Southwest Virginia Blogs

If ever there ever was a sign of global warming, it has to be that it is the middle of December and two Nova Scotia golf courses reopened this week according to a story in the Chronicle Herald.

That's definitely not the Canadian winter weather that I endured.  Seems like I remember some Nova Scotians once painting their golf balls orange so they could play in the snow.

All  golfers get a little desperate in the winter.  Few of them need much of a reason to abandon even Virginia and head to Pinehurst or Myrtle Beach this time of year.  Now maybe some of them can add Nova Scotia to the list of places where they can do winter golf.

I am sure the province could use the tourism dollars.  It would have the added benefit that the golfers once they got home would really appreciate their home weather.  They probably wouldn't even need to turn up the heat in their houses.

It has been unseasonably mild except in the Northwest corner of the country.  I know Roanoke was in the mid-sixties today and here on the coast, it was near seventy degrees.  I snapped today's sunset picture between the two bridges over the White Oak River between Cedar Point and Swansboro, NC.  That's close to Emerald Isle for those of you not familiar with North Carolina coastal geography.

As far as I am concerned the Nova Scotians can keep golfing in December.  I found plenty to do outside myself today.  There nothing wrong with fishing in short and sandals in December.

Last year, I took the dangerous step of posting pictures of where I went shopping for my wife's Christmas presents.  The post, "Tale of shopping two cities," was about my experiences of shopping in Tyson's Corner, Va and Lexington, Va. 

The Tyson's area is home to every conceivable store including all of the top end stores.  There's even a LL Bean's, an Apple Store,  Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, Tiffany & Company, Gucci and everything in between.  A list of the malls in the Fairfax Virginia area confirms that Northern Virginia is shopping utopia.

That is if you can get through crowds.  It's possible if you know the area well to shop, get in and out of the malls without too much hassle.  My daughter, Erin, once took me on a highly successful holiday dish shopping trip to one of the malls.  She knows the area like the back of her hand so it was painless shopping.

However, it can be intimidating for us rural types not from Northern Virginia.  That being the case, last year, I reached a tipping point and gave up shopping in Tyson's and headed down Interstate 81 to the quiet streets of Lexington, Va.

I have a history of shopping in out of the way places.  One year I went up to the Homestead.  There are plenty of interesting shops in Hot Springs, and it is only an hour and half from Roanoke. 

Another year we took a trip to Charlottesville, Va. which happens to be a hot spot for unique retail stores. 

In one respect I have been fortunate to travel up and down Interstate 81.  Those trips gave me access to Rocky & Brenda's Gold and Silver Shop in Weyer's Cave, Va.  I think it must be the only place in Virginia you can find a silver asparagus server in any pattern.

Another year I bought some antique salts in Blacksburg, Va.   I have also had great luck tracking down Vera Bradley and other gifts in Mount Airy, NC which happens to be the location of the Sobotta Manor which is the wonderful bed and breakfast now established in our former family home.

The Roanoke area has some interesting shops outside the mall areas.  Over the years I have enjoyed shopping in Provisions Gourmet and Countryside Classics in Salem.  At one time I was even brave enough to shop in  the Roanoke branch of Salem Creek.  Last year my wife found "Ladles and Linens" which has some very interesting items.

My friend Stephen pointed out that Middleburg, Va. is a neat spot to shop.  Based on my one visit there, "Middleburg, Dog Days, and The Red Fox Inn," I would have to agree.

I guess the reality is that every area has some neat spots.  You just have to find them.  I know that both Beaufort, NC and Swansboro, NC have plenty of neat stores.  Unfortunately my wife has seen them enough this year to know almost every item on the shelves.  That left me on the coast of North Carolina looking for interesting and inexpensive gifts.

It did not take the "Holiday traffic headache" article in today's Jacksonville Daily News to convince me that 60,000 cars a day go down Western Boulevard where most of the shopping is located.  I was trapped there much earlier in the year one Saturday afternoon. That being the case, Jacksonville was ruled out as a shopping location.

Fortunately my trips to Wilmington led me by the Blue Moon Showcase.  I managed to spend some time there, and I think I have hit pay dirt.  It is nice to be out of the danger zone since I have found most of those all important Christmas presents for my wife. 

Thirty three years and fortunately I still haven't run out of unique spots to buy my wonderful wife a few tokens of my love.  Of course she might argue about the gifts she got from the Salem Northern Tool & Equipment one year.  Then again she now seems to respond quickly to the annual Christmas gift list request.

Fortunately people do not ask what I do with most of my time these days.  It’s one of the benefits of being over fifty-five.  You get a senior discount in the grocery stores, and people assume you do not do anything worthy of much attention.

If they did ask, I would have to say that I spend a lot of time writing without getting paid for doing it.  It seems strange when I actually say it, but I have become an active participant in the great online experiment of posting articles about whatever comes to mind on a given day. Writing about my interests for the web has defined much of my life over the last couple of years since I left Apple Computer.

It seems like only yesterday when I had little idea of what constituted a blog or weblog.  Certainly I was not a technophobe, but even twenty years in the middle of the technology world did not prepare me for the rapid way that communication is changing today.  Yet I have taken to this new online world like a duck to water.

Two years have rolled by since I wrote my first post at “View from the Mountain,” my home blog, I have done over one thousand posts, and earlier last month I hit another homerun.   I define a homerun as a post that draws more than ten thousand visitors to one of my sites in less than twenty-four hours.

Web articles are a viral form of communication.  They often take on a life of their own after you have loosed them on the world.  All it takes for tens of thousands of eyes to see you, is for a site like Digg to pick up your post and have a number of people vote that what you have written is interesting.  Then you are off to the races.  It is not unusual to have a really popular post picked up by other writers in several countries.

My latest successful piece, “Lessons learned from nearly twenty years at Apple,” even brought referrals from a Greek blog and ended up attracting enough attention that Wired Magazine’s “Cult of the Mac Blog,” did a profile with a picture of me.  All of that happened in less than twenty-four hours. Four days later there were still over six thousand people a day reading my posts.

Not only is the success sometimes instant, but the feedback can also be quick with direct comments from all over the world.  The blogging service that I use, Typepad, lets me see what sites are referring others to my site.  Visiting them to see what they have had to say about what I have written is an interesting way of getting feedback. Seeing how others use your words is often just as enlightening as the comments left on my own site.

I also use a company called Feedburner which lets people subscribe to my posts and see them automatically without having to go to my website for each new article. Though it varies from day to day, I have nearly fourteen hundred people subscribed to my two main sites.  It is an interesting feeling knowing that well over a thousand people will likely read any good post that I write.  Usually within five minutes of putting an article on line, I can see people starting to read it.
Using Feedburner I can actually watch to see where the hits come in from around the world.  I keep thinking they should have a graphical representation of how a particular post spreads around the world in real time.

Having become technologically adept at this, I also use Technorati tags to make it easier for people to search topics among the posts I have written. I am particularly interested in people finding my photos and prints for which I do occasionally receive some money.    Actually many of my readers come to me from Google searches. Thinking of Google brings me to why I believe writing about my interests is of value in a world where millions of others are doing the same thing.

It’s not that most of us new online writers are bringing particularly brilliant commentary to the web on critical issues.  More likely than not, we are providing a more personal look at many very ordinary things.  In a larger sense what we are doing is filling in the web of local connections that have somehow been broken by the modern world.

