Once a Reston resident

More sunset thoughts

I have seen many sunsets over land, and enjoyed a few over highways like the Toll Road. 

As nice as they may be, there is something special about a sunset viewed over water.

Lots of people get confused because on NC's Crystal Coast we can have a sunset over water. 

That's because our beaches are south facing and the sounds run east west.

Thus the sun can set in the western end of the sound like this spectacular sunset.

Watching the sun slip into the water can strip the cares from your mind for a few brief minutes.  Having some water to reflect the sun's disappearance can extend the moments where your daily world disappears. Water almost always extends a calming influence.

Once in a while the sky after the sunset is even more beautiful than the sunset.

Yesterday I could hardly believe the light as it reflected on the clouds of a building storm.

It was a really special time.  I forgot what I was worried about for even longer than normal.  I just enjoyed the beauty of my surroundings.

There was no traffic to watch, no deadlines to meet, just a gorgeous evening sky.

I can only hope that tomorrow will bring another almost as beautiful.

May the pictures remove a little of the tensions that inevitably build up in a densely populated spot like Reston.

If not I have a couple of beach homes that might do the job.

A different problem with sunsets

The sun is a problem on the Toll Road once in a while.  Cars have to slow down because of sun in the drivers' eyes.

When I used to get stuck in those traffic slowdowns, I would wonder if the engineers planned the east-west Toll Road as a cruel joke.  Watching the sun rise or set in a car stuck in traffic isn't the best way to enjoy those moments.

We have a different problem on the coast.  Sunsets bring us to a full stop.  People often stop whatever they are doing to find a spot to enjoy the sunset.

Our beaches run east west so the only way to really catch a sunset over water is to find a north-south inlet or other body of water.

This picture was taken looking across Bogue Inlet towards Swansboro, NC.  It was a beautiful sunset, and I saw lots of cameras out, and plenty of people just sitting and watching.  There were no traffic jams.

I see Reston missed setting a new record high temperature by one degree. Roanoke, Blacksburg, and Bluefield all did set records so the heat is widespread.

I know everyone is ready to see some fall-like temperatures.  It is time for some cool air.

A better ride than a fancy SUV on the Toll Road

I was thinking the other day that when I used to drive the Toll Road, I felt like I needed an armored car to be safe.

Things were whizzing by me, cutting in front of me, and generally threatening my life. On top of that it was all happening at over 70 miles per hour most of the time.

I am not sure there is a relaxing time on the Toll Road or ride which makes you feel completely safe.

It's a little different down here on the banks of Raymond's Gut which leads to the White Oak River.

While the White Oak looks pretty small on that map, I can assure you it looks pretty impressive in a kayak with just a few inches separating you from the water.  You can check out some photos I did recently to see the same perspective.

Traveling by kayak is one of the great pleasures in life.  While getting in and out isn't very graceful for some of us, when the kayak is in the water and you are paddling, it is a true joy.

I love going out our inlet and watching the sun slide down into the water.

A kayak is about as far away from a SUV hurling down the Toll Road as you can get.  There's only a thin skin of plastic between you and the water in the kayak which at most weighs 55 pounds.

The energy that moves you is your body.  It feels good to paddle, its quiet, and even the egrets don't mind you. 

I love going out in our skiff, but the time in my kayak is special.

It is a nice trade for the Toll Road, its traffic, crazy drivers, and giant SUVs.

Slide Show of Kayaking on the White Oak.

If that looks attractive, check out my new Emerald Isle Travel Guide.

I never got to kayak in Reston, but I hope there are places where kayaking can be enjoyed, but I'll bet it is a little safer to fall into our waters.

Is Reston a post modern town?

I started thinking about this when I found out that our local hardware store was closing in Roanoke, Va.

I have been wondering about what makes a neighborhood.  Is it a grocery store, a swimming pool, or just the people.

We have lived on a farm, in a city, Halifax, NS, in Columbia, MD, and in small towns. 

My time in Reston suggests that neighborhoods are harder to engineer than developers might think especially when you control development very tightly.

While it was easy to figure out the neighborhood grocery store for the area in Reston where I had a spot to live.  It turned out the neighborhood hardware store was the Home Depot over on Reston Parkway. At least I think it was a Home Depot, they all seem the same after a while.

