Once a Reston resident

A postcard from the beach beyond Ocracoke

Most folks living in Northern Virginia and Reston in particular think of the northern outer banks when they hear the words Outer Banks.

Most people head to the Outer Banks and maybe venture as far south as Nags Head.

Those of us with either a North Carolina heritage, the desire to fish, or a more adventurous spirit have long known that there are some wonderful spots from Pea Island on down the coast to Hatteras, Ocracoke and beyond.

That area south of Ocracoke has long been a North Carolina secret.  Between Morehead City and Emerald Isle has mostly been a retreat for people who live in North Carolina.  The marketing folks gave it the name Crystal Coast.

For years it has been a mecca for fishermen, boaters, and those who want to enjoy themselves without spending a fortune.

Recent statistics indicated that 85% of visitors come from North Carolina, 10% from the Richmond area, and the balance from all over the country with a good chunk of that 5% coming from NJ north.

The area experienced something of a boom in 2004-2005.  Property in Beaufort's trendy historical district quickly was priced out of the reach of many locals.  The market has since cooled even in areas of Carteret County which did not see as much of the boom. We actually are not running out of land unless the corn and soybean fields I drive by on the way to work are permanent fixtures, and I don't know it.

Carteret's population is fairly spread out. The population of Reston is something on the order of 56,500 spread over 17.152 square miles.

Carteret County's population is 62,034 stretched out over 531 square miles.  Carteret County has about 117 people per square mile. I am not sure if that includes all the water in the county or not.

Reston on the other hand has 3,299 people per square mile.

My son, who lives in Reston, commented when he last visited that our parking spaces are big enough for a car and a motorcycle. If was left unsaid that there are plenty of Reston parking spaces which are a tight squeeze for his older model Toyota Tundra.

While our giant parking spaces might be a slight exaggeration, we are not a crowded area.  If crowds are what you need for a great vacation, we are not your place.

You can walk on the beach and often see few people.  Once Labor Day is over, the local restaurants with their fresh from the boat seafood will once again be ours.

Soon the humidity and heat will slide away, and we will be back to those almost perfect days like we saw in June when we took a boat trip to Shackleford Banks near Beaufort.

We always welcome a few wise fall visitors  who know the water is still plenty warm in September and even into October.  The rental prices are lower, the beaches less crowded, the boating more fun and the business owners a little more relaxed.

When you drop by for a visit, enjoy a meal at the Fairway Restaurant, one of my favorites.  To your left as you walk in their foyer is a table which has some really nice free post cards, some with a wonderful sunset,  more with a beach sunrise and others with a picture of the Emerald Isle beach or the town of Swansboro. 

They are actually my real estate business cards, but feel free to grab a handful and send them to your friends so they can also learn about the beaches beyond Ocracoke.

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An exit better than any on the toll road

The east coast including our mountain spot of Roanoke, Virginia has been having some very bad air days.

Actually one of the few areas on the east coast with good air this week has been the Southern Outer Banks much of which is in Carteret County.

There are plenty of people from Northern Virginia who have never heard of Emerald Isle which is one of the best family beaches around. 

Emerald Isle is one of the anchor beaches for the Southern Outer Banks. It is a quiet beach town that stays open all year, due to a large number of full time residents.

I know some Fairfax County folks make it down to our part of the coast.  We were at the Big Oak Drive In for our thirty-forth anniversary not long ago and caught some who were having to shed their big city ways.

You have to be married  a long time before you can go to a drive-in for a less than $20 meal for your anniversary.  With hungry kids in the car, the Big Oak is an especially good stop for value conscious hungry tourists.

While retrieving our food the night of our anniversary, I noticed a fancy SUV pull up.  It had a Fairfax County tax sticker on it.  The young couple had children with them.  They were looking to pay for dinner at the Big Oak with a credit.

Unfortunately the Big Oak doesn't take Visa, Mastercard, or American Express.  They only take cash which might be an endangered species in the city, but it works just fine out on the coast.  The last I saw them they were headed off in search of an ATM.