We have become such a mobile and wired society that the default source of information is the web and Google, not your neighbor.  Google by indexing content like mine is providing very important glue for our increasingly impersonal and fractured world.

I have had people moving to the areas that I call home write me and offer thanks for all the local information that I provide.  We have called some restaurants that I have reviewed to be told that we can have our choice of reservations since my posts have sent them so many customers.  There are dangers.  Once a host at a restaurant recognized me and brought me a free deep fried Oreo for dessert.  I would have rather passed on that.

The interaction with small businesses and local people brings a degree of responsibility with it.  I try really hard to be right about what I say so that I do not become just another local booster who can see no wrong.  After all my credibility is at stake.  I have found it is better to say nothing at all, than write a post that will not stand the test of time.

My free writing has given me a new identity along with lots of new friends, who live in places around the world that I will likely never visit except through their written words.

Now that my Fortune 500 business card is gone, it is also nice to have an identity on which to fall back.  The good thing is that my web presence is really me, and not just an adjunct to a carefully controlled corporate image.  I am up there on the web for everyone to see and to try to pick apart if they so choose.

Just surviving that trial by fire has made me a better writer, hopefully a stronger person, and something of an authority in my chosen areas.  If you type a Google search of “Travel Guide, Swansboro, NC,” or “Travel Guide, Beaufort, NC,” you see that I’m top ranked.  If enough of you do a search on “Dippy Egg” and click on my link, Google just might move me ahead of Wikipedia to the number one spot.  I don’t suppose anyone is interested in my article on “The Menhaden saga and limits to growth?”  It’s nice being the authority on something even if it is somewhat obscure.

Fortunately people do not ask what I do with most of my time these days.  It’s one of the benefits of being over fifty-five.  You get a senior discount in the grocery stores, and people assume you do not do anything worthy of much attention.

If they did ask, I would have to say that I spend a lot of time writing without getting paid for doing it.  It seems strange when I actually say it, but I have become an active participant in the great online experiment of posting articles about whatever comes to mind on a given day. Writing about my interests for the web has defined much of my life over the last couple of years since I left Apple Computer.

It seems like only yesterday when I had little idea of what constituted a blog or weblog.  Certainly I was not a technophobe, but even twenty years in the middle of the technology world did not prepare me for the rapid way that communication is changing today.  Yet I have taken to this new online world like a duck to water.

Two years have rolled by since I wrote my first post at “View from the Mountain,” my home blog, I have done over one thousand posts, and earlier last month I hit another homerun.   I define a homerun as a post that draws more than ten thousand visitors to one of my sites in less than twenty-four hours.

Web articles are a viral form of communication.  They often take on a life of their own after you have loosed them on the world.  All it takes for tens of thousands of eyes to see you, is for a site like Digg to pick up your post and have a number of people vote that what you have written is interesting.  Then you are off to the races.  It is not unusual to have a really popular post picked up by other writers in several countries.

My latest successful piece, “Lessons learned from nearly twenty years at Apple,” even brought referrals from a Greek blog and ended up attracting enough attention that Wired Magazine’s “Cult of the Mac Blog,” did a profile with a picture of me.  All of that happened in less than twenty-four hours. Four days later there were still over six thousand people a day reading my posts.

Not only is the success sometimes instant, but the feedback can also be quick with direct comments from all over the world.  The blogging service that I use, Typepad, lets me see what sites are referring others to my site.  Visiting them to see what they have had to say about what I have written is an interesting way of getting feedback. Seeing how others use your words is often just as enlightening as the comments left on my own site.

I also use a company called Feedburner which lets people subscribe to my posts and see them automatically without having to go to my website for each new article. Though it varies from day to day, I have nearly fourteen hundred people subscribed to my two main sites.  It is an interesting feeling knowing that well over a thousand people will likely read any good post that I write.  Usually within five minutes of putting an article on line, I can see people starting to read it.
Using Feedburner I can actually watch to see where the hits come in from around the world.  I keep thinking they should have a graphical representation of how a particular post spreads around the world in real time.

Having become technologically adept at this, I also use Technorati tags to make it easier for people to search topics among the posts I have written. I am particularly interested in people finding my photos and prints for which I do occasionally receive some money.    Actually many of my readers come to me from Google searches. Thinking of Google brings me to why I believe writing about my interests is of value in a world where millions of others are doing the same thing.

It’s not that most of us new online writers are bringing particularly brilliant commentary to the web on critical issues.  More likely than not, we are providing a more personal look at many very ordinary things.  In a larger sense what we are doing is filling in the web of local connections that have somehow been broken by the modern world.

We have become such a mobile and wired society that the default source of information is the web and Google, not your neighbor.  Google by indexing content like mine is providing very important glue for our increasingly impersonal and fractured world.

I have had people moving to the areas that I call home write me and offer thanks for all the local information that I provide.  We have called some restaurants that I have reviewed to be told that we can have our choice of reservations since my posts have sent them so many customers.  There are dangers.  Once a host at a restaurant recognized me and brought me a free deep fried Oreo for dessert.  I would have rather passed on that.

The interaction with small businesses and local people brings a degree of responsibility with it.  I try really hard to be right about what I say so that I do not become just another local booster who can see no wrong.  After all my credibility is at stake.  I have found it is better to say nothing at all, than write a post that will not stand the test of time.

My free writing has given me a new identity along with lots of new friends, who live in places around the world that I will likely never visit except through their written words.

Now that my Fortune 500 business card is gone, it is also nice to have an identity on which to fall back.  The good thing is that my web presence is really me, and not just an adjunct to a carefully controlled corporate image.  I am up there on the web for everyone to see and to try to pick apart if they so choose.

Just surviving that trial by fire has made me a better writer, hopefully a stronger person, and something of an authority in my chosen areas.  If you type a Google search of “Travel Guide, Swansboro, NC,” or “Travel Guide, Beaufort, NC,” you see that I’m top ranked.  If enough of you do a search on “Dippy Egg” and click on my link, Google just might move me ahead of Wikipedia to the number one spot.  I don’t suppose anyone is interested in my article on “The Menhaden saga and limits to growth?”  It’s nice being the authority on something even if it is somewhat obscure.

Fortunately people do not ask what I do with most of my time these days.  It’s one of the benefits of being over fifty-five.  You get a senior discount in the grocery stores, and people assume you do not do anything worthy of much attention.

If they did ask, I would have to say that I spend a lot of time writing without getting paid for doing it.  It seems strange when I actually say it, but I have become an active participant in the great online experiment of posting articles about whatever comes to mind on a given day. Writing about my interests for the web has defined much of my life over the last couple of years since I left Apple Computer.

It seems like only yesterday when I had little idea of what constituted a blog or weblog.  Certainly I was not a technophobe, but even twenty years in the middle of the technology world did not prepare me for the rapid way that communication is changing today.  Yet I have taken to this new online world like a duck to water.

Two years have rolled by since I wrote my first post at “View from the Mountain,” my home blog, I have done over one thousand posts, and earlier last month I hit another homerun.   I define a homerun as a post that draws more than ten thousand visitors to one of my sites in less than twenty-four hours.

