People are talking about Leesburg

Last week’s buzz about Leesburg’s 4^th place rank­ing on Money magazine’s best small towns list, and the video clip on why kids love Leesburg got me think­ing. What do I love about liv­ing here? What do my kids love about liv­ing here?

No place is per­fect, but there are more than a few things I love about liv­ing in Leesburg:

• Watching the sun set at Ida Lee
• Community Garden plots where we don’t have to worry about some­one steal­ing our tomatoes
• Live music down­town on sum­mer nights
• Hiking to the Potomac River at Balls Bluff and Red Rock Wilderness Overlook Regional Parks
• Spotting tur­tles on logs at Olde Izzak Walton park
• The W&OD trail
• The Rust Nature Sanctuary
• The Leesburg Dog Park
• Awesome library system
• Exploring Goose Creek at Kephart Bridge Landing
• Walking or dri­ving through down­town Leesburg

Most of the things on my list are free, but all but one of the kids on the video clip have favorite things about Leesburg that cost money. Did some­one coach those kids? Did they put the video together to favor cer­tain busi­nesses and town pro­grams? Or is the slant of their answers deter­mined by the fact that they look like campers at Ida Lee? As a test, I asked my kids what they love about liv­ing in Leesburg. They both imme­di­ately named chains that we rarely visit and that could be found almost any­where: Chuck E. Cheese (in Sterling!) and Pump it Up. Hmm… NOT what I would use to talk our town up.

I guess I’d bet­ter fess up. I admit I do love spend­ing money at plenty of places in Leesburg:

• The Salvation Army Thrift Store & The Resourceful Woman Thrift Store – I take The Story of Of Stuff pretty seri­ously…
• Loudoun Learning (It is edu­ca­tional! We get a spe­cial exemp­tion to allow for a lit­tle mate­ri­al­ism, right!?)
• The Farmers Market
• Picking blue­ber­ries at Eagletree every year
• Wegmans
• Fireworks Pizza, Aiyara, Thai Pan
• South Street Under, Shoe’s Cup and Cork, King Street Coffee
• Razzle, Milwaukee Frozen Custard, and the newest addi­tion Cultured

(Don’t worry, none of these places paid me to men­tion them!)

Put my expe­ri­en­tial and mate­r­ial lists together, and you have one mom’s some­what bal­anced list of what makes Leesburg spe­cial. What do you like about liv­ing in Leesburg, Virginia?