Things To Do In Leesburg

Each year, the Washington Redskins team up with Easterns Automotive Group to host a car show at Redskins Park. The show gives fans access to the team's practice field, as well as an opportunity to meet Redskins players and cheerleaders face-to-face. An array of classic, custom, and exotic cars on display compete for prizes, and the entertainment also includes a DJ booth, inflatable games, and face-painting booths.

Laser tag typically summons images of bulky plastic guns, LED vests that flash red like broken alarm clocks, and cheesy black lights. In the parlance of machismo, Sudden Combat eats joints like that for breakfast. Its extreme laser-tag skirmishes are closer to real military sorties than strip-mall fracas. Sudden Combat is the first gaming spot in Northern Virgina to employ the iCombat/irTactical system—the same laser-training system used by military and law-enforcements agencies and featured on the Outdoor Channel's Elite Tactical Unit: SWAT. Locked and loaded with realistic gear that has the look, feel, and recoil of military M4s and M16s, the advanced weaponry enhances the game's intensity and realism. For the electromagnetic averse, Sudden Combat ups the paintball experience with indoor paintball Reball, which delivers the thrills and stings of a paintball match, but doesn't leave players looking like the ate at a Sherwin Williams buffet.

During 60-minute private lessons, one of Tennis in Urbana’s certified pros helps racket wielders acquire and develop proficiency in every aspect of the game, including ball striking, serving, and winking at umpires. The pros will drive up to 30 minutes from the Tennis in Urbana facility to meet students at a court of their choice. Six-week clinics challenge a minimum of four individuals with intensive workouts that focus on a particular skill set or aspect of the game. Junior clinics are divvied up by age group: Tiny Tots clinics teach youngsters aged 4–7, Big Shots clinics focus on kids ages 7–10, and Academy clinics prepare 13- to 17-year-olds for competition with intense stroke drills, rigorous conditioning exercises, and trophy-kissing practice. Adult clinics offer men and women choices between clinics designed for their skill levels and clinics designed for cardiovascular exercise.

A 20-year veteran of the Professional Golfers Association, instructor Bud Lintelman imparts his knowledge, skills, and fairway philosophies to beginners and future champions. With a carefully programmed agenda and an eagle eye on individual performance evaluation, the MPACT Golf program aims to get novices on the 18-hole road to low-impact athletic enlightenment. Because golf swings are as varied as snowflakes and Aretha Franklin performances, the program takes an individualized approach to helping students. Using video analysis to meticulously dissect drives—with freeze-frame technology revealing where knees and wrists lead a swing astray and slow-motion to show where follow-throughs go askew—Bud Lintelman uses his expertise to shed fledgling duffers of detrimental habits. Students can choose to focus on whichever skills elude them most, whether that means tightening up the short game, overhauling swing mechanics, or learning how to talk to an emotionally unavailable caddy.

Multitudes of furry creatures, both foreign and farm dwelling, reside within the sprawling 21 acres of Leesburg Animal Park's exhilarating grounds. Inquisitive imps and animal-loving adults will be enchanted and educated with exotic animal exhibits featuring lemurs, African serval cats, white-handed gibbons, giant tortoises, and more. For an even closer look, the animal petting and feeding area allows visitors to softly pet heads, scratch ears, and satisfy stomachs of each curious creature they encounter ($1 for a cone of food).

If there's one word to describe the success of Willowcroft Farm Vineyards, it's persistence. Owner and winemaker Lew Parker planted the first vines on what is now Willowcroft's home vineyard in 1980, but they didn't grow. They died. Doubt about the feasibility of the project came from everywhere, including the Virginia Extension Service. Lew planted anyway, and in 1981 he grew his first cabernet sauvignon, riesling, and chardonnay grapes. Today, through Lew's hard work and horticultural innovation, Willowcroft bottles 14 different varietals from reds such as the merlot and cabernet franc to whites such as the chardonnay or muscat-ottonel.

Willowcroft's wines maintain a crisp, clean flavor due to the winery's sustainable dry farming, and have garnered a litany of awards since their first vintages in 1984. However, the wine isn't the only draw to the winery. Located atop Catoctin Ridge, panoramic views unfurl from the winery's tasting barn and open terraces, where visitors can enjoy cheese and wine purchased onsite.