In the second of our installments explaining the wonders of Reston, we look to our friendly neighbor to the west, Herndon. An honest-to-goodness town with its own mayor and police and stuff that are apparently the envy of our Pinocchios who want to be real boys, it's clearly different. Drive under the Fairfax County Parkway, and Baron Cameron road becomes Elden Street. And there's more! Mauve earth tones give way to regular strip malls and subdivisions! They have 7-11s! And a non-fake downtown! And an interesting political climate!
Clearly, Herndon is the anti-Reston(tm), though in truth you're more likely to see Evil Spock-style goatees in Reston(tm). But in case you're confused, this handy chart should help:
| RESTON | HERNDON |
| Target | Kmart |
| Fake downtown | Real downtown |
| Named after real estate developer | Named after 1850s seafarin' captain |
| Declining real estate values | Lack of access to seaport |
| Elitists | Rednecks |
| Design Review Board | Minutemen |
| Five Guys | Five Guys |
| Winged Foot Ct | Alabama St |
| Thrush Ridge Ct | Alabama St |
| Hunting Horn Ln | Alabama St |
| Spyglass Cover Ln | Alabama St |
| Coldplay | Alabama |
10 comments:
The truly dumbest thing about Reston are teh road names: Temporary, Sunvalley Rise, Sunset Hills, whatever. What possesed whom to do that?!
I agree with the dumb names. I mean, I've lived here for 20+ years. I drive from one end of Hunter Mill Rd. to the other end almost daily. And I *still* can't remember if Hunter Mill Road turns into Sunrise Valley or Sunset Hills. And Alabama St (Rd?) in Herndon - come on, it's not THAT big! We also have Grant Rd., Dranesville Rd., Grace St., Station St., Kingstream, Kingsvale, Parkstream Terr, Spring St....
I like the street names in Reston. They remind me of the names on cheap merlot bottles.
Jeez Lu-eez. If you're going to rag on the place, get it right. It's not "Alabama St." It's "Alabama Dr."
The restaurant shouldn't be "Five Guys". It should be "Pollo Campero".
And the indigenous population of Herndon is "Illegalitos". "Rednecks" is so 1980's.
Not to burst your bubble, but most of Herndon's "real" downtown was a tire yard and a cement factory when I was growing up.
I miss your parenthetical after "rednecks" under the Herndon column...it was clever. Please put it back in.
Not sure when Anonymous (4/26/09) grew up, but down town Herndon was originally an important train stop surrounded by businesses and wealthy Herndonite homes, while Reston was still a giant cow pasture. (OK, so was everything else outside of the town was farm land or cow pastures too, but so what?) P.S. Cpt. Herndon died making sure everyone was safely off his sinking ship. Please be gentle with his name.
I would love love to read and learn more about Cpt. Herndon. Wow - what a story! Thank you for sharing that, Mike!
Except Capt. Herndon had nothing at all to do with the town of Herndon. No connection whatsoever. But it was nice of them to want to honor his name.
Reston has at least two 7-11s that I know of, but they're really, really small, so maybe they don't count . . . :)
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