Web articles are a viral form of communication.  They often take on a life of their own after you have loosed them on the world.  All it takes for tens of thousands of eyes to see you, is for a site like Digg to pick up your post and have a number of people vote that what you have written is interesting.  Then you are off to the races.  It is not unusual to have a really popular post picked up by other writers in several countries.

My latest successful piece, “Lessons learned from nearly twenty years at Apple,” even brought referrals from a Greek blog and ended up attracting enough attention that Wired Magazine’s “Cult of the Mac Blog,” did a profile with a picture of me.  All of that happened in less than twenty-four hours. Four days later there were still over six thousand people a day reading my posts.

Not only is the success sometimes instant, but the feedback can also be quick with direct comments from all over the world.  The blogging service that I use, Typepad, lets me see what sites are referring others to my site.  Visiting them to see what they have had to say about what I have written is an interesting way of getting feedback. Seeing how others use your words is often just as enlightening as the comments left on my own site.

I also use a company called Feedburner which lets people subscribe to my posts and see them automatically without having to go to my website for each new article. Though it varies from day to day, I have nearly fourteen hundred people subscribed to my two main sites.  It is an interesting feeling knowing that well over a thousand people will likely read any good post that I write.  Usually within five minutes of putting an article on line, I can see people starting to read it.
Using Feedburner I can actually watch to see where the hits come in from around the world.  I keep thinking they should have a graphical representation of how a particular post spreads around the world in real time.

Having become technologically adept at this, I also use Technorati tags to make it easier for people to search topics among the posts I have written. I am particularly interested in people finding my photos and prints for which I do occasionally receive some money.    Actually many of my readers come to me from Google searches. Thinking of Google brings me to why I believe writing about my interests is of value in a world where millions of others are doing the same thing.

It’s not that most of us new online writers are bringing particularly brilliant commentary to the web on critical issues.  More likely than not, we are providing a more personal look at many very ordinary things.  In a larger sense what we are doing is filling in the web of local connections that have somehow been broken by the modern world.

We have become such a mobile and wired society that the default source of information is the web and Google, not your neighbor.  Google by indexing content like mine is providing very important glue for our increasingly impersonal and fractured world.

I have had people moving to the areas that I call home write me and offer thanks for all the local information that I provide.  We have called some restaurants that I have reviewed to be told that we can have our choice of reservations since my posts have sent them so many customers.  There are dangers.  Once a host at a restaurant recognized me and brought me a free deep fried Oreo for dessert.  I would have rather passed on that.

The interaction with small businesses and local people brings a degree of responsibility with it.  I try really hard to be right about what I say so that I do not become just another local booster who can see no wrong.  After all my credibility is at stake.  I have found it is better to say nothing at all, than write a post that will not stand the test of time.

My free writing has given me a new identity along with lots of new friends, who live in places around the world that I will likely never visit except through their written words.

Now that my Fortune 500 business card is gone, it is also nice to have an identity on which to fall back.  The good thing is that my web presence is really me, and not just an adjunct to a carefully controlled corporate image.  I am up there on the web for everyone to see and to try to pick apart if they so choose.

Just surviving that trial by fire has made me a better writer, hopefully a stronger person, and something of an authority in my chosen areas.  If you type a Google search of “Travel Guide, Swansboro, NC,” or “Travel Guide, Beaufort, NC,” you see that I’m top ranked.  If enough of you do a search on “Dippy Egg” and click on my link, Google just might move me ahead of Wikipedia to the number one spot.  I don’t suppose anyone is interested in my article on “The Menhaden saga and limits to growth?”  It’s nice being the authority on something even if it is somewhat obscure.

We were fortunate to be in area for the 2006 edition of the Swansboro flotilla and Christmas tree lighting.  The streets of Swansboro were decorated for the holidays.

There were luminaries all around Front Street and along the shores of the White Oak river.  The weather had a pleasant chill to it, and a wonder crowd had gathered on the shores of the river.

A carriage service was offering horse drawn rides around town.  All the stores were open, and Jana's was even open into the evening. 

It was very pleasant evening as we stood on the shore waiting for the first of the boats decorated with Christmas lights.   It took a while for  the flotilla to appear, but they were well worth the wait.  My vote would have gone to swimming sea turtle.   Unfortunately moving boats in the dark are too much of a challenge for my pocket size Nikon.

I guess the only way to really enjoy the flotilla is to be there.  I understand there will be another one in Morehead City and Beaufort next weekend.  I hope the weather is as good for their event as it was for Swansboro's.

It really was a magical evening.  We finished it off with a delicious seafood dinner at Captain Charlie's.

I can highly recommend the fried oysters.

We were fortunate to be in area for the 2006 edition of the Swansboro flotilla and Christmas tree lighting.  The streets of Swansboro were decorated for the holidays.

There were luminaries all around Front Street and along the shores of the White Oak river.  The weather had a pleasant chill to it, and a wonder crowd had gathered on the shores of the river.

A carriage service was offering horse drawn rides around town.  All the stores were open, and Jana's was even open into the evening. 

It was very pleasant evening as we stood on the shore waiting for the first of the boats decorated with Christmas lights.   It took a while for  the flotilla to appear, but they were well worth the wait.  My vote would have gone to swimming sea turtle.   Unfortunately moving boats in the dark are too much of a challenge for my pocket size Nikon.

I guess the only way to really enjoy the flotilla is to be there.  I understand there will be another one in Morehead City and Beaufort next weekend.  I hope the weather is as good for their event as it was for Swansboro's.

It really was a magical evening.  We finished it off with a delicious seafood dinner at Captain Charlie's.

I can highly recommend the fried oysters.

We were fortunate to be in area for the 2006 edition of the Swansboro flotilla and Christmas tree lighting.  The streets of Swansboro were decorated for the holidays.

There were luminaries all around Front Street and along the shores of the White Oak river.  The weather had a pleasant chill to it, and a wonder crowd had gathered on the shores of the river.

A carriage service was offering horse drawn rides around town.  All the stores were open, and Jana's was even open into the evening. 

It was very pleasant evening as we stood on the shore waiting for the first of the boats decorated with Christmas lights.   It took a while for  the flotilla to appear, but they were well worth the wait.  My vote would have gone to swimming sea turtle.   Unfortunately moving boats in the dark are too much of a challenge for my pocket size Nikon.

I guess the only way to really enjoy the flotilla is to be there.  I understand there will be another one in Morehead City and Beaufort next weekend.  I hope the weather is as good for their event as it was for Swansboro's.

It really was a magical evening.  We finished it off with a delicious seafood dinner at Captain Charlie's.

I can highly recommend the fried oysters.

We were fortunate to be in area for the 2006 edition of the Swansboro flotilla and Christmas tree lighting.  The streets of Swansboro were decorated for the holidays.

There were luminaries all around Front Street and along the shores of the White Oak river.  The weather had a pleasant chill to it, and a wonder crowd had gathered on the shores of the river.

A carriage service was offering horse drawn rides around town.  All the stores were open, and Jana's was even open into the evening. 

It was very pleasant evening as we stood on the shore waiting for the first of the boats decorated with Christmas lights.   It took a while for  the flotilla to appear, but they were well worth the wait.  My vote would have gone to swimming sea turtle.   Unfortunately moving boats in the dark are too much of a challenge for my pocket size Nikon.

