The area
Central to more than you would expect
Small-town Virginia, ten minutes from Appomattox and fifteen from Lynchburg, with the Blue Ridge close enough for a morning ride.
The map
Minutes from the house
The places we would send a friend to — not a list scraped off a map.
Eating and drinking
Grinnin' Bear Tavern
The local, west along US 460 · 8 minutes
Provisions and practicalities
Carson's Store
The village general store — groceries, household bits, and a kitchen · Under a minute
A third of a mile up Village Highway, which makes it the closest anything to the house. For the thing you actually run out of — milk, ice, a bag of charcoal — it beats a supermarket trip by twenty minutes.
Sheetz, Concord
Ice, coffee, hot food, fuel — open 24 hours · 2 minutes
The one to send someone to mid-event. Two minutes each way, and it is the last chance for ice, a phone charger or a bag of cups before the shops in Appomattox close.
BP, Village Highway
Fuel, right at the end of the road · 1 minute
Appomattox — Kroger, Walmart, ABC and Ace Hardware
A full grocery, a supercentre, the state liquor store and a hardware store, all within a mile of each other · 13–15 minutes
This is the one trip that covers a whole event. Thirteen to fifteen minutes east on US 460, and you can do groceries, drink, folding tables and a forgotten extension lead without moving the car twice.
Dollar General, Concord
Paper goods, snacks and the things you forgot · 3 minutes
Concord Post Office
For anything being shipped ahead of an event · 1 minute
Worth a morning
Appomattox Court House National Historical Park
Where the surrender was signed in 1865 — the McLean House, the Clover Hill Tavern and the village kept as it was · 17 minutes
The obvious morning out for a family gathering, and it costs almost nothing.
Ruritan Park
Local park with open ground — somewhere for children to run between the ceremony and the meal · 5 minutes
Lynchburg
Restaurants, the colleges, and the closest airport · 20 minutes
Getting here, and what is near
Colleges
Liberty 15 min · Lynchburg, Randolph, CVCC and Sweet Briar 20 · Longwood and Hampden-Sydney 45 · UVA 70 · Virginia Tech 90
History
Appomattox Court House 10 min · the National D-Day Memorial 35 · Red Hill and the Anne Spencer House · Monticello 82 miles
Outdoors
Smith Mountain Lake 40 min · Peaks of Otter 45 · Natural Bridge 60. Golf and tennis 8 minutes; softball and basketball within walking distance
For cyclists
Country roads that run on for miles, courteous traffic, and Blue Ridge Parkway climbs of up to fourteen continuous miles. Routes are mapped and waiting.
Airports
Lynchburg 15 miles · Roanoke 65 · Charlottesville 78 · Richmond 112 · Raleigh-Durham 140 · Dulles 172
Walkable
Two churches, a bank, a grocery and a small-town grill, all on foot from the front door.