Once a Reston resident

Ruffled Waters With A Sea Breeze

A Sea Breeze Coming In from The White Ok River

I keep up with the Reston weather because our family has some members still in the area.  I often stayed at their Reston home during my years calling on accounts in and around the beltway.

I think my last account calls in the area were in late 2005 so it has been a number of years since I cooked in a suit in an epic Northern Virginia heat wave, but I still remember a number of hot weather seiges that match this recent one of six straight days above ninety degrees Fahrenheit.  It is hard to erase the memory of a hike to the Pentagon through the tunnel in a suit on a steamy Washington day when the temperature made it into the upper nineties.

Certainly most people realize that living in a major metro area is different than living in a rural area near the coast.  While there are many conveniences in and around Northern Virginia, we have a few things which create a more pleasant climate for humans especially when they are relaxing outside. A story focusing on the differences between the two areas will bring to light a few interesting tidbits.

Our home is near the part of North Carolina's Outer Banks that actually curves south from Ocracoke Island to Cape Lookout and then swings west from Cape Lookout.  It means our beaches face the south.  There are barrier islands along Carolina's coast almost all the way to South Carolina. We are just one part of them.  Our particular area is about 55 miles northeast of Wilmington and almost 195 miles due south of Richmond.  This map will help you visualize the area.  You can actually drive to our area from the Reston area in six to seven hours.

The area where we live is often called the Crystal Coast or the Southern Outer Banks.  Both tags are marketing tags that mask the name of Carteret County.  It sounds better if you are going to the Crystal Coast for your beach vacation than it does if you say you are headed to Carteret County's beaches.

We are native North Carolinians and have lived here near the beaches of Emerald Isle for seven years. Obviously with that history in spite of our years in Canada, we are used to things being warm.  Coastal weather can be confusing and hard to predict, but for the most part if you love the out of doors,  our weather works out far better than the weather in an area like Washington or Northern Virginia.

It is not a secret that people have traveled to beaches for centuries to escape the heat.  While it still gets warm and humid here in the summer, we do not have to deal with the heat island effect that contributes to the warmth of Northern Virginia metro area.  It is interesting to note that Fairfax County has a thirty year urban tree canopy goal which will require it to plan over 60,000 more trees annually that when the goal was adopted in 2007.

We are lucky in Carteret County, a good portion of the Croatan National Forest's 159,000 acres are in our county. In addition to that 60% of the county is water.  We also have huge areas of marsh land and the 56 miles of Cape Lookout National Seashore.  All of those things contribute to an environment that is the opposite of an heat island.  If you factor in our coastal breeze and often cloud free skies (221 sunny days per year),  we have an environment which gets hot because it is in the south but is often pleasant because of the all the water and ocean breeze.  We also do not have the huge expanses of asphalt and concrete buildings that suck up heat and store it.  Until the area waters warm in late July and August, we have a big air conditioner.

Of course it does get hot here on the North Carolina coast.  It is the South and we cannot escape that.  However, water and nice breezes help us survive our hot times.  Ruffled waters in a 25 MPH breeze on cloudless nights is about as good a cooling effect as you can get in the South in the summer.

So if the heat of Reston, Northern Virginia or the District of the Columbia is starting to get to you, there is still plenty of room here on the coast.  The season has not been as busy as some and there are nice discounts available at some of the leading rental companies, including Bluewater Rentals and Emerald Isle Realty.  If you need more details about the area, check out my book, A Week at the Beach - The 2013 Emerald Isle Travel Guide.  The $4.99 cost will easily be recovered through tips in the book.

So what does a local do to stay cool. On Saturday morning, July 20, 2013, I was on the beach before 8AM  For the next two and one half hours I was in ocean water above my knees fishing.  There was a nice breeze and the skies were beautiful.  I did not catch any fish on that trip but fish are always optional when the scenery is beautiful and the weather is just right.  You can find pictures at this album.

 

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.

A different kind of rain

I can remember many rainy days in Reston.  My grown children have told me that Reston has had plenty of rain in the last few days.  I know our home in the mountains of Virginia got rain and now it is having a hard time stopping.

Here on North Carolina's Southern Outer Banks, we have actually been very dry. There was little or no rain in the month of May until we got about one third inch on May 17.  Since then we have only seen sprinkles until last night when we finally got about one half inch of rain.

