monkey nonsense

junior year of college, my friends and i went on a road trip through VA. (don’t laugh… VA has many scenic routes and historic sites and i had no idea at the time that i’d be back in the area after college).

we were planning to go through the shenandoah, follow the appalachian trail for a bit, see some historic sites (stonewall jackson’s arm!), and some quirky roadsite stops (dinosaurland, world’s largest man-made illuminated star, world’s largest cured ham, etc. etc.) also on our list… midgetville, vienna va!

i had read about it off of roadsideamerica …people reported angry midgets tossing things at gawking passer-by-ers (naturally, if you’re being gawked at)… but i felt safe because i knew that they’d be welcoming to one of their own. we had our own personal ambassador to the midgets, chubacca! jk

after a mostly disappointing trip (shenandoah was closed because of snow!! dinosaurland wasn’t nearly as impressive as we thought. world’s largest apple wasn’t even a real apple… stonewall jackson’s arm didn’t disappoint though!), we were all tired and weary and on our way back to my parents’ house.

when i saw a sign for vienna va.

i was driving so i cut across multiple lanes to try to make the exit. (it was a left exit)

i missed the exit, just barely.  fortunately, I-66 off of I-495 has 2 chances to exit… one on the left, one on the right.

i cut across multiple lanes to try to make the right exit. i would not be denied my chance to see midgets.

after forcing everyone on a wild goose chase for midgetville (the website listed very little information on where in vienna, va it was located and i didn’t know the area that well!) and wasting nearly a hour driving around in traffic, i gave up. no midgets to see here

… until, 3 years later, when i moved to vienna! i forgot all about midgetville til i met up with chubacca this weekend. so i started to google search it again.

again from roadsideamerica…

I can confirm that Midgetville exists, as I was just there on June 1st. If you want to see it, you might want to look soon. There is a proposal from a couple of developers to demolish the half dozen tiny houses and replace them with about 20-something new houses. Some local residents oppose the re-development. You can view a couple of the tiny houses off of Wedderburn Lane in Vienna, which is near the Washington and Old Dominion trail and Cedar Lane. I have only looked at the houses from afar from the public street, because the dirt and gravel road that leads into the heart of the little enclave is off-limits and is posted “No Trespassing.” It is an interesting little enclave of homes, and they are a piece of local history and folklore. [Anne, 06/25/2004]

(Midgetville: Vienna, VA Directions: East of Vienna, Washington and Old Dominion trail at Cedar Lane. )

[RA: September 2004 - Six tiny Spanish style cottages comprise the community known by locals as "Midgetville," in an area of wooded dirt paths and gravel roads. The property is scheduled to be cleared to make way for housing developments for regular-sized people.]

Vienna, Virginia – Midgetville

The place is real. It’s across from Thoreau Middle School off Cedar Lane. Going north on Cedar, take a left on Wedderburn and you’ll see some weird trees and two dirt roads that lead back, with some vandalized mailboxes out front. Story today that they’re thinking of tearing it down. Very weird place. [Mike, 06/20/2004]

i know where this is!!! but have i missed my chance at seeing midgetville??? all those posts mentioning it was being teared down were dated in 2004 and i know there’s a lot of new developments popping up in that area! some time this week, i shall try to find midgetville!

too bad chubacca’s not around to be my guide

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 at 4:04 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.