Too Much Driving

Thursday. One more ambitious project...Monticello.

Drove south into Virginia (about 2 hours) to view Jefferson's home. What an impressive place--and an impressive man. It's the first historic home I've seen that I can understand the why of some of the architectural features. They've tried to make it much as when Jefferson lived there right down to the display of stuff from Lewis and Clark.

Jefferson had a clock in every room and even outside. Many chimed while we were on our half-hour tour of the house. The tour guide spoke of Jefferson in the present tense--as if still alive.

Beautiful gardens (at the end of their bloom), a walk through the grounds and on past Jefferson's grave.

The walk below is on top of the working part of the house. It is in a "U" shape. Jefferson put a series of gutters in that fed 4-4000 gallon cisterns for dry periods. The keepers still plant the gardens...even the vegetable garden.And they harvest and sell the seeds. From his letters they know that Jefferson often swapped seeds with friends.
Decided to drive back north on the through Shenandoah National Park/Skyline Drive. We got our first real taste of fall with the beautiful colors--all sorts of reds, yellows and oranges.
But it was a long drive and we needed to drive north to Philadelphia or near Philadelphia for the night.

We'll stop at Valley Forge in the morning then head to Ohio.

BTW--at Mollie's request I've added some photos of the FDR memorial in a previous post.