Today’s Ride to Church comes to us from Chelsea in Virginia.
We live in Loudoun County, Virginia, about 50 miles west of Washington, DC. My family moved here in 1989 and my husband’s came a few years later. After going to BYU, getting married, and living in a few other places in the DC area, we moved back to Loudoun a few years ago. We love it here. The pace of life is a bit slower than in communities closer to DC, and Civil War history is around every corner. We live on 5 acres in the woods.
In the early to mid-1900s our little mountainside community Sunny Ridge was a vacation spot for professionals who would come here during the summers to escape the heat of DC. Many of them retired here and passed the homes to their children and grandchildren, who now live here year-round.
Loudoun County was almost entirely rural until the 1960s when Dulles airport was built. With the growth of the DC metro area and the housing boom of the early 2000s, the population of the county has quadrupled over the past three decades. Suburban sprawl has brought new construction to nearly every area, much to the chagrin of the natives. Most of the new residents are commuters, either to the Dulles corridor where there are lots of tech jobs (like my husband’s) or to DC proper.
Since we are always running late to church, and our meetings start at 9 a.m., I made this ride to church on a Saturday when I could take my time and enjoy it.
Thank you for doing this– it’s beautiful. I was just looking at a seed catalog from White Flower Farm, which is in Connecticut, and thinking about all the great stuff in it that I can’t grow because I live in Southern California, and this made me even less happy about SoCal. I miss autumn, and, well, trees in general.
My mother-in-law lives on Short Hill over by Purcellville. We visit often from the Baltimore area. Whenever I get the chance, I go to the accoustic jam session they have at the old furniture shop in Round Hill. What a beautiful piece of the country! Thanks for posting…I’m inspired to finish my own “ride to church” and finally submit it.
This is the part of the world where I want to settle eventually. Lovely, thanks for sharing!
Very charming.