Or at least, very little. This group down here this year is again myself, my brother, and Tev & Lisa (my brother’s roommate/lifelong buddy & his wife). Tev commented when we went to dinner last night that he was pretty sure the hostess was the same one here last year - I wouldn’t doubt it for a second.
I’ve been coming down here since 1993, missing 2001/2/3 &4. Even with that gap, very little has changed over time. North of Sanderling (where I was in ‘93), there are more houses, and a couple shopping centers. There is even a very nice Harris Teeter up there, and they seem to be bound and determined to give the Food Lion a run for it’s money. But then again, even the Food Lion is somewhat recent - the first time I was down here, the most “accessible” market was a little 7-11 type place referred to as the “Super-ette”. Sadly, the “Food-A-Rama” left sometime in the past 5 years. It was always a bit on the sketchy side to say the least, though, and I can’t help but think those working there were able to get work at Food Lion, and the locals probably liked a less scary place to shop for groceries.
Other than the development up north, which seems to be fairly controlled, not much else has changed in the past 13 years, which is comforting. Our favorite restaurants are still here (but then again, bad restaurants don’t last down here), 1 preferred surf shop has disappeared (owners retired), two new hotels have cropped up (one on an existing site that was torn down, another up north), a new surf shop has opened on the bypass, one (crappy) chain beach shop has opened in Duck, and that’s about it. Southern Shores has it’s big “commercial area” of a half dozen shops at the corner of 158 & 12, which was empty anyway, and has a restaurant, a yarn/knitting shop, a fabric shop, a hairdresser, and a couple other small shops in it.
My friend Tom who used to live in the DC area came and visited last month. It’s a been between 18 months and 2 years since he’d been in the area. Everywhere he turned it seemed he was saying, “That wasn’t here before!” I was prepared for that reaction at every turn when we arrived last year with the oh too long gap in visits and was very pleasantly surprised and comforted by the lack of massive change.
In many ways, change is good. In many other ways, lack of change is just as good.
