If you find yourself in Warrenton, Virginia, spend an hour at the Fauquier History Museum at the…read moreOld Jail located inside the 1808 and 1823 jail houses. Visiting on a Thursday afternoon in October, a kind man named Fred took my ticket ($5) and gave me a brief history of the building and museum before letting me explore on my own. Here's my experience: 1) Exhibits: Located on two floors in two different historic buildings, the exhibits are small, but mighty. They come with a wide range of historic artifacts, signs that tell their stories, and a range of perspectives from what it was like for women and those enslaved while at the jail house. They also talk about mental illness and the jail house. It's inclusive, which I appreciate. 2) Store: It's well stocked with books, cards, and trinkets. 3) Parking: There's street parking easy to find nearby.

Nice local museum and old prison. Staff is helpful and knowledgeable. Entrance fee required. Takes…read moreabout 30 minutes to see it

Haymarket Day 2024 was a huge success! First of all, the weather could not have been more…read morebeautiful. The entire event was extremely well organized, starting with the shuttle bus that took visitors to and from Tyler Elementary throughout the day. The parade began promptly at 10 AM and was well organized. Great assortment of vendors along the parade route and a fun Kidzone was set up in the park. It was an overall wonderful, fun-filled day for all.

Haymarket Day 2011 was held today - Saturday, September 17, 2011! (It's still going on as I type…read morethis). As in years past - the main route through Old Town Haymarket was closed to vehicular traffic for the all day event (Route 55/Washington Street). An awesome parade was held (pretty awesome for a small town!). Started the day with a nice cup of steaming hot delicious coffee from Cupcake Heaven, then found a spot along Washington Street to watch the parade and take photos. Lots of entertaining participants in the parade: The Battlefield HS Marching Band, cheerleaders, several local dance troops, several martial arts groups, the Fairfax County Police motorcycle officers (in precision formations), Cub/Boy Scouts, musical groups, local politicians, church groups, civic groups, local businesses, the Geico Gecko, the Chik-fil-A cows, Santa Claus, and a lot more! The parade was considerably longer with more participants than ever. There is also a large vendor area in front of Town Hall and down Washington Street with lots of vendors of all sorts, arts and crafts, games, food and beverages, stages with music, and a lot more! The weather was perfect, cool and overcast, no rain, the place was packed with local residents. It is a great event and it's so wonderful to see so many folks come out with their kids, many brought their dogs, and everyone seemed to be well behaved. I really like the small town atmosphere of Haymarket and the sense of community we have here!

Heads up: Graffiti House is only open from noon to 4p on Saturdays. Sign on the front says those…read morehours will be in place through Dec 2026

It's only open every other Saturday seasonally, but it was a really unique and interesting Civil…read moreWar site - featuring graffiti. It delivers what it promises. This seemed pretty common for troops to occupy houses on their travels and doodle on the walls, but this was a lucky example to preserve it behind paint which was discovered in time for it to avoid demolishion. Some graffiti is better preserved/readable than others, but it is a recent site to be opened to the public, so it's a work in progress. It's interesting to think of the young men who strolled through here 150 years ago. There was a knowledgeable guide who walked us through a few rooms pointing to some of the writing, a small exhibit, and a small gift shop. It's free, but since it's all volunteers, we gave a donation. It won't take very long to go through, but it's a cool historical site to visit in the area.

Days before D-Day, a secret message from the Japanese Ambassador was decoded in Vint Hill, a former…read moreU.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command. The Japanese Ambassador was in Berlin, and had the power to get a meeting with Adolf Hitler. The U.S. gets this message and it gets sent to Eisenhower's staff. This message changed the U.S.' move. To buy time in Normandy for a few weeks, the U.S. puts on a fake ghost war, playing up Hitler's belief that Colette was significant. Fake tanks, commands and signals were staged. Germans in England who sided with allies played Hitler reinforcing Colette on purpose. (Last image is from this ghost war.) The impact of D-Day can be traced here. Very cool learning about cryptography and geospatial intelligence in the Cold War.