I guess the only way to really enjoy the flotilla is to be there.  I understand there will be another one in Morehead City and Beaufort next weekend.  I hope the weather is as good for their event as it was for Swansboro's.

It really was a magical evening.  We finished it off with a delicious seafood dinner at Captain Charlie's.

I can highly recommend the fried oysters.

That strong or irresistible desire to travel must be something that is in your genes.  If that is not the case, then perhaps all those vacations back in my youth, when people actually took two weeks off, instilled a love of travel.  In those days it was the magic of a swimming pool or beach at your door step with restaurant meals instead of home cooked fare. From a very early age, I was in charge of the maps.

That I am one who has wandered far is undeniable.  I was born in North Carolina, went to military high school in Tennessee, college in Massachusetts, and bought an old farm on the shores of Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy. That eventually led to my first career on a wilderness farm north of Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Only marriage stopped me from homesteading in Newfoundland.  I guess for the seventeen years that we have lived in Roanoke, Virginia, the continual trips up Interstate 81 have kept my wanderlust at bay.  Even during those years, I can remember one of my most enjoyable trips being one where I tracked down what at the time was an impossible to find Acura MDX.  Then I flew to Tallahassee to pick it up and then had a leisurely drive up the many back roads to Roanoke.  Now that I rarely travel to Washington, I have spent a lot of time on the North Carolina coast.  However, mostly getting there has involved a lot of Highway 220 and Interstate 40, neither of which is a favorite road of mine.

One of the most recent trips down to the coast happened to coincide with the Durham to Raleigh rush hour which added nearly an hour to our travels.  I swore that I would find a new way.

My next trip I cut off of Route 220 at Ridgeway and followed Route 87 then Route 14 to US 29.  Eventually I crossed Interstate 40 on the east side of Greensboro about an hour and forty five minutes after leaving Roanoke.  I worked my way onto Route 421 and headed to the coast.   I made a short stop in Sanford to visit Chatlee Boat and Marine. (There might just be a post or two on boats soon.)

I picked up Interstate 40 at exit 341 near Newton Grove.  That meant the whole trip of 315 miles only had a little over thirty miles of Interstate travel. Around six o'clock in the evening, I rolled into Swansboro.

The distance traveled was a few miles less.  I did spend some time on two lane roads, but I cut my teeth on the twisting two lane roads in the foothills of the North Carolina mountains so I will take a lightly traveled two lane road over and an overloaded Interstate anytime.   My travel time with the boat shopping removed was shorter than I have ever managed before and that also includes a stop for a few photos.  Then there was the added bonus that my MDX got well over 23 mpg on the trip which was about 2 mpg better than on the Interstate.

You don't get to see many cotton fields when traveling along the Interstates.  Even the ones you see would be pretty hard to capture with a camera.  The trip to the coast with the exception of the Durham-Raleigh area was already more stress free than a ride up truck overloaded Interstate 81 to Washington, DC.  This new route even removes the North Carolina version of Northern Virginia from my path.

On the way I even figured out a few tweaks that I could make to the route to save a few more minutes.  Now that they have started ripping up faulty concrete in Raleigh area, I just might make Route 421 my default way of getting to the Crystal Coast.

I feel lucky to be alive in days of GPS while real maps are still around.  It is hard to get the kind of overall perspective you need from a small GPS screen so I build my trips on a paper map, and then let the GPS guide me most of the time. I don't mind if the GPS gets upset with me if I find a better way. It can still easily get me out of a jam. More than once I have pulled off of Interstate 81 and gotten around a blocked highway with the help of my GPS. 

I find GPS invaluable.  It took me right to Chatlee's doorstep just as it had faithfully directed me to many far more complex locations where I had appointments in my career in federal sales.  I recently read an article by John C. Dvorak.  I might write a response to his article, "Overrated GPS Annoys Dvorak." If I do, I suspect the title will be "Overrated Dvorak Annoys Experienced GPS User."

I am not above asking for directions, but with a map and the great GPS on my Acura MDX, who needs other directions.  It is the perfect combination for a guy with wanderlust in his soul.

More details on GPS in my post, "GPS a great road warrior tool."

That strong or irresistible desire to travel must be something that is in your genes.  If that is not the case, then perhaps all those vacations back in my youth, when people actually took two weeks off, instilled a love of travel.  In those days it was the magic of a swimming pool or beach at your door step with restaurant meals instead of home cooked fare. From a very early age, I was in charge of the maps.

That I am one who has wandered far is undeniable.  I was born in North Carolina, went to military high school in Tennessee, college in Massachusetts, and bought an old farm on the shores of Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy. That eventually led to my first career on a wilderness farm north of Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Only marriage stopped me from homesteading in Newfoundland.  I guess for the seventeen years that we have lived in Roanoke, Virginia, the continual trips up Interstate 81 have kept my wanderlust at bay.  Even during those years, I can remember one of my most enjoyable trips being one where I tracked down what at the time was an impossible to find Acura MDX.  Then I flew to Tallahassee to pick it up and then had a leisurely drive up the many back roads to Roanoke.  Now that I rarely travel to Washington, I have spent a lot of time on the North Carolina coast.  However, mostly getting there has involved a lot of Highway 220 and Interstate 40, neither of which is a favorite road of mine.

One of the most recent trips down to the coast happened to coincide with the Durham to Raleigh rush hour which added nearly an hour to our travels.  I swore that I would find a new way.

My next trip I cut off of Route 220 at Ridgeway and followed Route 87 then Route 14 to US 29.  Eventually I crossed Interstate 40 on the east side of Greensboro about an hour and forty five minutes after leaving Roanoke.  I worked my way onto Route 421 and headed to the coast.   I made a short stop in Sanford to visit Chatlee Boat and Marine. (There might just be a post or two on boats soon.)

I picked up Interstate 40 at exit 341 near Newton Grove.  That meant the whole trip of 315 miles only had a little over thirty miles of Interstate travel. Around six o'clock in the evening, I rolled into Swansboro.

The distance traveled was a few miles less.  I did spend some time on two lane roads, but I cut my teeth on the twisting two lane roads in the foothills of the North Carolina mountains so I will take a lightly traveled two lane road over and an overloaded Interstate anytime.   My travel time with the boat shopping removed was shorter than I have ever managed before and that also includes a stop for a few photos.  Then there was the added bonus that my MDX got well over 23 mpg on the trip which was about 2 mpg better than on the Interstate.

You don't get to see many cotton fields when traveling along the Interstates.  Even the ones you see would be pretty hard to capture with a camera.  The trip to the coast with the exception of the Durham-Raleigh area was already more stress free than a ride up truck overloaded Interstate 81 to Washington, DC.  This new route even removes the North Carolina version of Northern Virginia from my path.

On the way I even figured out a few tweaks that I could make to the route to save a few more minutes.  Now that they have started ripping up faulty concrete in Raleigh area, I just might make Route 421 my default way of getting to the Crystal Coast.

I feel lucky to be alive in days of GPS while real maps are still around.  It is hard to get the kind of overall perspective you need from a small GPS screen so I build my trips on a paper map, and then let the GPS guide me most of the time. I don't mind if the GPS gets upset with me if I find a better way. It can still easily get me out of a jam. More than once I have pulled off of Interstate 81 and gotten around a blocked highway with the help of my GPS. 