We needed the rain, but it occurred to me that there was something fundamentally different about our rain here on the coast and Northern Virginia rain.

Just like a television commercial I am willing to walk in the rain in my bare feet.  I rarely wear shoes or even sandals when I go get the morning newspaper this time of year.  I actually like the feel of the cool concrete on my feet.

The wet concrete with a light rain on it feels even better.  Perhaps it takes me back to those childhood days in the Piedmont of North Carolina when as kids we never wore shoes.  I can still remember the challenge of walking on our gravel driveway with no shoes.

Even today when I put on shoes, they likely would get me laughed out of a city.

Then again maybe walking down the driveway reminds me of walking along the wet sand on the beaches.  Perhaps it is the closest thing that I can get early in the morning to a great day on the beach.

Whatever it is, I would not walk to the mailbox in Reston in bare feet.  It is just not something you do in a city.  The rain does not run nearly as clear in any city as it does here at the beach.  Maybe our skies that stay almost perpetually brilliant Carolina blue have something to do with that.

Of course life is a lot more casual at the beach. There are very few suits, and most of our umbrellas are beach ones.   It is not that unusual to see people standing outside in a light shower talking.

Perhaps we are deluding ourselves, but it is a very pleasant delusion.

The winter Reston became the Arctic

 This has truly been a tough winter, but when my Reston-based daughter told me that we had to bring our own parking space if we visited, I knew things had gotten especially difficult in the snowbound suburbs of Washington.

I am sure Reston folks know the numbers better than me, but I have heard rumors of snowfall totals exceeding seventy inches. That is a lot of snow even by my ex-Canadian standards.  I think what really got me to thinking this was not the Reston of my work years was the picture of North Shore Drive that my daughter sent to me.  It is the picture included with the post.

The picture reminds me of a Canadian woods road right through the heart of a spruce forest in the middle of the winter.

The fact that many Reston side streets are counted on as overflow parking has not helped the situation.  When the snow is so great that you can hardly get through the street, street parking is pretty difficult.

Another challenge facing Reston is all those wonderful trees that usually just provide shade from summer's heat.  Now they keep snow from melting.  I have heard the roads are now in great shape, but the sidewalks are still missing in action.

Sidewalks are often a huge challenge even in Canada.  When we lived in Halifax, you could be fined for not shoveling your sidewalks after a snow storm.  I still remember the cute sidewalk cleaning miniature bulldozers that were used in Cambridge, Mass.

I guess the only consolation for those living in Reston is that most of Virginia is in the same boat with you.  We just returned from a visit to our home in Roanoke.  For the first time in twenty years we had to hire a truck to clean the mouth of our driveway which was clogged with snow as deep as four feet.

Roanoke was a snowy paradise, but the snow has been on the ground so long in Roanoke that it has turned into igloo snow.  Even the snowy scenes in Roanoke were no match for the winter wonderland that has surrounded our friends Jack and Linda who live near Dublin.

I think the reality is that you have to head south and east of the North Carolina-Virginia border before you can escape snow.  Even in North Carolina, places like Boone have seen more snow than people can remember.

On our recent trip to the coast, there were still lumps of snow in Greensboro.  By the time we got to Silver City, the evidence of snow was almost gone.  Often we leave Roanoke and drive to coast, and in the winter time we can see a difference of twenty or more degrees.  This year the temperature difference has only averaged about ten degrees.

That ten degrees is welcome warmth, but it not near what we need to get back to our normal temperatures.  Fortunately this Sunday, we just might see sixty degrees.  That potential warmth is one of the reasons that I live on the Crystal Coast.

An early snow in Reston

Over the years I can remember a few early season snows in Reston.  One came when I was staying in the Reston Hyatt.  I thought I was going to have a great time staying in the hotel and enjoying the snow.  It turned out the whole town shut down including all but one restaurant in the hotel.  The ones outside the hotel all closed as did the shops.  I decided to make a run for it on Saturday morning.

As is the often the case, heading south got rid of the snow eventually. 

Reston is far enough north and has enough trees for shade that snow can come and stay for a long time.  I can remember a couple of January snows that lasted well into March several years ago.  As I drove up from Roanoke, it would seem like I was entering another country, one of never ending cold and darkness.

Fortunately this most recent snow does not seem to be hanging around.  However, I have noticed the chance of snow in the forecast for the weekend.  We were going to come for a visit, but somehow sliding around the roads of DC does not sound like a lot of fun.