If the young couple hadn't been in such a hurry, I could have pointed them to a nearby convenience store with an ATM.  We may be on the edge of the ocean, but we do have most of the modern conveniences of life except as my wife is quick to point out a Target less than 25 miles away.

The next few weeks are a great time to get away to the coast and experience the delights of using cash for a meal. 

In another week or so, the hot weather should be gone, and we will be enjoying warm water and cooler air temperatures.  Fall is my favorite time at the beach.

What few crowds we have on the Southern Outer Banks are gone.  It is a good time to watch the boats come in from fishing offshore or just relax on a quiet beach that might have popped up as the tide headed out.

If boating on the sound isn't your cup of tea, then you can always visit Beaufort or Swansboro for a dose of history and shops.

Reston, in the heat of the season

While Reston is a well treed town compared to many, when a hot day shows up, it can be a tough spot.

Most places in Reston, and there are some exceptions, have so many vehicles producing heat that you are getting cooked from the sun and from your transportation.

On a hot day, any modern town can be like an oven.  The picture to the left is Cape Carteret, NC.  The shot was taken a hot hazy day not long ago.

You cannot tell it from the big trees, but there was a breeze, just not enough of one to blow the haze away.  Bogue Sound and lots of water are actually at the end of the street.  Most times the water helps cool or warm the area.

Right now there isn't enough coolness in the water to make much difference.  When we get closer to September things will start to change.

When the Reston world gets past Labor Day, the traffic changes.  Things go back to being more crowded than they are in the summer.  So as the temperatures start to cool, people's tempers sometimes get a little more exercise.  Fall brings an intenseness to the Reston area.

We face the reverse situation.  As the summer winds down, the tourists leave.  The restaurants are ours once again.  The roads become less crowded, and the weather even get better.  Even the fish respond with most of the good fishing taking place in the fall.

While fall weekends are busy, we won't see the peak crowds we have seen in the high season of July and August.

The math is pretty compelling, Reston equals ten months of intense living with a couple of months of slightly less traffic.  The coast equals ten months of enjoying the same area others work to get to for a few weeks in the summer.  In the summer we share our area with others, stay out of the grocery stores on weekends, and cook at home more.  We drive a few extra miles to get to a less well known beach.

That equation makes for a pretty happy life here on the Crystal Coast.

The beach without crowds

We all have our definition of crowd.  Mine used to be the mass of humanity that filled Tyson's Corner Mall at noon around five days before Christmas.

At that point Northern Virginia became a place that I needed to leave. I would head out Interstate 66 and turn down Interstate 81 often stopping by Lexington, Va. to do my Christmas shopping.

Now I never see really big crowds.  In fact this picture is pretty much my definition of a crowd.

That may seem nonsensical to anyone living in Northern Virginia.  Most Northern Virginians have seen more people than this in their local Starbucks and certainly have been part of a line at Best Buy that has more people than this beach near Emerald Isle, NC.

Some people love crowds, I enjoy small groups of people.  I like my beaches nearly empty.  I was actually taking pictures for a listing when I snapped this shot.  I know better than to visit this beach before Labor Day.

My first exposure to real crowds was when I went away to college in Cambridge, Mass.  The mass of humanity that went through Harvard Square on a given day was astonishing.  You often had to fight for a place on the sidewalk because there were so many people.

Most people can tolerate crowds, but I guess as we get older some of us see no reason to do so. If I could, I would model my retirement on the movie, Second Hand Lions.  I especially liked the part about the shotguns and traveling salesmen.

Anyway, if you want the beach without crowds, you need to plan your Crystal Coast beach trip for September or October.  The water is plenty warm, the air slightly cooler and the waiting lines to get in area restaurants have disappeared.

The fish are even biting.  This link is a bout being a new boater on the Crystal Coast.  Try either my Beaufort or Swansboro, NC travel guides.  I should have the Emerald Isle one done soon.

There are lots of pictures of the area at this site.

Just be warned that people have a tendency to fall in love with the area and never go back.  There is always room for  a few more beach loving souls.

Not exactly Macaroni Grill

I cannot remember exactly when Macaroni Grill came to Reston, but for a time it was a relatively uncrowded place to go for an evening meal.