I find GPS invaluable.  It took me right to Chatlee's doorstep just as it had faithfully directed me to many far more complex locations where I had appointments in my career in federal sales.  I recently read an article by John C. Dvorak.  I might write a response to his article, "Overrated GPS Annoys Dvorak." If I do, I suspect the title will be "Overrated Dvorak Annoys Experienced GPS User."

I am not above asking for directions, but with a map and the great GPS on my Acura MDX, who needs other directions.  It is the perfect combination for a guy with wanderlust in his soul.

More details on GPS in my post, "GPS a great road warrior tool."

It's all in the neighborhood.  The shot to the right is of some early morning fishermen near the Highway 58 bridge close to Emerald Isle, NC.  They're in a pretty good neighborhood for finding fish.

I just seem to be in good neighborhoods for not having to mow my yard.  I've written about our crew of middle aged mowers on the hill before in "The First Mowing of the Year" and "The Last Mowing," but I haven't mentioned the good luck I've had recently in not having to mow our two yards.

In early September, with some partners we closed on a second home near Swansboro, NC.  That meant that I picked up a second yard which needed mowing not long after closing.  Since we didn't have a lawn mower in Swansboro yet, we arranged for a lawn service to mow the yard.  We were back in Roanoke when they were scheduled to do the first mowing. I was surprised to get a phone call from them.  They said something like, "Did you get someone else to mow your yard?" They had found the yard already mowed when they went out to mow it the first time.

I immediately called the real estate agent and asked if he knew who had mowed the yard.  He said they had been trying to figure out themselves how the yard got mowed.  We were down a couple of weeks later when I was sure that I would find the yard needing another mowing.  It looked like it had just been mowed.  It was then that I decided there must be a lawn fairy in the bushes.

The next morning I saw my new neighbor outside.  It didn't take him long to confess that he instead of a lawn fairy was mowing our yard.  Though he didn't say it, I think he was so glad to have the construction done next to him that mowing seemed like a small price to pay for having a neat yard next door.

You don't find many neighbors like our new neighbor.  He immediately offered to finish out the  mowing season for us since we didn't have a lawn mower at the house yet.  True to form he mowed it again before our next trip down.  Now the centipede lawns in our subdivision on the coast have gone dormant until next spring so I'm completely off the hook.

Of course the lawn in Roanoke is a different story.  I did contract to have it mowed a couple of times and managed to mow a couple of times between the rain storms the last time we were up on the mountain.  As I wrote in the "The mowing countdown," my Canadian psyche has a problem with December mowing which is often required in Roanoke.  Even in Roanoke things usually slow down in October and November, but this year the grass has grown like spring.  It's been a challenge for the middle aged mowers especially considering how much we've all been traveling.

This morning I got pictures in my email from my across the street neighbors of the new "Lawn Doctor" service that was mowing our  yard.  It wasn't exactly what you might think.  It was another neighbor mowing my yard.  Once again I'm off the hook for a while.

All I can say is that I really know how to pick neighbors.  I've lived in lots of spots, but none of them before Roanoke and Swansboro have ever had neighbors who would mow my yard.  As I've often said, neighbors make the neighborhood.

For over fifty years I've been walking the shores of the North Carolina coast.  The beaches like this recent shot of Emerald Isle are often at their nicest in the fall.  The water is still fairly warm, warm enough to go wading anyway, and the crowds are long gone.  My wife, Glenda, loves to look for shells. There are plenty of people who like to take home home shells to remember their great time at the beach.

My favorite way to memorialize a trip to the beach has always been taking home a cooler of fresh seafood.  For one magic summer while I was in college, I alternated camping on the beaches of Ocracoke Island with camping in the National Forests of western North Carolina.  Sometimes I would take the long way home from Ocracoke which as any well versed traveler of Route 12 knows is the Cedar Island Ferry.  I would stop in Morehead City for a meal at Captain Bill's and then fill a cooler full of fresh off of the boats shrimp and head home. I heard a rumor that Captain Bill's was up for sale, but there is no shortage of good places to grab some seafood before you fill your cooler.

Five to six hours after loading the cooler in the car,  I would be cleaning and boiling shrimp for a straight from the sea treat. I'm pretty convinced that most folks think shrimp come from the grocery store.  It has gotten more and more popular to buy your shrimp at the grocery store and have them steamed right there.  I'm no purist but I would rather have my shrimp cooked after they've been cleaned, and grocery stores don't do that.  You may not know the difference because you've never tasted shrimp that have been done right.  It's not that hard, but it does takes some time.

You do need one tool, a Shrimp Deveiner. They usually cost a dollar or two.  The next thing you need is fresh shrimp.  Ideally you try to get your shrimp as close to the boat as possible.  In most cases that means asking around locally to find out the best way to buy your shrimp.  Sometimes you can buy them right off the dock or from people who buy them right off the dock.  The shrimp should be firm and not mushy.

Often the shrimp you buy will have the heads still on the body.  Do yourself a favor and have the folks where you buy the shrimp take the heads off if at all possible.  It seems almost effortless for them, but for normal mortals it's a little more of a challenge.  Take a cooler and ice your shrimp down if possible.  Often the sea food shop will give you enough ice for a small cooler.  The biggest challenge with cleaning shrimp is that it is pretty boring.  We usually order three to four lbs of shrimp, weighed with the heads still on the shrimp.  That's about my limit.  After that I lose interest even if someone is feeding me freshly boiled shrimp.  By the time you take the heads and shells off, four pounds with the heads on are equal to approximately two pounds shelled and raw.

We've had good luck in the Swansboro, NC area buying our shrimp from one of the local institutions, Clyde Phillips Seafood, located between the bridges on Route 24.   Don't expect a lot of conversation, but you can count on fresh seafood and a magic touch for removing shrimp heads.

Learning to use the shrimp deveiner just takes a few shrimp and they don't seem to mind.  I also take out a second smaller bottom vein.  Once you have that mastered, my suggestion is to clean about one half your shrimp and then bring to boil about two to two and one half inches of water in an uncovered twelve inch deep (three quart) skillet.  If you have cleaned your shrimp the way I suggested, they cook without any smell.

My wife, Glenda, says she adds some salt, an amount or pile about the size of a quarter in her palm.  She dumps the shrimp in the boiling water and has a timer running from the minute the shrimp are dumped in the water.  The shrimp cook very quickly and are done in three minutes when they've turned a beautiful pink color.  As soon as they are done, my wife dumps them in a bowl of water filled with ice.

We then fish the shrimp out and let them drain in a collander.  All you have to do then is to put them in bowl or on a platter if they are going to be eaten immediately.  Once you have had real fresh shrimp done right, going back to anything less is tough to do.

I can highly recommend Kelchner's Cocktail sauce.  It does vary a little between batches so I try to be a little forgiving since it is the best I've ever had.

If you want to know more, this link on shrimp is very helpful as is this link on cooking shrimp.

You aren't able to read the sticker in the lower left corner of the left most window at Clyde Phillips, but it says "Friends don't let friends eat imported shrimp."  Just click on the link to the left for a view of the bumper sticker.  If anyone ever tries this shrimp appliance, I would be interested in hearing about it.

