exploring va and md

For New Year's Day (and the 2nd), we decided to explore some small town VA and MD, do some caching, hit up the outlet mall in Leesburg, and run at least one errand.

We started with a trip to Middleburg, VA, a town that we've driven through several times on various wine tours. It's a great little town but unfortunately a lot of places were closed because it was New Year's Day. But we were able to get a nice lunch, stop in a cute bookstore, and find our first cache of the day.

Next we headed off to complete our errand - a stop at Barrel Oak Winery for a few bottles of wine. The snow from mid-December was still lingering out there.

After a few more caches - the goal being to find caches in new counties - we hit up Leesburg outlets where we were able to claim sign confusion and get 2 pairs of Oakleys for the price of one. Score!

a few shots from some Faquier County caches.

We wanted to grab dinner but from past experience, we know better than to try and eat anywhere in the vicinity of Leesburg Outlets so we headed out towards Winchester where we were staying the night. We figured we would just find something along the way. And did we ever.

We drove around Purcellville looking for some place only to come across a fantastic restaurant at the end of the Washington and Old Dominion Trail - Magnolias. Not what we were expecting to find in small town VA. It was a fantastic restaurant. The food was great, the beer and wine list awesome, and it was just cool.

Magnolias

the toe socks I'd gotten for Christmas

The next day we did some more caching before crossing into MD to continue caching - this time working for new Delorme pages.

A cache along the old National Highway



MD Cache Across America

Eventually we made it to Thurmont to meet up with one of Will's co-workers and family for dinner.