An Off-the-Mall Fourth of July By Roger Piantadosi Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, June 21, 2000

Street vendors add color to a Washington, Va. Independence Day celebration. Photo by Carl F. Eborn, Jr.

No, we'd actually just found a place to live that was as far as we could get from the ever-expanding flight path of Reagan National Airport--in rural Rappahannock County, Va., no less, where even the flights from Dulles arrive as four-mile-high specks. And then last year's Fourth of July celebration in the county seat of Washington--a small village just this side of the Blue Ridge, about 75 miles southwest of 14th and Constitution--only made it absolutely clear that we'd done the right thing.

Unlike the somewhat better-known nation's capital also named for the father of our country, this Washington has changed remarkably little from the original grid laid out by its surveyors in 1747--chief among them being, in fact, a 17-year-old named George Washington. Today, the town is still pretty much two blocks wide and five blocks long. And most weekdays you can still hold lengthy visits with neighbors in the middle of Gay Street without vehicular interruption.

Today, people know the town mostly as home of the Inn at Little Washington, a place more than a few smart people consider among the world's best restaurants. More than a few smart local people, on the other hand, know the inn mostly from the big basket of leftover homemade dinner rolls that mysteriously appears every morning at the post office across the street.

But such odd bits just help keep old-fashioned, New Age, cattle-driving, organic-farming, rich and rustic Rappahannock County squarely in the realm of contrast. (By night, the road to our place is a dark, tree-walled tunnel of hills and blind curves, wherein we often brake suddenly to avoid deer, foxes and rabbits. One night we nearly hit . . . a waiter. Young man in a waistcoat, walking home around midnight. Scared us half to death.)

Anyway, my wife and I had been local boxholders for only a month or two when, with my visiting brother and his family, we drove in from the suburbs (our place is about two miles from town) for the county's annual Fourth of July celebration. It wasn't a bad drive, there being just one brief backup having to do with a neighbor's chickens crossing the road. (None of the jokes, by the way, mention how incredibly bad chickens are at crossing roads.)

Figuring in the No-Wind-Chill Factor and the Ozone Depletion Allowance, I'd say it was about 250 degrees in the sun by the time we got there in mid-afternoon--which was time enough for a slow, sticky walk among the shade trees and war monuments in front of the courthouse and the modest stands set up along the street by local potters, craft-ers and other artists, candidates for sheriff and state delegate, the rescue squad's barbecue auxiliary, lemonade and merlot makers, and a roving entertainer or two. A young band gallantly rocked in not nearly enough shade, awash in perspiration, familiar riffs and uncommon good cheer.

The volunteer organizers of this year's parade promise more stands displaying more local goods--art, crafts, food and, above all, organic produce from the newly built Sunnyside Farms store on Gay Street, plus a separate tent devoted to the county's growing cadre of organic producers. They also promise cooler temperatures--or, well, at least a bigger parade with antique cars and firetrucks, town council members and the Rappahannock County High School marching band. All of which is fine, as long as they don't mess with the kids' bicycle parade.

Last year's bike parade--which, aside from the fireworks, is probably the involuntary-smile-inducing highlight of every Washington Fourth--passed too swiftly for newcomers to even begin to count the miniature American flags taped, wired and/or sewn to a modest phalanx of bikes, trikes, wagons and scooters, as well as to their determinedly patriotic pilots.

Bill Carrigan owns the grassy hillside that slopes down to a small lake behind the courthouse, and has for as long as anyone knows allowed the town to set off its fireworks over the pond--and everyone to picnic in his back yard, some veterans setting up camp at lunch time and lounging for the duration. Thus, shortly after last year's parade, the local band on a stage near the pond signaled the official start of quilt and blanket time.

The sun dropped toward the mountains to the west, hidden behind the courthouse. The air actually cooled. (I don't remember that happening along Constitution Avenue.) Groups of families and friends, the eldest in folding chairs, the youngest in perpetual motion, assembled and settled in amid a familiar and impossibly calming thrum of gossip, electric guitar, games of tag and assorted goodies being unwrapped and eaten. It was our first close-up look at our new neighbors, and they seemed to span, in an inexplicably fetching way, the whole gamut from overalls to polo shirts to ponytails.

Just as the bats got really serious about their nightly mosquito patrol, the band quit and the guys down on the lake fired up their road flares.

It's hard to say what was most memorable about the fireworks--that they seemed to explode directly overhead if you lay back on the grass, or that when they ended, though the field was unexpectedly dark, no one pushed or hurried back to the car, and everyone wore the same tired, giddy smile.

As we reached the tree line, one of the fireworks guys apparently found a tube that hadn't fired, and set it off. At the telltale rocket whistle, I looked the wrong way and missed the exploding white glitter but caught, for a moment, its reflection on a sea of upturned faces.

GETTING THERE: Washington, Va., is about 90 minutes from the Beltway. Take I-66 to Exit 43A (U.S. 29) toward Warrenton. Follow Business 29 around Warrenton and turn right on U.S. 211 west toward Skyline Drive. Washington is about 20 miles ahead.

BEING THERE: Volunteers will direct Fourth of July celebrants to parking lots and shuttles on the edge of town; it's $5 per car for out-of-county residents. Everything else is free, courtesy of the county, the town and the Rappahannock Association for the Arts and Community (RAAC), including the fireworks, concerts throughout the day by the Robert Glasker Band, Stick Em Up, Catfish Hodge and the RCHS band; local art, craft and organic produce displays and a used-book sale.

WHERE TO STAY/EAT: Rappahannock County has more than two dozen B&Bs, many of which can be found on the Web at www.bnb-n-va.com. Among those I'd recommend are Sperryville's Belle Meade Bed & Breakfast (540-987-9748; doubles $110 to $160) for its mountain views, 137 hikable acres and healthful breakfasts (and dinners, and lunch, if you order ahead); the elegant, centrally located Bleu Rock Inn & Restaurant (540-987-3190; doubles $125 to $195); and Sunset Hills Farm (800-980-2580, doubles $150 to $195), a small B&B hewn from a stunning stone home on a working farm and orchard. Besides the five-star experience at the Inn at Little Washington (540-675-3800; fixed-price meals $98 to $128, nine rooms and three suites from $340 to $940, double), you can find reliably excellent and imaginative meals at Flint Hill's Four and Twenty Blackbirds (540-675-1111) and more casual but no less memorable offerings in Sperryville at Rae's Place (540-987-9733; Rae's will have a booth at the Independence Day event); plus gourmet sandwiches, pizza and organic groceries at Mountainside Market (540-987-9100); and decent food and an eclectic mix of live music most nights at Blue Moon Cafe (540-987-3162, www.bluemooncafe.com). Two small but exceptionally family-friendly restaurants of note: Washington's Country Cafe (540-675-1066) and Sperryville's Appetite Repair Shop (540-987-9533).

DETAILS: RAAC, 540-675-3193, www.raac.org. Town of Washington, www.town.washington.va.us.