We even used to go there for lunches. Over the years as Reston got more crowded, going to lunch got moved to 11:30 am or 1:30 pm just so parking would be available.

After almost dying when someone raced to steal a parking space from me one night at Macaroni Grill, I decided that I might try some other spots.

We found that El Manantial on North Shore was a nice quiet spot for a lunch.  For years we enjoyed Marie's in the little shopping center on South Lakes Drive, it was especially quiet in the evenings but eventually they got their walking papers.

While I am certain that Reston has over one hundred restaurants, on the coast we actually have a little more variety though I will admit that our eating spots are pretty small compared to the big city.

Still here you can even go back in time if you so choose. 

Last Saturday night my wife and I decided to go to the Big Oak Drive In at Salter Path, NC for our 34th anniversary.

It took us about twenty minutes to drive down the beach from our home near Cape Carteret. 

As I remember except for a very few spots (Maybe Reston Kabob and Philadelphia Mikes), it takes about twenty minutes to get anywhere in Reston to eat once you find parking, fight the crowds and get a table.

At the Big Oak our table was the big console inside our pickup truck.  My favorite sandwich is the clam burger, but I also enjoy the shrimp burger. 

We had our food in just a few minutes. Service was good since we carried the meal back to the truck ourselves.  Our whole anniversary dinner cost far less than twenty dollars even with two huge lemonades.

On top of that we got a beach walk thrown in for good measure.

I can't say that I miss the Reston dining scene.  The crowds, expensive meals, and challenging parking seem like a long ago dream.

We have plenty of spots that have far better seafood than McCormick's and Schmidt's.

Our coastal restaurants have access to fresh seafood right off the boats.  I might even issue a challenge for a cook off on soft shell crabs. 

Based on the last ones that I ate at McCormick's and Schmidt's, the fried soft shells coming from my frying pan would win hands down.  Our soft shells this time of year are alive until just before cooking.

The next time you are in line for a meal in Reston or fighting for a parking place just so you can go get in line, remember there are places where the pace is a little slower and the lines non-existent except for a couple of months of the year.

We also have the Big Oak Drive In time machine which likely doesn't have a Reston counterpart.

I did see a Virginia car at the Big Oak the other night.  They had a couple of kids and wanted to know if the Big Oak took credit cards.  Life may take VISA but the Big Oak only takes cash.  The Virginians went scurrying off to find an ATM.  So why would you come to the beach with kids and no cash in your wallet?  I guess you can live in a city without cash.

Come visit us on NC's Crystal Coast, but leave your Northern Virginia driving techniques in Northern Virginia and bring some cash for the Big Oak.   

Drive carefully I have seen the police down here pull someone over for driving 40 mph in a 35 mph zone, and I don't want to have bail anyone out.

The weird world of Reston yards

As a former cattleman, big plots of grass are nothing new to me.  I have worked hayfields as big as thirty acres.  A time or two, I have even cleaned up some hayfield corners with an old fashioned scythe.

I have taken great pride in our bluegrass yard in Roanoke, Va. and often written about the pleasure of mowing it and recorded my thoughts after the last mowing each year.

Still one of my biggest challenges in lawn care came in Reston on a tiny corner of my daughter's townhouse lot. Her yard happened to be six or eight square feet.

When I heard that she was using scissors to "mow" it, I felt there had to be a better solution.

First I thought that one of my retired weed whips might be the right tool for the job.  It turned out that her sun starved grass didn't have the backbone to stand up to the weed whip.

Then as we were cleaning out my Mother's home in Mount Airy, NC., we found a small hand electric grass clipper.  It turned out to work fairly well if you could remember to keep it charged.

In the end, when she had to replace a retaining wall, the tiny plot of grass got replaced by mulch.

I am always sad to see mulch win over grass, but in this case it was probably the most intelligent solution.

The ancient rechargeable clippers were going to die eventually of old age, and it would be back to scissors instead of something as grand as my new Toro Personal Pace Mower which I have dubbed the finest walk behind mower I have ever used.