The big box home improvement store is a poor substitute for a neighborhood hardware store.

There was really no place in Reston to go have breakfast and have a good chance to see the neighbors unless you count the drive thru line at the MacDonald's on Wiehle.

If my memory serves me correctly there are no produce stands in Reston, though I know my daughter has discovered the local farmers market.

Drug stores everywhere lost their personalities years ago, and the ones in Reston are no exception.  The hometown bank is more likely an ATM machine or your online banking portal.

There are certainly no funky old appliance stores in Reston. 

That pretty well leaves churches, town square, Barnes and Noble, and Starbucks to define the Reston neighborhood. 

Maybe we have moved beyond the hardware store and the main streets of places like Mount Airy, NC which in essence have become museums of the way we used to live.

Then again maybe some of us have to live in those museums which are also called small towns. We have to keep them going, so they are there when people need to remember what it was like before the Restons of the world became home.

In our small towns we still have the local hardware, the restaurant where the waitresses know what you want before you order it, and the churches which are intertwined with the whole life of the community.  Community events are still are regular part of life that no one wants to miss.

As a relic of the past and someone who has seen the future, I am happy to live in one of those museums on the Carolina coast where you can close a main street for a 50th birthday party without the world coming to an end.

If you want to see life on the coast as it used to be, come visit.  We will probably remember you if you show up again next year.

The tie that still binds me to Reston

It would be easy to say that the tie which binds me to Reston is that I have two grown kids living there.

Yet I know in my mind that it is really the memories of working in Reston that keep it alive.

I had some really good years working in Reston.  I was part of a well known company, Apple, even if few people knew that Apple had an office there.

Still only time has erased the challenges of driving up from Roanoke three times a month for far too many years, and the last couple of year when I worked for a couple deranged vps.

For many years I stayed in hotels in the Reston area.  Finally when my daughter got a townhouse, she kindly got one big enough for me to have an office/bedroom.  It made my time in Reston a relative pleasure.

I got to see my kids, and I didn't have to sleep in a hotel bed and fight with the air conditioning every night.

I could even leave clothes in Reston.  I am sure my daughter will say that it is time for me to clean out my closet since it has been three years since I left Apple and two years since I stopped consulting in the area.

My time in Reston made 9/11 a much more poignant memory.  While I was in Roanoke on 9/11 because it is also my wife's birthday, I had people who were working for me at the Pentagon and the Ronald Regan building when it happened.  I was actually talking to someone in DC when the planes hit the World Trade Center.

The human memory has a great filter, it lets us remember the good times and slowly push the bad times to the back.

Right now Reston memories are the good times, and I haven't had to do any real rewriting of history.

On another note, down on the NC coast, we did survive Gabrielle.

The Reston Hurricane

I am on the North Carolina coast this morning watching Gabrielle develop to the east of us.

It brings back memories of the fall of 2003.  I don't remember the name of hurricane whose remnants whacked Reston, but I do remember that we had a vice president in from Cupertino.

The stop lights stopped working on Wiehle, and I can remember my daughter staying up most of the night making certain that her sump pump was going to handle all the rain.

Fortunately the power stayed on in the residential areas.

And much to the relief of our vice president, the show we on.  We did our presentations, and it went back to his comfortable perch on Apple's campus.

It is hard to think that we have a storm coming.  The picture in the post was snapped yesterday evening on the White Oak River.  This morning there is just a light breeze, not a cloud in the sky, and the temperatures are in the upper sixties.

Yet the this is what we are seeing as warnings from the Weatherunderground and NOAA.

...Storm surge and storm tide impacts...
as winds increase starting later this afternoon...water levels will
begin to increase along the coast. In addition...astronomical tides
will be higher than normal through Sunday. A storm surge of 2 to 3
feet can be expected along coastal sections. The Pamlico and Neuse
rivers will have storm surges of 4 feet.

...Wind impacts...
winds will start to increase along the coast on Sunday morning...and
are expected to reach tropical storm strength along the coastal
sections Sunday afternoon. Maximum winds are expected to reach 45 to
55 mph.