For over fifty years I've been walking the shores of the North Carolina coast.  The beaches like this recent shot of Emerald Isle are often at their nicest in the fall.  The water is still fairly warm, warm enough to go wading anyway, and the crowds are long gone.  My wife, Glenda, loves to look for shells. There are plenty of people who like to take home home shells to remember their great time at the beach.

My favorite way to memorialize a trip to the beach has always been taking home a cooler of fresh seafood.  For one magic summer while I was in college, I alternated camping on the beaches of Ocracoke Island with camping in the National Forests of western North Carolina.  Sometimes I would take the long way home from Ocracoke which as any well versed traveler of Route 12 knows is the Cedar Island Ferry.  I would stop in Morehead City for a meal at Captain Bill's and then fill a cooler full of fresh off of the boats shrimp and head home. I heard a rumor that Captain Bill's was up for sale, but there is no shortage of good places to grab some seafood before you fill your cooler.

Five to six hours after loading the cooler in the car,  I would be cleaning and boiling shrimp for a straight from the sea treat. I'm pretty convinced that most folks think shrimp come from the grocery store.  It has gotten more and more popular to buy your shrimp at the grocery store and have them steamed right there.  I'm no purist but I would rather have my shrimp cooked after they've been cleaned, and grocery stores don't do that.  You may not know the difference because you've never tasted shrimp that have been done right.  It's not that hard, but it does takes some time.

You do need one tool, a Shrimp Deveiner. They usually cost a dollar or two.  The next thing you need is fresh shrimp.  Ideally you try to get your shrimp as close to the boat as possible.  In most cases that means asking around locally to find out the best way to buy your shrimp.  Sometimes you can buy them right off the dock or from people who buy them right off the dock.  The shrimp should be firm and not mushy.

Often the shrimp you buy will have the heads still on the body.  Do yourself a favor and have the folks where you buy the shrimp take the heads off if at all possible.  It seems almost effortless for them, but for normal mortals it's a little more of a challenge.  Take a cooler and ice your shrimp down if possible.  Often the sea food shop will give you enough ice for a small cooler.  The biggest challenge with cleaning shrimp is that it is pretty boring.  We usually order three to four lbs of shrimp, weighed with the heads still on the shrimp.  That's about my limit.  After that I lose interest even if someone is feeding me freshly boiled shrimp.  By the time you take the heads and shells off, four pounds with the heads on are equal to approximately two pounds shelled and raw.

We've had good luck in the Swansboro, NC area buying our shrimp from one of the local institutions, Clyde Phillips Seafood, located between the bridges on Route 24.   Don't expect a lot of conversation, but you can count on fresh seafood and a magic touch for removing shrimp heads.

Learning to use the shrimp deveiner just takes a few shrimp and they don't seem to mind.  I also take out a second smaller bottom vein.  Once you have that mastered, my suggestion is to clean about one half your shrimp and then bring to boil about two to two and one half inches of water in an uncovered twelve inch deep (three quart) skillet.  If you have cleaned your shrimp the way I suggested, they cook without any smell.

My wife, Glenda, says she adds some salt, an amount or pile about the size of a quarter in her palm.  She dumps the shrimp in the boiling water and has a timer running from the minute the shrimp are dumped in the water.  The shrimp cook very quickly and are done in three minutes when they've turned a beautiful pink color.  As soon as they are done, my wife dumps them in a bowl of water filled with ice.

We then fish the shrimp out and let them drain in a collander.  All you have to do then is to put them in bowl or on a platter if they are going to be eaten immediately.  Once you have had real fresh shrimp done right, going back to anything less is tough to do.

I can highly recommend Kelchner's Cocktail sauce.  It does vary a little between batches so I try to be a little forgiving since it is the best I've ever had.

If you want to know more, this link on shrimp is very helpful as is this link on cooking shrimp.

You aren't able to read the sticker in the lower left corner of the left most window at Clyde Phillips, but it says "Friends don't let friends eat imported shrimp."  Just click on the link to the left for a view of the bumper sticker.  If anyone ever tries this shrimp appliance, I would be interested in hearing about it.

For over fifty years I've been walking the shores of the North Carolina coast.  The beaches like this recent shot of Emerald Isle are often at their nicest in the fall.  The water is still fairly warm, warm enough to go wading anyway, and the crowds are long gone.  My wife, Glenda, loves to look for shells. There are plenty of people who like to take home home shells to remember their great time at the beach.

My favorite way to memorialize a trip to the beach has always been taking home a cooler of fresh seafood.  For one magic summer while I was in college, I alternated camping on the beaches of Ocracoke Island with camping in the National Forests of western North Carolina.  Sometimes I would take the long way home from Ocracoke which as any well versed traveler of Route 12 knows is the Cedar Island Ferry.  I would stop in Morehead City for a meal at Captain Bill's and then fill a cooler full of fresh off of the boats shrimp and head home. I heard a rumor that Captain Bill's was up for sale, but there is no shortage of good places to grab some seafood before you fill your cooler.

Five to six hours after loading the cooler in the car,  I would be cleaning and boiling shrimp for a straight from the sea treat. I'm pretty convinced that most folks think shrimp come from the grocery store.  It has gotten more and more popular to buy your shrimp at the grocery store and have them steamed right there.  I'm no purist but I would rather have my shrimp cooked after they've been cleaned, and grocery stores don't do that.  You may not know the difference because you've never tasted shrimp that have been done right.  It's not that hard, but it does takes some time.

You do need one tool, a Shrimp Deveiner. They usually cost a dollar or two.  The next thing you need is fresh shrimp.  Ideally you try to get your shrimp as close to the boat as possible.  In most cases that means asking around locally to find out the best way to buy your shrimp.  Sometimes you can buy them right off the dock or from people who buy them right off the dock.  The shrimp should be firm and not mushy.

Often the shrimp you buy will have the heads still on the body.  Do yourself a favor and have the folks where you buy the shrimp take the heads off if at all possible.  It seems almost effortless for them, but for normal mortals it's a little more of a challenge.  Take a cooler and ice your shrimp down if possible.  Often the sea food shop will give you enough ice for a small cooler.  The biggest challenge with cleaning shrimp is that it is pretty boring.  We usually order three to four lbs of shrimp, weighed with the heads still on the shrimp.  That's about my limit.  After that I lose interest even if someone is feeding me freshly boiled shrimp.  By the time you take the heads and shells off, four pounds with the heads on are equal to approximately two pounds shelled and raw.

We've had good luck in the Swansboro, NC area buying our shrimp from one of the local institutions, Clyde Phillips Seafood, located between the bridges on Route 24.   Don't expect a lot of conversation, but you can count on fresh seafood and a magic touch for removing shrimp heads.

Learning to use the shrimp deveiner just takes a few shrimp and they don't seem to mind.  I also take out a second smaller bottom vein.  Once you have that mastered, my suggestion is to clean about one half your shrimp and then bring to boil about two to two and one half inches of water in an uncovered twelve inch deep (three quart) skillet.  If you have cleaned your shrimp the way I suggested, they cook without any smell.

My wife, Glenda, says she adds some salt, an amount or pile about the size of a quarter in her palm.  She dumps the shrimp in the boiling water and has a timer running from the minute the shrimp are dumped in the water.  The shrimp cook very quickly and are done in three minutes when they've turned a beautiful pink color.  As soon as they are done, my wife dumps them in a bowl of water filled with ice.

