Things to Do in Herndon
Recommended Things to Do by Groupon Customers
Since 1956, Valley Mill Kayak School has trained countless kayakers, including the first kayaking recipients of Olympic medals, on the deep waters of the Potomac River. A former Olympian and four-time freestyle-kayaking world champion, Eric Jackson personally designs the school's lesson plans around modern whitewater-paddling techniques. Eric trains each of the school's American Canoe Association–certified instructors, who, in turn, dispense their knowledge to beginners and proficient paddlers alike.
Through a wealth of small classes, private lessons, and occasional clinics taught by Eric himself, pupils discover such skills as paddling and basic strokes, or attempting to work your kayak into rhythmic-gymnastics routines.
When Mike "Pev" Peverill’s teamed up with his brother Todd to build Pev's Paintball Park from the ground up, his driving force was to grant guests the chance to test their sense of strategy and adventure. This goal is achieved each day on his park's 48 acres of land boasting 12 different themed playing fields dappled with huts, log stacks, and other obstacles. The park is open to paintballers of all skill levels, and all customers receive an orderly safety briefing before they begin play, much like the gentlemanly crumpet and tea parties that prefaced each battle in the Revolutionary War.
Though they specialize in the paint-slinging arts, Pev’s also offers bounce house sessions for young kids to practice their aerial defense. Additionally, to ensure that grumbling stomachs don’t give hiding spots during paint-slinging battles, a fully stocked and licensed onsite concession offers sustenance for battle-weary players.
Sculpted into the rolling hills of Northern Virginia and designed by prolific course architect Dan Maples, South Riding Golf Club’s course plots a challenging path through mature timbers and glassy waters. A fleet of golf carts equipped with GPS technology helps players navigate the 7,148-yard chain of fairways by giving them the distance to upcoming hazards, greens, and blitzing linebackers emerging from the rough. Streams and ponds ripple throughout the course, including on the par-3 13th hole, where golfers are faced with a forced carry over a pond situated between tee and green. The club’s grass-tee driving range, short-game area, practice bunker, and putting green allow players to nurture their relationship with their putter, wedges, irons, woods, or modified soup ladles. When not conquering the course, duffers can take advantage of South Riding's modern clubhouse, fully stocked pro shop, and staff of golf instructors.
Course at a Glance:
- Designed by Dan Maples
- 18-hole, par-72 course
- Length of 7,148 yards from the farthest tees
- Course rating of 74.8 from the farthest tees
- Slope rating of 140 from the farthest tees
- Five tee options (including blended tee layout)
Clubgolf Performance Center members receive unlimited access to the indoor facility's myriad game-improving services. Observe, critique, and apply subtitles to your swing with video analysis and exchange golfer trading cards with experienced, PGA-certified club-wielders on the 1,200-square-foot putting green. During a professional diagnostic, Clubgolf's instructors will analyze and evaluate each knee bend and balance shift of your game, then prescribe a training regimen to help ensure better dimpled-ball smacking. Members can also attend complimentary golf classes, choosing from more than 15 courses offered each week, and golf-specific fitness programs, such as tee-lifting and knickerbocker-modeling practice.
They’re a common food in several Latin countries, including Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Mexico, but empanadas are made a bit differently in Argentina. “We have an edge because we actually bake them,” Nicolás Ibarzabal, co-owner of 5411, told the Decider in 2009. ”Here in Chicago there are a couple of places that offer empanadas, but they’re pretty much all deep-fried. We like to think of ourselves as the new healthy frontier of empanadas.”
Along with pals and fellow Buenos Aires natives Mariano Lanfranconi and Andrés Arlia, Ibarzabal makes the flaky baked treats in nearly a dozen varieties. You’ll find traditional hand-cut beef empanadas as well as Americanized versions including barbecue chicken, which Ibarzabal admits is one of his favorites despite chuckles from his Argentine friends. The trio started 5411—a mash-up of Argentina’s country code, 54, and Buenos Aires’s city code, 11—in 2009 as a catering company before rolling out a food truck and finally opening a shop in Lakeview. That shop makes deliveries by the dozen, and the same pale-blue food truck—perhaps the catalyst for 5411’s success—still takes to the streets daily, urging office dwellers to emerge from their cubicles and horses to escape from their buggies.
