Our campground is nestled in the Virginia countryside. While I enjoyed the ride on the two lane country roads, Mike doesn't really like maneuvering the RV off the beaten track. For pure driving ease, he likes campgrounds close to freeway exits. EZ on, EZ off type things. The first picture below is the view out the front of our motorhome, just to give you an idea. The big bull is T-bone.
John Steinbeck once said, "You don't take a trip. A trip takes you." We've found that to be true.
So we set off with a full day's schedule on Monday: Monticello, Montpelier, Mitchie Tavern, and the Blue Ridge Parkway. It took us over an hour to get to Monticello. We were surprised by how many people were there. 5 parking lots filled and at least that many tour buses. We didn't think the government shutdown was the culprit as this is too far away for day-trippers from D.C.
We had no way of knowing that October is THE month for school field trips. When you arrive at the Monticello Visitor Center, you receive a ticket with a time for a guided tour of the mansion. We got there before 11 and our time was 2:20. All the school kids get the morning times. We quickly realized we would never get in everything we hoped to. Three hours seemed like a long time to kill, but there was the obligatory orientation film, a museum, a shuttle bus ride higher up the mountain to the house and the grounds to wander. (not to mention lunch)
I have a confession to make. I'm not as clever as I appear to be. This steel trap of a brain has gotten rusty in the last few years and I take constant notes on my phone everywhere we visit. Any interesting (at least to me) tidbit from a film, tour guide or sign gets put into my Notes app so hours (or a day) later I can relate with accuracy our activities and any interesting information we learn. I have to explain to guides that I am not being rude and texting! So basically, I plagiarize. Three quarters of our way through Monticello, I lost my page of notes. Don't ask me how. So I'm going from memory on this blog post.
Monticello is a fascinating place. Can I say that again? It is a fascinating place. That is entirely due to its architect and inhabitant - Thomas Jefferson. He was a lawyer, governor of Virginia, author of the Declaration of Independence, secretary of state under Washington, vice-president to John Adams and the third president of the United States. (he described the presidency as a "splendid misery".) The notable event of his presidency? The Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition that explored the new territory. Returning to Monticello after two terms, he founded the University of Virginia.
From his most famous document - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Remember my Lincoln's Gettysburg Address quote from a few days ago? Do you see a similarity? ". . . all men are created equal. . . "
The power and eloquence of the written and spoken words of our forefathers is so incredibly moving.
But Jefferson was much more than a wizard with words. His interests in architecture and science are on display all over Monticello. He was involved in every detail. The house itself is a neoclassical design, so very unlike the boxy, georgian style homes popular at that time (like Mount Vernon). Jefferson's time as Minister to France gave him an appreciation of European customs, designs, fabrics, etc. So many of the innovations he incorporated into the house are ingenious. Flanking the house, on either side, is an L-shaped walkway that ends in a little square building. Jefferson and his wife Martha lived in one while the main house was being built. From the right walkway, through the trees, you can see the dome of the main building on the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The interesting part is what is underneath the walkways. The ice house, the kitchen, the wine cellars, the privies, the storerooms, the smokehouse, the slave quarters. Everything needed to provide for the family took place below, out of the way. There was a dumb waiter that ran from the wine cellar directly up to the dining room. Slaves would carry the meals on trays up the stairs, place them on shelves that were attached to a revolving door. The slave butler upstairs would spin the door and take the hot meals from the shelves. Jefferson attached the weathervane on top of his roof to a circle (basically a compass rose) on the ceiling of the front porch. He could see this from 5 windows inside. He never had to walk outside to tell which direction the wind was coming from! Inside the foyer, he had a set of round balls attached to a string that indicated what day of the week it was. He had a rudimentary copy machine. His pen was attached to another pen and whatever he wrote was duplicated on another sheet of paper. Every time he dipped his pen, the other pen went into an inkwell, too. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Clever, clever ideas.
To help pay his debts, Jefferson sold his collection of over 6,900 books to the government, forming the nucleus of the Library of Congress. He wrote to Adams, "I cannot live without books" and immediately began collecting them again.
The grounds were beautiful with a large variety of flowers. There was also an area for hands-on activities, mainly for kids, but I took a stab at writing with a quill. You have to dip that pen constantly! And it smears easily!
Workers at Monticello don't shy away from the slavery issue or the Sally Hemings debate. They acknowledge that there is ample evidence to prove Jefferson fathered children with Hemings (a black slave) after his beloved Martha died after only 10 years of marriage. Like Washington, Jefferson struggled with the slavery issue, but only freed 5 of his slaves upon his death.
Jefferson died at the age of 83, on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He was deeply in debt and his beloved Monticello was sold to pay those debts. Wanting to preserve the plantation, the third owner donated it to the federal government, but it refused to take it! The Thomas Jefferson Foundation was formed and the house was sold to it.
Jefferson's wish for his tombstone was to have listed what he considered his three major contributions to his country: Author of the Declaration of Independence, Author of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom and Founder of the University of Virginia.
I think I liked Thomas Jefferson's home better than George Washington. The museum at Mount Vernon is much better, but the brick home of Monticello is iconic. Just look at the back of a nickel.
We left Monticello and stopped at the Mitchie Tavern, which is just down the hill. It was founded in 1784 by a Scotsman named William Mitchie. They offer a lunch and tour, but we were too late for the lunch, so didn't go inside. We were hoping to get to Montpelier, home of our fourth president and his wife, James and Dolley Madison. Checking the website to punch in an address in the GPS, we saw something that had escaped us in our earlier research and planning. The house is not open on Mondays! Had we realized that, we would have gone to Richmond on Monday and done the two presidential homes on Tuesday.
We saw signs proclaiming "Ash Lawn Highlands - home of fifth president James Monroe" three miles from Monticello. Knowing very little about Monroe (except that he was the author of the Monroe Doctrine) and even less about the house, we took the short side-trip there. A prime example of what Mike likes about traveling - you never know what is around the next bend. There didn't seem to be a lot to see there other than the home, a modest looking building, so we nixed taking the tour and drove 45 minutes to the Blue Ridge Parkway. This is actually over 400 miles long, but I wanted to just drive for a ways to see the views. We got on it, heading south, at the northernmost entrance. We couldn't go north to the Shenandoah National Park, on the Skyline Drive, because both are closed due to the government shutdown. As it was, all the visitor centers, rest areas and shops along the Parkway are closed, but the road itself is open. We didn't have to drive far to start seeing spectacular views of the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Valley. But the rain clouds were coming back and the views were getting obstructed so we only went about 30 miles. The drive reminded us of the mountainous ones we had out west. Ok in the car, but wouldn't want to take the curvy roads in the motorhome. Plus, many of the overview parkings spaces were not big enough to accommodate the RV.
Since it wasn't out of our way, we drove into Charlottesville, through the campus of the University of Virginia. Jefferson's influence is everywhere. Most of the buildings resemble Monticello, with the brick and columns.
I'm determined not to regret that we didn't see Montpelier. Just another reason to come back!
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