Posted on by ToadMama

Farmville, Not a Game

Until recently, Farmville was just the name of a town I’d seen on road signs. It probably stuck in my head because of FarmVille, the farming simulation social network game (I have never played).

As I was planning my trip, I did a quick little bit of research on every targeted LOVEwork location to see if there was anything interesting enough that I could see quickly on my way through. I didn’t read much about each location, just sorta browsed images of the area to see what I might see. Of course, I also checked RoadsideAmerica.com to see if anything stood out. Because, you know, if I am going to be in a certain neighborhood, I should at least know what awesome oddities are nearby.

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Heading SE into Farmville on US 15 (business).

In addition to the LOVEworks, there were only four other things I noted as must sees. Along the entire 800-plus-mile route. One of those was this cool mural in Farmville, which is part of the Paint Farmville Downtown program.

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Cool Mural in Farmville

I don’t know why, but I sorta pictured the majority of the route to Farmville being flat, straight, and uninteresting. It wasn’t. I was pleasantly surprised at the nice roads and pretty scenery. It helped that there are more colorful leaves on the trees south of us.

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Very pretty drive.

Images of the car as part of the landscape don’t quite have the same appeal as images with the bike, do they?

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Nowhere near as interesting as a shot of the bike.

 

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Grumpy Man with Mole

I immediately saw a face when I spotted that building. How about you?

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Heading NE into Farmville on US 15 (business).

 

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Main Street (it was rush hour on a Friday)

 

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Main Street

 

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Repurposed Warehouses

I really liked Farmville. It’s definitely on my list of “need to re-visit and spend more time” places. It’s obvious that a lot of love and effort were put into renovating the downtown. Not only is it visually pleasing, there are all kinds of cool shops and eateries along Main Street, too. Oh, and a really, really cool bicycle/walking path, which is a 31-mile rails-to-trails conversion.

Check this out… High Bridge Trail State Park and/or watch the nifty video embedded below to see how the park got its name. Kudos to whoever planned/designed the park plaza on Main Street. Even the bathrooms are amazingly well done and charming. No crap. LOL.

Rather than post too many pics here, I decided to upload them to Flickr for sharing. To see more pics in and around, follow this link to my Farmville album on Flickr.

Do you find it easier to see the pics on Flickr, or would you rather I just added them to the post?

More Farmville links:

It’s a charming place, really. Most definitely worth further exploration.

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LOVEwork in Farmville (#LOVEVA)

 

10 Replies to “Farmville, Not a Game”

  1. Wow, Farmville really exists! And it looks like a nice town.

    Personally, I prefer the pictures embedded in the post. If there is a link to another site to view the album, I usually don’t follow it. I don’t care for the way Flickr! works on mobile Safari. I used to push pictures to Flickr! but haven’t since Google started offering unlimited photo storage. (Just my humble opinion)

    1. Thanks, Richard. I appreciate your humble opinion immensely.

      Farmville looked really nice to me, too. I didn’t mention in my post that there are two colleges in the town, too, which tends to make things sort of lively and definitely eclectic, in a good way.

  2. That rails-to-trails trestle looks damn cool. Earlier this year I heard about The High Line, an old elevated rail in New York City that’s been converted into a park–I’d love to see that.

    To answer your question, ToadMama: As long as you share your best (favorite) photos here, I’m good. Like Richard, I’m not likely to hop to someone’s photo bucket, as I prefer the photo / storytelling combo.

    1. Ry, I hope to get back to Farmville soon and actually see the trestle for myself. I didn’t have time for a hike when I visited. I’d like to see The High Line in NYC, too.

      Thanks for your feedback on the picture thing. I really appreciate it. I try to keep the number of pictures small, or at least limit the pics to ones I think are good enough/important enough to share.

      I prefer having all pics within a post, too.

  3. Farmville definitely warrants a longer visit! I love the love work and that mural is gorgeous. I would really like to visit several places with the rails to trails offerings, starting with the Virginia Creeper in Abingdon and Damascus.

    Also, I agree with the guys, I usually don’t link over to a separate photo site. You do such a great job choosing the best shots for your posts, keep doing thst! 🙂

    1. Lynne, I’m with you on the LOVE, mural, and Creeper. 🙂 I really like that part of Virginia.

      Thanks for the feedback on the picture thing. So far, everyone agrees that pics within the post are best. 🙂

  4. I too didn’t know there was a real town named Farmville. Very cool.

    I wanna ride the trail in that video. That just looks like all kinds of fun by bicycle.

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