May I say, Welcome to Virginia.
Some notes on our idiosyncratic nature:
Northern Virginia and the rest of the state are not the same thing.
Virginia has an ego the size of Texas's. It's just not so loudly expressed.
Thomas Jefferson and Robert E. Lee are both considered near-gods. Learn all you can about both to accelerate your aclimatization to the state. They embodied much of what we think makes it special.
We tend to be really proud of our history, our wine (Now don't get all Californian on us and complain about the high acid content either. It's "character".), our horses, our produce, our landscapes, and above all, our status as Virginians.
We all know that the Civil war would have ended before it began if Virginia hadn't carried the south, but we're too polite to mention it very often.
We're firmly convinced that the same was probably true for the Revolution.
We think the Chesapeake Bay produces the world's finest seafood. And we're right.
Our "hillbillies" make hand carved wooden dulcimers, furniture, fiddles, rifle stocks that sell for 10's of thousands of dollars.
I hear they also make some of the best shine in the business, but you'll have to be here for a long time before anybody'll sell some to you.
I've been here all my life, and I still haven't found any. If it weren't a sacrelige to say it, I'd think the revenuers must've got all the stills out there.
"White Water" is the foam coming off the beer you crack open as you drift slowly northward in your inner tube on the Shenendoah. (Watch the rocks in dry years!)
Go ahead and buy land. Just do it really far out from the DC area. You'll be able to put a hunting cabin on it, retire, and wait for Urban Sprawl to make you a millionaire.
The Dulles Corridor (the area along the toll road from the airport to DC) is unofficially known as Silicon Valley, East. It has literally anything you would ever want, and probably within 30 miles. You just have to pay through the nose for it.
Climate:
Winter: Stay off the roads unless it's sunny and dry. Locals become idiots when it rains. Don't ask about snow, and don't even go out doors when the freezing rain starts. Hunting Season!
Spring: Watch out for flash floods, and as usual, stay off the roads when it rains. Pretty, cool, etc. Check out the horse country around Middleburg. Spring trophy Rockfish season on the bay!
Summer: One word: Humidity. Most of us go to the bay or the ocean to swim, eat crabs, or sail a boat around. Those near the river go tubing. Cook something on the grill.
Autumn: Everybody heads for the blue ridge to watch the leaves turn colors, eat pumpkin pie, take winery tours and hay rides. Most towns have some sort of fair going on. The Rockfish return to the Bay! This is our best time.
Enjoy!
