A few weekends ago, my dear friend Maria (who is also our senior editor!) turned the big Twenty-Two ™. To celebrate, a bunch of us drove out to Liberty Mills Farm in Somerset, Virginia, about 30 minutes from Grounds. Liberty Mills is home to the largest corn maze east of the Mississippi River, with a whopping 33 acres of corn to get lost in. Every year’s maze has a different theme and this year was all about dinosaurs.
Picture Courtesy of Liberty Mills
I have to admit, the title is a little bit of click-bait because we didn’t technically do all 33 acres of the maze. The maze is split into 4 different sections, each with varying levels of difficulties. I mean, we did the medium level maze and it took two hours… you can’t really blame us for only doing one section.
When you first arrive, you walk from their parking area to the farm market to buy your ticket. It’s all very cute. One woman was selling homemade soap that smelled AMAZING (I almost bought some but didn’t have cash on me), and the stand next to it sold all different types of homemade treats like honey, popcorn, sandwiches, etc. Their indoor store had even more goodies. Here’s a list of just some of the many things you can buy.
Picture Courtesy of Liberty Mills
Keep in mind, this farm has already got us fired up and we haven’t even bought our maze tickets yet. At this point, we’re very distracted by something extremely important: Liberty Mills has a farm dog. His name is Shadow and while Liberty Mills doesn’t allow pets, Shadow is a Liberty Mills resident and is living his best life being pet by maze and market patrons. 12/10 would pet again.
Picture Courtesy of Tyler Boak
I know what you’re thinking. “Summer, come on, I’m here to read about the corn maze and how you inevitably got lost.” Well… WAIT. WE’RE ALMOST TO THAT PART. We were excited for the maze just as much as you are, but we couldn’t miss this adorable photo op
FINALLY. THE MAZE. We bought our tickets and made our way to a white tent where a very friendly worker gave us our maps and the rundown of the maze. First off, we had 4 mazes to choose from: easy, medium, hard, and mystery. You’re not given a map if you do the mystery maze and you’re basically just thrown into a bunch of corn and told “good luck.” We opted for the medium maze because, though we might go to UVA, we’re not THAT smart. Each maze has a set of dinosaur trivia questions to lead you to the exit. Each question was multiple choice and at the end, the letter answers from each question could be unscrambled into a secret message (spooky!) Also, we were given some ground rules: no swearing (because the corn have ears!), no breaking off the path and just pushing your way through the corn, and you have to do the questions in order. I think the last rule was just so we’d actually be able to get out of the maze without getting actually lost.
Maria the Birthday Girl has a strong sense of adventure and didn’t want to use the map. I’m less adventurous and appreciate a good map, so I looked at it the whole time and just didn’t tell her what it said. It didn’t really matter anyway seeing that I’m terrible with directions, can barely use a map, and don’t really understand how to directionally orient myself in a corn-dinosaur’s leg.
Some of the trivia questions were easy… and some were not. Luckily for us, we had two resident dinosaur/environmental science experts in our expedition team and their knowledge helped us through a lot of those dinosaur facts. Make it a true daily double, Alex!
Midway through the maze, morale was low. We definitely did not want to split up (every time any team splits up in ANY movie EVER, something terrible happens), but there were points where it felt like we were just going in circles around and around in the eyeball of a corn-dinosaur. At the one hour mark, I was tuckered out and was kind of just wishing to go home and hang out with my dog.
Me, lost in a maze, longing for a nap.
Meanwhile, Anthony’s morale was high and he was on the hunt for potential paths.
In the end, we did, in fact, make it out alive and well. The map said it would take us about 1 to 1.5 hours, and it took us two hours. This also might have been map user error.
Maria and her sister celebrating our a-maze-ing accomplishment!
Liberty Mills Maze is sadly now closed for the season, but you can still check out their farmer’s market every Saturday from 11 am – 4 pm. By the end, my maze motivation was back up to a solid 10/10. And, in case you were wondering, the message at the end was “Terrible Lizards.” (I can tell y’all that now because the maze is closed. No #HonorCode violations here!)
I highly recommend making a trip out to Somerset next fall for a fun day trip! They also have hay rides, a pumpkin patch, and a bunch of other fun autumnal activities that’ll make for great friend or club bonding activities and adorable insta pics. See you there next year!