Today is the first day of A’s spring break. Unlike the last two years, we opted to give the budget a rest and have a staycation. I thought of spending a couple days in Richmond and knocking out half a dozen state parks for our Trail Quest program. But a week or so before break started, I still hadn’t decided on a hotel or mustered much enthusiasm.
Plus A decided at the last minute that he’d like to register for soccer again this season, and they always schedule soccer practice during spring break for some crazy reason. So he wanted to stay and play, and I was more than happy to accommodate. The idea of sleeping in for a week was enough cause for celebration.
But I didn’t want him to be bored, so I scoped out a couple parks to hit in our area. Today’s park was Sweet Run State Park, which is in the top left corner of Virginia a few miles from Harper’s Ferry. Unlike the state parks that we visited previously, this one was completely free with two small parking areas.
The park itself is a new park, dedicated by the governor back in October of last year and covers about 884 acres. I’ve been using AllTrails.com to check out the park trails before we arrive, so I know how long and how difficult they are ahead of time.
There were three main trails listed on AllTrails that were accessible from the main entrance. The free map we picked up showed that there were also two other parking locations and a total of 11 trails.
I chose the Farmstead Loop, which was 1.4 miles with moderate difficulty. There was a bit of a hill to climb over at the beginning that got me breathing quite heavily. But the rest was pretty easy. It rained a couple days ago, so there were a few muddy spots, but nothing that our sneakers couldn’t handle.
We passed three abandoned buildings along the way that were the namesake farmsteads. The Virginia State Parks website said, “Beginning in the late 1700s, a collection of settlers comprised what became known as the ‘Waters’ community centered around the confluence of Piney and Sweet Runs.
“These settlers farmed the land for subsistence until more significant roadways, canals and railroads along the nearby Potomac River provided opportunities for the production, transport, and sale of cash crops such as wheat and corn. In addition to farming, local residents forested the Blue Ridge for lumber and charcoal. This was to supply the forges and factories comprising the federal armory in nearby Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia).”
It was pretty quiet starting out. We’d arrived around 1:00pm and there were three or four other cars in the parking lot. We passed one woman with a dog and that was about it for the first half hour. With winter ending, I hoped we wouldn’t run into any black bears emerging from hibernation as I’m not really in running condition these days. But the only wildlife we came across were birds and a couple butterflies.
About three quarters of the way around the loop there was a new wooden bridge that crossed a lovely section of Piney Run, which is a tributary of the Potomac River. After that we were in the home stretch. We ran into a few more people starting the trail and then we were back at the car.
I thought it was a lovely park, and I was happy that it was starting to pick up a bit of spring green. A wasn’t particularly impressed though. I asked him what he thought afterward, and he said it wasn’t very pretty…that it was “mostly sticks”. I actually like a bit of visibility compared to hacking your way through the undergrowth in the summer. But each to their own.
Our other mission on this trip had been to find pie. The first time we’d driven out this way on our visit to Harper’s Ferry in 2021, we’d passed a cute little pie shop. And I told myself…ooo! We’ll have to stop there on the way home. But Google Maps took us home a different way and we never saw it.
I kept an eye out for it this time but missed it again. When we got to the tiny town of Hillsboro Gap, we stopped at the Stoneybrook Farm and Market, but they were out of pie. Hillsboro Gap is super cute by the way with little shops and stone houses that straddle Virginia State Route 9, which itself leads through a beautiful valley full of vineyards and wineries. But I digress…
Since we didn’t get pie before the park, I made a point of searching on the phone before we picked our route home…and decided on Mom’s Apple Pie Company in Leesburg…where we hit the jackpot.
It was a tiny little one-room shop. But it had two full racks with over a dozen different kinds of pies available whole or sliced. I chose a piece of Key Lime Meringue and a piece of Strawberry Rhubarb. And A chose two pieces of Lemon Meringue.
I was hoping for a bit of a cafe atmosphere where we could sit and enjoy the pies…maybe with a scoop of ice cream and a cappuccino. But there were no tables and certainly not enough room to stand and eat them. But there was a low brick wall next to where we’d parked the car. So we sat in the sun near a tree planted in the median and happily ate our pies with plastic forks. 🙂
In-Flight Movie - DC Edition 