After spending the week on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and not seeing any horses (Insert Sad Face), it was time to leave the coast and head inland with a final destination of Shenandoah National Park.  I had a few days to kill before that so I picked a spot on the map and began my adventure.

As the coast disappeared in the rear view mirror, we found ourselves traveling on endless miles of two lane highways surrounded by forests, farms or corn crops. Towns popped up but as quickly as I hit the gas station within them, they were gone, population 100.  So far, Virginia is very rural, much more than I imagined.

After getting turned down by a full campground at Lake Anna, we headed toward plan B, thanks to our handy Roadtripper app. Bear Creek Lake Campground would only be an additional hour drive, the wrong direction but it worked out and they had plenty of space. Only downfall with this type of spontaneous traveling are full campgrounds on Friday and Saturday nights (Dang you rest of the public for taking advantage of the weekends!). But so far, it always seems to work out one way or another.

Driving from my campground to find some lunch today, I stumbled upon Farmville. Don’t let the name fool you. In fact, it’s like time traveling back to a simpler time where the barber shop, the pharmacy, the tailor and the diner are all on the same block. Expecting vintage cars to line the block and “Rock around the Clock” to be playing in the diner, I quickly snapped out of it as the swarm of college kids arriving for their first week of school walked by me. Farmville, Virginia is apparently the first city in America with two colleges although I did only find one. But it is exactly what you are picturing with the antique storefronts, the brick buildings and vintage light posts every 50 feet. As I sat at the table on the sidewalk outside of the cafe imagining how amazing their 4th of July parades must be, smiling locals walked by, “Hi there ma’am,” “Awe cute dog,” “Glad you are not eating alone.” It was sweet and reminiscent of Back to The Future when Marty goes back to 1955.  

One of my favorite parts about traveling like this, without an agenda and just a direction, is getting to see parts of the country that I would otherwise not.

Like Farmville.