This latest storm which brought blizzard conditions to the mid-west only brought winds and some rain to the coast.  The winds have whipped up the ocean, but coastal North Carolina is pretty laid back this time of year so it would take more than some winds to bother us.   I call it the "In Between Time."

Having a time when things move a little slower is actually a good thing especially when the rest of the world is speeding toward a holiday season.  We will enjoy the holidays, we just do not have all the stores to whip us up into a frenzy.  That is part of what makes this a good place to live.

In my mind the idea of going to Reston and scooting over to Tyson's for some shopping seemed like a good ideal.  Then I remembered the post, A Tale of Shopping Two Virginia Cities, that I wrote in 2005. The truth is that I do not handle well crowds, waiting in line, and circling for parking spaces.

As much as I might enjoy visiting LL Bean's and the Apple Store, I would probably be shocked by how much more crowded it is now that it was four years ago.

I will probably wander down to Swansboro to get my wife a small present and call it quits with that.  We are going to try to spend the least we have ever spent on Christmas this year.

It is tough at Christmas for lots of folks, I think we could make better use of our dollars than piles of gifts.  We downsized Christmas a lot last year so this year will just be a continuation of a trend.

Not being in Reston just makes it that much easier.  Winter beach time is a good time to be thankful for what you have and not worry so much about what you might want.

I hope Reston gets just enough snow to make things look festive this weekend.  I know any significant accumulation could cause havoc with the shopping.  Even missing a day or two of shopping in a powerhouse shopping region like Reston might have an economic impact well beyond the local area.

We do not want that to happen.  It has been a good year in a lot of respects, but the economy is not one of them.  Maybe Northern Virginia shopping will lead us out of the recession.

The year without a summer?

Where is the brutal Northern Virginia heat?  I understand that the temperatures only got into the seventies yesterday.  That's definitely not like July in Reston. 

Of course things are all relative.  My friend in New Jersey was begging for some seventies a week or two ago.  Then there is my friend in Halifax, Nova Scotia who seems to be stuck at 55 degrees and drizzle.  Last week I noticed temperatures in the thirties in Edmonton, Alberta.

Part of the continent seems to be having trouble finding summer.  I would have never expected this to happen to Reston which has never seemed to have any trouble heating up in July.  I always thought heat in July was a part of the Reston experience.

Even this week, the Reston forecast has four days in the lower eighties and one day when it does not get out of the seventies.  For the heart of the summer that is strange weather.

It is exceptionally hard for me to relate to those temperatures since we have been through a few weeks when ours have regularly touched ninety degrees.  We have even seen some mid-nineties and a couple of times got in the upper nineties which is unusual for the beach area of the Southern Outer Banks.

This past weekend I was handing out fliers at the Bluewater GMAC Rental check-in.  I was in shorts, tee shirt, straw hat, and Birkenstocks just to stay cool.  I stayed for only two and one half hours because I ran out of fluids and was worried about getting dehydrated in the heat.  Interestingly many of the people checking in from the north were making comments about the blue skies and heat.

I heard a number of people say that it was nice to finally find summer. I do not pretend to be a weather expert, but I expect we will hear about this trend soon.  The situation is bad enough that I have not had any communication from my Boston friends in a month.  Boston seems particularly sensitive about their summer weather.

I can understand why.  When you miss summer, things like home grown tomatoes and grilling outside disappear.  The quick dip in the swimming pool late at night does not happen.  One of the things I enjoy most is going to the grocery store late in the evening over on the beach.  I like the blanket of warmth and the coastal breezes that inevitably greet me as we get out of the car.

Summer is still here along the beaches of Emerald Isle.  I suspect we still have some rental spots available. There are plenty of ways to have fun in our heat especially if you get out on the water.

But if you cannot make it, we will try to enjoy summer for you.  Of course there is still August which is almost always hot and humid in Northern Virginia.  You can always hope.

How do you know if you are living in the right spot?

I can still remember moving from McLean to Reston.  We had been renting an apartment near Tyson's Corner.

McLean was a great location, but there was nothing affordable for sale.  We started looking, and it was clear that Reston was as close in as we could afford.

Reston had all the things needed.  It was convenient to work. That was especially the case for me since my work was at Apple over on Preston White Drive.

