Fellow Virginian here (hello from Buchanan Co!), and it was much the same for me. Many, many days were spent exploring the mountains behind our house, and we even had this really fantastic vine swing that we used to swing back and forth across the stream that ran down the mountain. We would've been around 10 years old ourselves, and while our parents knew where we were and we were expected to check in regularly, I can't imagine being told that we weren't allowed to do something as simple as walk home from the store (which we also did on many occasions, but that was closer to two miles than one).