We then fish the shrimp out and let them drain in a collander.  All you have to do then is to put them in bowl or on a platter if they are going to be eaten immediately.  Once you have had real fresh shrimp done right, going back to anything less is tough to do.

I can highly recommend Kelchner's Cocktail sauce.  It does vary a little between batches so I try to be a little forgiving since it is the best I've ever had.

If you want to know more, this link on shrimp is very helpful as is this link on cooking shrimp.

You aren't able to read the sticker in the lower left corner of the left most window at Clyde Phillips, but it says "Friends don't let friends eat imported shrimp."  Just click on the link to the left for a view of the bumper sticker.  If anyone ever tries this shrimp appliance, I would be interested in hearing about it.

For over fifty years I've been walking the shores of the North Carolina coast.  The beaches like this recent shot of Emerald Isle are often at their nicest in the fall.  The water is still fairly warm, warm enough to go wading anyway, and the crowds are long gone.  My wife, Glenda, loves to look for shells. There are plenty of people who like to take home home shells to remember their great time at the beach.

My favorite way to memorialize a trip to the beach has always been taking home a cooler of fresh seafood.  For one magic summer while I was in college, I alternated camping on the beaches of Ocracoke Island with camping in the National Forests of western North Carolina.  Sometimes I would take the long way home from Ocracoke which as any well versed traveler of Route 12 knows is the Cedar Island Ferry.  I would stop in Morehead City for a meal at Captain Bill's and then fill a cooler full of fresh off of the boats shrimp and head home. I heard a rumor that Captain Bill's was up for sale, but there is no shortage of good places to grab some seafood before you fill your cooler.

Five to six hours after loading the cooler in the car,  I would be cleaning and boiling shrimp for a straight from the sea treat. I'm pretty convinced that most folks think shrimp come from the grocery store.  It has gotten more and more popular to buy your shrimp at the grocery store and have them steamed right there.  I'm no purist but I would rather have my shrimp cooked after they've been cleaned, and grocery stores don't do that.  You may not know the difference because you've never tasted shrimp that have been done right.  It's not that hard, but it does takes some time.

You do need one tool, a Shrimp Deveiner. They usually cost a dollar or two.  The next thing you need is fresh shrimp.  Ideally you try to get your shrimp as close to the boat as possible.  In most cases that means asking around locally to find out the best way to buy your shrimp.  Sometimes you can buy them right off the dock or from people who buy them right off the dock.  The shrimp should be firm and not mushy.

Often the shrimp you buy will have the heads still on the body.  Do yourself a favor and have the folks where you buy the shrimp take the heads off if at all possible.  It seems almost effortless for them, but for normal mortals it's a little more of a challenge.  Take a cooler and ice your shrimp down if possible.  Often the sea food shop will give you enough ice for a small cooler.  The biggest challenge with cleaning shrimp is that it is pretty boring.  We usually order three to four lbs of shrimp, weighed with the heads still on the shrimp.  That's about my limit.  After that I lose interest even if someone is feeding me freshly boiled shrimp.  By the time you take the heads and shells off, four pounds with the heads on are equal to approximately two pounds shelled and raw.

We've had good luck in the Swansboro, NC area buying our shrimp from one of the local institutions, Clyde Phillips Seafood, located between the bridges on Route 24.   Don't expect a lot of conversation, but you can count on fresh seafood and a magic touch for removing shrimp heads.

Learning to use the shrimp deveiner just takes a few shrimp and they don't seem to mind.  I also take out a second smaller bottom vein.  Once you have that mastered, my suggestion is to clean about one half your shrimp and then bring to boil about two to two and one half inches of water in an uncovered twelve inch deep (three quart) skillet.  If you have cleaned your shrimp the way I suggested, they cook without any smell.

My wife, Glenda, says she adds some salt, an amount or pile about the size of a quarter in her palm.  She dumps the shrimp in the boiling water and has a timer running from the minute the shrimp are dumped in the water.  The shrimp cook very quickly and are done in three minutes when they've turned a beautiful pink color.  As soon as they are done, my wife dumps them in a bowl of water filled with ice.

We then fish the shrimp out and let them drain in a collander.  All you have to do then is to put them in bowl or on a platter if they are going to be eaten immediately.  Once you have had real fresh shrimp done right, going back to anything less is tough to do.

I can highly recommend Kelchner's Cocktail sauce.  It does vary a little between batches so I try to be a little forgiving since it is the best I've ever had.

If you want to know more, this link on shrimp is very helpful as is this link on cooking shrimp.

You aren't able to read the sticker in the lower left corner of the left most window at Clyde Phillips, but it says "Friends don't let friends eat imported shrimp."  Just click on the link to the left for a view of the bumper sticker.  If anyone ever tries this shrimp appliance, I would be interested in hearing about it.

Going out to eat breakfast is one of our favorite things to do when we're relaxing.  Not having to clean up after an early morning meal is a special treat.

The challenge is always getting the ladies up and out the door before the morning is too far gone which I consider to be 8:30 am.  Yana's is located at 119 Front Street in Swansboro along North Carolina's Crystal Coast.

I managed to get the family over to Swansboro by slightly after 9 am which worked out fine since the middle of the week during the last of October isn't exactly high season here at the beach.  Getting to Yana's relatively early can be very important during the summer or even on the weekends during the winter.  Last weekend we waited thirty minutes for a table on Sunday morning.

However, if you want a delicious breakfast, the wait is worth it.  There are usually a couple of gift stores nearby that are open so it's fairly easy to entertain the ladies for a few minutes.

Since we were early for mid-week, we walked right in and had a choice of table or booth.  Jana's is a little crowded, but it's also very efficient.  The waitresses appear to really know what they are doing and all the food we've eaten has been very well prepared.  The most recent trip, I had country ham and eggs with home fries and a biscuit.  My wife, Glenda, had scrambled eggs and grits with a biscuit, and my oldest daughter, Erin, enjoyed a plate of pancakes with some country ham.

The meal was very reasonably priced.  With three beverages and tax but before tip, the total was twenty three dollars and a little change.  Jana's is definitely in the holiday mood with some great Halloween decorations, I'm told the ladies bathroom features a talking Elvis. Be sure not to miss that.

It's hard to fault a restaurant with delicious food where one of the town Cats, Morris, greets you just outside the door.  Yana's is open for breakfast and lunch.  Their menu is on line at this link.  You can call them at (910) 326-5501.

After breakfast, we hit the Swansboro shops until I protested loudly enough to be allowed to go take a nap in the car.

When the ladies were done shopping we drove across the bridge from Cape Cateret/Cedar Point to Emerald Isle.  Based on the number of boats anchored along the Inter Coastal Waterway, I believe the fish must be biting.

So if you haven't had a trip to the beach this year, now is a great time to come.  The crowds and heat are gone.  The fish and cool weather are here along with those of us who can't get enough of the beach.

Going out to eat breakfast is one of our favorite things to do when we're relaxing.  Not having to clean up after an early morning meal is a special treat.

The challenge is always getting the ladies up and out the door before the morning is too far gone which I consider to be 8:30 am.  Yana's is located at 119 Front Street in Swansboro along North Carolina's Crystal Coast.