Reston also felt safe and there were trees, lots of services, and a number of reasonably priced places to eat.  Also when we got up in the morning, you felt a little protected from the world of traffic jams and beltway news.  The townhouse seemed to offer a little preserve of sanity in a world that moved pretty fast.

Reston turned out to be a good place to live.  No place is perfect, but given the alternatives in Northern Virginia, Reston is and was a good place to call home.

As a Realtor® I often talk to people who are deciding where to live.  We all have different things that make us happy.  Those things change over time.  After I graduated from college, I moved to Canada and ended up running a cattle operation for ten years.  It was not what I had planned to do, but inexpensive land, the desire to work out of doors, and the need to challenge the wilderness made Canada the right spot.

At the time I also loved cold weather and snow.  There were few things that I enjoyed more than a good snow storm.  We all change, and as I have aged, having six inches of freshly fallen snow for cross country skiing is not longer a high priority.  That was one of the reasons we moved back to the states.

Having access to federal contractors and high level government executives is also farther down the list today.  So living in Reston is also not my first choice.

What I do want is to walk outside in the morning and not have my system jolted by cold weather. I really miss living in Canada, but I do not miss the cold weather.

Walking out my door this morning and finding the temperature already at almost 65 degrees at 8 am is just about right.  While we have some great friend living in Edmonton, Alberta, you know it is cold there if your wake up temperature is more than triple theirs.

Seeing a White Heron in the distance from the dock behind my house is just icing on the cake.  In addition to being in the midst of natural beauty in a temperate climate, I enjoy the seven minutes of my commute to work.

Part of the commute is through farmland and the rest is down the two lanes of Highway 58 which crosses over the marshes of the White Oak River and and through some pieces of Croatan National Forest. Before I get down to the stoplight and make the turn onto the four lanes of Route 24, I pass a boat dealership, a golf cart dealer, and one of our favorite restaurants.

Our four lane road is nothing like a four lane road in Northern Virginia.  It is much less crowded, and in the space of a few hundred yards, I get to drive by our combined bank, liquor store, and police department.  The new, almost completed Walgreen's stands silently in front of our video store, Chinese Restaurant, Lowe's Grocery, and Lowe's Home Improvement.

Then just across the road from our office is our church.  Though we live a little ways out in the country, our world is a neat, nicely contained neighborhood that makes me feel comfortable.  I am pleased to be living here.  All the services that I can think of are nearby, and there are few places more beautiful.

The services, weather, and scenery are not the only reasons, but they are important ones.

My favorite reason for being here is if I miss the turn onto the four lane road, I end up over at Emerald Isle stuck enjoying the beaches. 

The fact that a mistake in my commute can put me on the beach is a pretty good indication that I am living in the right spot for me.

Not exactly Reston weather

This is a picture of the church we used to attend when we lived in Canada.

I recently did a post, Feel the crunch  of the snow, where I talked about how different Canadian snow is from snow in southwest Virginia.

That post reminded me of a few people in the Reston area who are always rooting for snow storms.

There's nothing wrong with liking snow.  I used to enjoy cross country skiing and snowshoeing. 

There are few things nicer than cross country skiing on a few inches of pristine fresh snow on top of a groomed snow road.

The problem with snow in Reston and any city for that matter is that the snow not only doesn't come down pristine, it also gets nasty pretty quickly.

Much of that has to do with the temperature.  This morning Cape Carteret where we have a second home was below freezing for a few hours.  We made it above freezing by 8:30 am.  We are close to 50F just before noon.  Even Reston is at 37F.

Cape Carteret probably had six or seven hours of below freezing temperatures last night which is a lot for us. Fredicton, which is not as cold as Tay Creek where we lived, will not even make it half way from zero to freezing today.

That likely means that even snow in the sunshine will not melt. If you are in the far north with few cars and little heavy industry, that kind of snow can stay very pretty for extended periods of time.

That is especially the case when you often have two to six inches of flurries three or four days a week.  They did not even bother plowing our roads unless we got over six inches of snow.

The winter snow was not slick, in fact traction was great.  You could also slide into a snow bank with almost no damage to your car.

Most people kept blankets or a sleeping bag in their pickups (farm country)  along with a chain.  If you saw someone stuck along the road, you would always stop to haul them out.

I am sorry that my snow loving Reston friends haven't had a significant snow this year.  You certainly are one of the few places that haven't gotten a big storm.  I am sure there are some places that would ship you some snow.

