the web as nicely as it does on the wall over my desk.

Tomorrow I'll head over to Oak Grove School and see if my favorite Maples are at their peak yet.  We might even catch breakfast at Famous Anthony's.

Dining along backroads, St. Francis by the Sea Lobster Fest

This post was written in 2007.  We also attended in 2008, 2009, 2010 and are looking forward to the 2011 edition.  As information about this year's event becomes available it will be posted here.  If my memory serves me correctly, 1,700 lobsters were served at the 2010 event.

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The trip of ten miles or so from our home to Salter Path, NC was well worth the effort.  It was a beautiful setting, both inside and outside. 

Of course we didn't come the Lobster Festival to enjoy the scenery.  We came to eat Lobsters.

Lobsters have a special meaning to my wife and me.  I cooked Lobsters for my wife on our first date which was over 34 years ago.

And I still have to help her with getting the lobster meat out of the shell.

I was always taught that someone who ate their Lobster claws first likely had a hard time denying themselves anything.  I always eat the tail first.

The Lobsters from this event came from Portland, Maine.

The crew cooking & serving obviously had done this before since every thing moved so smoothly.

The whole dinner was very well organized.  Once you sit down with your plate and vegetables,  They quickly bring a Lobster and the fun begins. Then after you are done, they clean up after you.  It doesn't get any better than that. They even have bibs.

This is a great way to have a nice meal and to do something worthwhile.

A friend of ours told us they us they sold 840 lobsters today.

There's nothing like a Maine Lobster unless it is one from the Canadian Maritimes.

Blackbeard's Cannon from 1718 shipwreck

There is nothing like a little history to put things into perspective.

Spending nearly three hundred years on the sea floor can make a cannon look pretty interesting.

Yesterday we took the time to visit Beaufort, NC where it is claimed that Blackbeard the pirate spent some time and apparently lost his ship the Queen Anne's Revenge in 1718,

The cannon was only on display for a couple of hours before it was to head off to East Carolina University to be restored over a five year period.

The cannon was at the Beaufort Gallant's channel site where a couple of the tall ships are tied up.

It was a warm fall day and a neat little field trip.

Different homes for different folks

It is not unusual these days to see people living on a boat. 

Some folks rent or buy a concrete pad and call a motorhome like the Tiffin Phaeton 40 QSH home.

The Tiffin happens to come in at a wallet busting $216,200.  It comes with a walk around queen bed and a garden tub.

It is actually sells for more than the last house I sold.

I guess if you don't have a regular home, and you have decided you want to be mobile, the Tiffin is just one of the options that buyers see today.

When I work with buyers in our area, I often tell them that I can show them basically very similar homes at $300K, $400K, and over $500K.  The price just depends on how close to the water and what type of water the house is near.

We then have mobile homes which start at around eighty thousand unless they are also near the water.  Then we have homes which start about where the mobile leave off or around $160K and run to whatever you're willing to pay based on features.

As in most real estate markets, along the coast we can say that we have plenty of inventory.  Roanoke is doing better than most markets, but here in the Emerald Isle area, there have been up to 1,200 properties on the market.

My sense of the real estate market is that a number of people are pulling their properties from the market.  Some are putting them in long term rentals.  Others are just looking at not selling.

I read today that the first baby boomer is now collecting Social Security.  It will be interesting to see how this changes the dynamics of the real estate market.

My sense is that the problem in our area is no longer prices which are too.  What we are facing is buyers looking at an uncertain future and waiting on the sidelines until they feel comfortable the market has sorted itself out.

This has given us a deficit of buyers which results from a lack of confidence in the market.

A mullet festival

Many people have never been to a mullet festival, especially one that nothing to do with a haircut.

Our mullets are the ones that swim in the ocean and get eaten.

I missed my taste of mullet today since I was working a booth.  But I did get treated to a snow cone so I can't complain very much.

This is the time of the year for festivals and lazing around in the still warm sunshine.  We have more festivals that can be physically attended.  They should save a couple for the winter months.

We even had some folks show up for the festival with boats.  There is no doubt the music was loud enough for them to hear it from the water.

I think festivals are one of the ways that we define out existence these days.

A festival brings people together and gives them a common experience to discuss.  That's important when many people have different jobs, live far apart, and tend to keep to themselves.

Good memories make getting back together easier.  We had a pot luck lunch at church today.  It was nice to sit down and talk to folks.  We'll certainly come back.

Those good memories are the glue of modern society.  They're much better the bonds of tragedy.

We're lucky because our neighborhood still has lots  friendly people, most of whom spend a fair amount of time enjoying a peaceful walk on the shore or in our community.

Then again being friendly is pretty common on the Southern Outer Banks.

A few slides of the Mullet Festival.