...Flooding impacts...
two to four inches of rain is expected across eastern North Carolina
with isolated amounts of 6 inches possible. Flooding of low lying
and poor drainage areas can be expected.

We can use some rain, and at this point what is forecast for Cape Carteret which is the closest town to us is certainly no more than what we have had in overnight thunderstorms.

I know most areas of North Carolina and Virginia would love some of this rain.  We have been lucky this summer with timely downpours so the yards are still green here right on the coast.

We are back from the coast a few miles and our beaches are south facing so I don't think there is any panic at this point.  We saw higher winds in Nor'easters last winter.  We also saw higher tides this spring.

Still tropical storms are unpredictable so we will be watching closing and ready to take action if necessary.  We certainly aren't treating this lightly.

I hope Gabrielle turns out no worse than the tropical storm I endured the fall of 2003 when I had to host our enterprise vice president.  Even the minimal effects of the storm were quickly gone. 

The vice president was gone almost as quickly.  He just stopped coming to meetings in Cupertino sometime in December.  No one noticed until January when they sent out a notice thanking him for his contribution to Apple.

It is a wonder to me that vice presidents always make a contribution to a company when they are often more like a hurricane blowing through than anything else.

At least we get rain from hurricanes, most vice presidents only have hot air.

A town center a little more laid back

Reston Town Center is one of the busiest places that I regularly visit.  It's not Times Square, but it buzzes a good part of the day.

It is certainly not like the quiet seaside town of Swansboro pictured to the left.

I can remember being stranded in the Reston Hyatt during a snow storm several years ago.  I was disappointed to learn that the Town Center stores closed because of the storm.  I had hoped to enjoy a snow covered city visit.

You can only get to Reston Town Center by vehicle or by foot. Cruising through Reston to see what is happening is probably more trouble than it is worth.

Coming to Reston by automobile means you have to find a parking space which mostly is located in a garage these days.  I have been sorry to see the old paved lots in Reston disappear.  They gave Reston an open feeling that many cities lack.

Hopefully I will have a chance to visit this fall and take in all the new growth in Reston.  You have to visit the city once in a while to appreciate the slower pace of a place like Swansboro and NC's Southern Outer Banks.

The traffic in Reston, even in the Town Center area, moves very orderly.  Traffic in Swansboro is a little unusual.  The main street is two way, but with parking on both sides of the street there really isn't room for two cars to pass much less trucks and other vehicles that meet each other.

Cars usually turn into Front Street, stop and see if someone is approaching from the other end, if not they proceed.  If a car or another vehicle shows up, someone has to yield and duck up a side street.

It actually works pretty well.  All the cute gift shops and local restaurants get their parking, and we get a traffic system which requires a little cooperation.

Then there is Swansboro's other main street, the White Oak River which flows under two bridges right between Swansboro and Cedar Point.  Arrival by boat is the only option on the White Oak.

The area of the river near Swansboro has some nice deep water and is a place you can relax just a little with your boat since mostly you don't have to worry about running out of navigable water like you do in much of the Crystal Coast area.

While the waters around Western Carteret County and Swansboro which is in Onslow County appear to stretch forever, they often are only a foot or two deep.  That makes them a great breeding ground for fish and shell fish.  It also means that boating requires paying attention to tides and channels.

The water around Swansboro is one of those places where you can drift and fish without worrying too much about running aground.  It works well as long as the river isn't crowded and you set your drift up so that there is room for other boats in the marked channel to get by you.

I spent a couple of hours both Thursday and Friday drifting through the waters of the White Oak River near Swansboro.  It was a pleasant way to spend a sunny afternoon.  We even caught a few fish.

Somehow the idea of drifting and Reston just don't mix.  I often thought that there were a couple of unsaid traffic laws for Northern Virginia. 

The first would be if you don't know where you are going, you shouldn't be there.  The second is similiar, if you aren't going to wherever you are going post-haste, then you are wasting your time and more importantly my time.

Here on the coast, where you are going and how fast you get there isn't nearly as important as how you can enjoying getting there. Keeping a relaxed state of mind during the journey is high on the list also.

It is possible to go somewhere and be happier with the journey than the destination.  Doing that is a big challenge in Reston.