Just don't send it through the ports down here on the NC Crystal Coast.  I do not want to risk anything derailing those 70 degree temperatures scheduled for early next week.

Reston and the housing market

I snapped this shot of shrimp boats at anchor today near Swansboro, NC. 

When I was taking the picture, I was reminded of some clients who sold their two homes and have purchased a sailboat which they plan to use as a home for the next five years.

The three shrimp boats are still actively plying the waters of the North Carolina coast so they are not available as homes for Northern Virginia residents who are having trouble meeting their mortgages.

I just read the Post article, Housing Rut Derails Host Of Dependents. It is probably not news to anyone that the downturn in the real estate market is causing problems across the country and across industries.

As someone who helped buy a home in the Reston area, I know what a hot market looks like.  I was amazed how difficult it was to get a home.

As a new Realtor® working in Cape Carteret, NC, I can certainly feel the pain of others in this market.  It seems like I spend money and see very little come back into my bank account.

I became a Realtor® with open eyes, but also with the hope that it might be a field where a little age was appreciated.  That is certainly not the case in some technology companies.

The real estate industry is full of older people.  It offers you a place where you can work at your own speed and where people are responsible for their own results.  It isn't a bad deal in a good market.

In a down market, it is tough.  Most real estate agents are like me, independent contractors.  We make no salary, get no benefits, and we actually pay to have a desk and to have access to MLS systems.

It ends up costing a fair amount just to be a Realtor® each month whether or not you sell anything. Still it is a choice I made, and eventually I think it will be a good choice.

Our coastal market was once just as hot as the Reston market.  Now it has cooled substantially and since the first of the year, buyers have been waiting to make a move.

No more are we faced with a market so hot that properties are sold before people can even get emails about them read.  Now we have buyers who look at lots of homes, hoping to find the perfect one.

After a while in real estate, you learn there is no perfect home.  The best you can do is find the one with the least number of compromises.

Reston is a strong housing market, it will be back long before our coastal one.

Still it is interesting to see the differences.  If Reston had some of our properties, they would probably sell out overnight.

I imagine single family homes with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, 1600 square ft. on .38 lot within 7 miles of the beach would sell fairly well in Reston at $199,900.

Of course it is impossible to have a home like that in Reston.  Where we are have plenty of them waiting to be sold.

Today I even saw a sound front home on one acre, 2400 square ft, with 4 bedrooms and 3.5 baths at $699,000.  We even walked around a waterfront cottage of around 1,600 square ft. that has a listing price of $295,000.

I haven't checked out Reston's prices recently, but I remember well that at one time you were lucky to find anything but townhouses in $400K to $500K range.

It is a little ironic that our "vacation" area on the coast has more affordable homes than Reston.

Reston and Northern Virginia have far more jobs which means it is likely housing would cost more. also the coast is home area of choice, people chose to live there and rarely transferred there because of a job.  People also retire there and sometimes don't even need jobs so if homes get too expensive, you just do not live there. In Reston if homes are too expensive, you take on a longer commute.

Surprisingly our area has traditionally not been an area of huge homes. There are some but most of the homes in the area are from 1,600 to 2,400 square ft.

As a real estate agent fully aware of supply and demand, I know that housing in the Reston area is bound to be more expensive.  Land just isn't available like it is here on the coast.  While waterfront properties are little challenging to find, we still have lots of pine forest for less expensive homes.

I think is  pretty close to bottom of the price drops.  I recently sold a 2,500 square ft. home for $350K.  It was in a nice water access community and came with a boat lift.  The home had sold for $345K new a little over four years ago.

That basically means the real estate bubble has seen most of its air disappear.

Prices have been reset, though there are still some buyers holding onto pipe dreams.

I will look forward to prices in Reston stabilizing and moving forward.  That might be the sign that our market is headed back towards normal times.

In the meantime there is lots of work to be done, especially making sure that Coastal NC is well known before people start making their retirement decisions.

The good news is that all my technology buddies are doing a great job of coming up with new tools.

I just brought up a new website today about Coastal Carolina.  It was the easiest one I have ever done and has the most features out of the box.  I am truly impressed.

I am thankful that some folks are making my job easier.  In a tough market, anything that makes your job easier is welcome.

Of course living in a great place where there are lots of reasons to be happy does not hurt either.

It ends up being easy to be hopeful for the future when the scenery can restore your soul.