Thursday, June 2, 2016

Today, we bid goodbye to Becky and her family and headed west to Charlottesville, Virginia.  It was foggy in Virginia Beach, but it lifted as we drove inland.  We went around Richmond and after about 3 hours, we stopped at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson.  We were just in time for the next guided tour of the house.  The ground floor is the only part that tourists can enter.  It has 7 rooms, the entrance, a study, a dining room, his private suite (a bedroom, study, and library) that he did let very few people see, a guest room, and an office.  Ninety percent of the furnishings are his original possessions.

It was well worth the visit.  He was quite reclusive, but quite an inventor, too.  We saw clocks that he invented.  Maps and instruments that he used, artwork he collected, and many books.  At one time, he had more than 10,000 books and he sold a vast amount to the government to start what is now the Library of Congress.  On his headstone, it notes that he founded the University of Virginia, and.....two other things that I can't remember....duh, on my part.  Anyway, there is nothing on his headstone about being President.  He wanted to be remembered for accomplishments other than politics.

The small cemetery there is still owned by his descendants, and has a number of graves, the most recent one from 1996.  It was interesting to me that there were a lot of coins around his headstone (which is a large monument) that had been tossed through the iron fence.  Mostly nickels, but a lot of pennies too, and a few dollar bills.

We also walked through the passageway beneath his house where the wine and beer cellars were.  There was an interactive display where visitors can try out his inventions, and two "privys".  Along one side of the house before you enter the passageway is the kitchen area.

He originally owned 5,000 acres with gardens of flowers as well as vegetables.  Huge vegetables of the varieties that were grown when he was alive.  There are two other tours included in the entry fee, one of the gardens, and one of the slave quarters and history.  We didn't do either but we dupid walk through the gardens.

I had read about the geodetic marker in Charlottesville that marked where Lewis and Clark started their expedition.  That was one of the reasons we came here.  I looked it up before we got here and discovered that it is at Monticello, at the end of the lawn in back of the house.  It's 12 inches in diameter and made out of bronze.  We took a "footie" picture there instead of a selfie, with our feet in the photo.  Apparently, that's becoming the new thing to do, according to Stella.😊

After we left Monticello, we drove to Waynesboro where we are spending the night.  As we started up the pass in the mountains here, it started to rain.  When we got off the highway, it was a deluge.  This is the most rain in the shortest period we have seen on this trip. Wipers were pretty useless but, luckily, we arrived just as the worst of it started.  Thunder and lightning went on for more than an hour.

I dropped Stella off at the door of the restaurant that's 2 blocks from the motel and went to park the car.  When I got out, the water was over my Birkenstock soles so I squished all the way to our table.  How long has it been since you've seen the accordion fold clear plastic rain bonnets?  There were three women sitting behind us at dinner that were close to 80.  When they left, I thought that she had a plastic bag over her head, but then she turned and I saw that it was a rainbonnet tied tight around her neck.  I haven't seen one of those in years.

And I forgot this earlier.  We were passed by a pink Cadillac on the way from Wilmington to Virginia Beach.  Something else I hadn't seen in years.  Shades of Mary Kay.