I managed to get the family over to Swansboro by slightly after 9 am which worked out fine since the middle of the week during the last of October isn't exactly high season here at the beach.  Getting to Yana's relatively early can be very important during the summer or even on the weekends during the winter.  Last weekend we waited thirty minutes for a table on Sunday morning.

However, if you want a delicious breakfast, the wait is worth it.  There are usually a couple of gift stores nearby that are open so it's fairly easy to entertain the ladies for a few minutes.

Since we were early for mid-week, we walked right in and had a choice of table or booth.  Jana's is a little crowded, but it's also very efficient.  The waitresses appear to really know what they are doing and all the food we've eaten has been very well prepared.  The most recent trip, I had country ham and eggs with home fries and a biscuit.  My wife, Glenda, had scrambled eggs and grits with a biscuit, and my oldest daughter, Erin, enjoyed a plate of pancakes with some country ham.

The meal was very reasonably priced.  With three beverages and tax but before tip, the total was twenty three dollars and a little change.  Jana's is definitely in the holiday mood with some great Halloween decorations, I'm told the ladies bathroom features a talking Elvis. Be sure not to miss that.

It's hard to fault a restaurant with delicious food where one of the town Cats, Morris, greets you just outside the door.  Yana's is open for breakfast and lunch.  Their menu is on line at this link.  You can call them at (910) 326-5501.

After breakfast, we hit the Swansboro shops until I protested loudly enough to be allowed to go take a nap in the car.

When the ladies were done shopping we drove across the bridge from Cape Cateret/Cedar Point to Emerald Isle.  Based on the number of boats anchored along the Inter Coastal Waterway, I believe the fish must be biting.

So if you haven't had a trip to the beach this year, now is a great time to come.  The crowds and heat are gone.  The fish and cool weather are here along with those of us who can't get enough of the beach.

Going out to eat breakfast is one of our favorite things to do when we're relaxing.  Not having to clean up after an early morning meal is a special treat.

The challenge is always getting the ladies up and out the door before the morning is too far gone which I consider to be 8:30 am.  Yana's is located at 119 Front Street in Swansboro along North Carolina's Crystal Coast.

I managed to get the family over to Swansboro by slightly after 9 am which worked out fine since the middle of the week during the last of October isn't exactly high season here at the beach.  Getting to Yana's relatively early can be very important during the summer or even on the weekends during the winter.  Last weekend we waited thirty minutes for a table on Sunday morning.

However, if you want a delicious breakfast, the wait is worth it.  There are usually a couple of gift stores nearby that are open so it's fairly easy to entertain the ladies for a few minutes.

Since we were early for mid-week, we walked right in and had a choice of table or booth.  Jana's is a little crowded, but it's also very efficient.  The waitresses appear to really know what they are doing and all the food we've eaten has been very well prepared.  The most recent trip, I had country ham and eggs with home fries and a biscuit.  My wife, Glenda, had scrambled eggs and grits with a biscuit, and my oldest daughter, Erin, enjoyed a plate of pancakes with some country ham.

The meal was very reasonably priced.  With three beverages and tax but before tip, the total was twenty three dollars and a little change.  Jana's is definitely in the holiday mood with some great Halloween decorations, I'm told the ladies bathroom features a talking Elvis. Be sure not to miss that.

It's hard to fault a restaurant with delicious food where one of the town Cats, Morris, greets you just outside the door.  Yana's is open for breakfast and lunch.  Their menu is on line at this link.  You can call them at (910) 326-5501.

After breakfast, we hit the Swansboro shops until I protested loudly enough to be allowed to go take a nap in the car.

When the ladies were done shopping we drove across the bridge from Cape Cateret/Cedar Point to Emerald Isle.  Based on the number of boats anchored along the Inter Coastal Waterway, I believe the fish must be biting.

So if you haven't had a trip to the beach this year, now is a great time to come.  The crowds and heat are gone.  The fish and cool weather are here along with those of us who can't get enough of the beach.

One of the neat things about the North Carolina's Crystal Coast is that everyone has a favorite restaurant and they're all different.  One of our neighbors had mentioned to me a while back that the Red Barn Grill in Hubert, NC was a great spot to get reasonably priced, very fresh seafood. He had described the directions from the gate at Camp Lejeune.

On one of our recent trips to Swansboro, I saw a sign for Route 172 which leads through Camp Lejeune.  On a whim we decided to see if we could find the Red Barn Grill since it was after 5 pm.  Since the roads didn't look like my neighbor's description, we stopped at Camp Lejeune's gate and asked directions from a youthful and clean cut Marine.  He had never heard of the Red Barn Grill, but on his advice we headed bad towards Route 24.

It was then I decided to try my favorite gadget on what I had at one time labeled "my new portable computer" which turns out to be my heavily computerized Acura MDX.  That  favorite device would be my GPS which I often describe as  a "Great Road Warrior tool." On the trip down from Roanoke to Swansboro I had discovered a neat feature which actually tells you the names of the services at a particular Interstate exit.  It also will list restaurants ranked by distance in an area where you're traveling. 

We've used that feature successfully before on trips to the NC coast when the hunger for barbecue struck us. Since we were a few miles from any known restaurant, I guessed that the GPS would have a listing for the Red Barn Grill.  A few taps on the touch sensitive screen and my guess was proven correct.  Without even slowing down or changing direction, we were off on a culinary adventure.  The GPS had also shown the distance to the Red Barn Grill as eleven miles so the trip was going to be short.

In just a few minutes we were pulling up in front of the restaurant where I noticed a hand lettered sign that said "Fresh Local Oysters."  I was sold immediately, and we started walking towards the building.  It was pretty obvious from the GPS that we were at the end of the road and a later look at another map confirmed it.

Once inside, we eventually figured out that you needed to order at the counter and then go wait at your table for your food in what appeared to be a converted general store.  Of course I went for the fried oysters, and my wife, Glenda, decided to try the flounder fillet.  It wasn't long before our food arrived.  It was fresh, tasty, and came with the fried seafood restaurant standard of "fries, slaw, and hush puppies."  The oysters were small but very good.  Glenda opined that her flounder hadn't been out of the water very long.  It was a very good meal at a reasonable price and was even served on a red-checkered table cloth.  The hush puppies were better than average but not up to the standard of the Sobotta Family Hush Puppies.

Of course it is pretty hard to beat home cooking, and I still favor fresh caught flounder either from the local sea food market or my own hook and line.  That way I can do my own cooking and end up with what something really special, "A Southern delicacy, pan fried flounder."

However, don't let that stop you from trying the Red Barn Grill in Hubert. It's a interesting experience with good seafood.  The other food must be pretty good also since they were out of their spaghetti special before 5:30 pm.  They also seem to be open for breakfast, but it's a little far us to give that a try. 

We didn't have great cell phone coverage in the area so if you're calling for directions, do it before you get on the road.  Their phone number is (910) 326-1163.  The address for the Red Barn Grill is 101 Red Barn Rd, Hubert, NC.

One other note, if you're out shopping for an auto GPS, they are not all created equal.  I find the one on our Toyota Avalon to be of limited usefulness while the one on our Acura MDX is something that I use all the time.  The rule for GPSs would be try before you buy.