Happened upon this by complete happy accident and I cannot be more thankful to have discovered…read moreit!!!! Walking in we were immediately greeted by a delightful gentlemen who I unfortunately couldn't catch his name, that's on me he said it twice but I was so overwhelmed walking in! He took the time to explain exactly where everything was, what room included what, and what the key spots were. We only had a very limited time to poke around so I didn't even get to go upstairs unfortunately :( I was thrilled to see that they had merchandise, so we grabbed two amazing shirts that I've already worn. Clayton was incredibly charming ringing us up. His delightful jokes and willingness to put up with me going back and forth between sizes for 10 minutes still brings a smile to my face. I am so desperate to come back now that I know it is so close to DC (under an hour). Again, everyone was so kind and funny and just amazing and there was soooo much to look at. 10000/10, counting the days until I can come back!!!!

Horrible As a guest of someone it was Horrible…read more Didn't even get my mani pedicure The wait was long even with an appointment And they don't listen to you regarding what uou want No thank you

My wife and I have Scots in our background and we try to make a festival somewhere every couple of…read moreyears. It's been 5+ years since we had been to the Virginia Scottish Games and a friend from Clan Grant wanted to go. http://www.vascottishgames.org/ The basic set up is always the same. A bunch of vendors, beer, some food, highland games including a caber toss, stone toss, hammer throws, and the sheaf toss. Pipes and drums: check A good entertainment tent too. Usually you can find the Glengarry Bhoys playing. They are a great Celtic band. Lots of fun. Worth your time and coin.

Incredible group of men with common interests for the betterment of the community…read more Stop by during Haymarket Days!

After enjoying our very first "Deadwood Trail" year before last but missing last year's due to bad…read moreweather, we returned this past Saturday evening since the weather was clear, cool, & autumn-crisp. We arrived around 7:30 or so, & were pleased to see it wasn't horribly overcrowded yet. Admission was $10 per person (which benefits the Culpeper County Sheriff's Office Santa Cop program), & we're glad that after hiking up from the front-field parking area we had cash on us, because admission was CASH ONLY, which we didn't find out until we had reached the window. (I checked their website afterwards & absolutely no mention of this is made anywhere on it. They may want to remedy this rather important omission next time around.) Two huge bonfires surrounded by seating areas were blazing away, & there were two food trucks - Buffalo Wild Wings & another whose name I don't recall, just that they were selling the usual burgers, hot dogs, wraps, & the like. (We both seemed to remember more food vendors the first time we did this.) Husband & I were in the front of our group of ten, which sent us into the abyss first. After going thru the dark snug winding wooden maze of the "barn", we came out on the trail where what, for me, was the scariest part of the walk (spoiler alert) - a line of scarecrows tied up against corn shocks, except at least one was a costumed person who jumped out at us. Since they had remained perfectly still at first, it was a surprise. Apart from that they had a camping scenario, a sawmill scenario, a "Deadwood" western town scenario, among others. It seems funny to critique something like this, but they had way, WAY too many "creepy clowns". It seemed like every other person was a creepy clown. In fact, they even had a "Welcome to Derry, Maine" section that had my husband wondering whether or not they were prepared for a lawsuit from Stephen King re: his Pennywise the Clown character - lol. There also seemed to be an awful lot of chainsaws. One other critique was the western saloon tableau where they had cowboy ghouls run thru the group firing off real guns (blanks, of course) & one guy shot his off so close to us that we both had sparks & gun frass (or whatever it's called) showering down on our faces & my left ear was still ringing the next morning. We heard another woman behind us complain about the same thing. They may want to rethink that a bit. One last thing we noticed was that during our last visit there was at least enough light so we could enjoy most of the costumes/props. This time everything was so dark you really couldn't see much of the masks/makeup. Except for all those clowns, of course - lol! All in all it was fun, & we'll definitely do it again next year if they hold it, except next time we'll wear ear plugs. It's for a good cause, & is infinitely less expensive than other "haunted" venues out there.

It's a great traditional festival that this year 2025 celebrated its 3rd annual event. Lots of food…read morevendors, with traditional Puerto Rico dishes and a few others from the Caribbean. Music, artists, dancing, social media influencers and a day filled with culture, smiles, fun and family. Best of all? It's totally free, outdoors, with lots of parking and security. At Harris Pavillon in downtown Manassas, you don't want to miss the yearly tradition