Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Monticello

We have continually changed the way we travel.  15 years ago when we started this adventure, we would stay in furnished apartments for three months while I worked at hospitals across the country.  Mike would find part time work that would give him time off on my days off so we could experience the area. We would pack up and move to the next place we wanted to see. once I completed a contract.

Sometimes, we would go home to Colorado for a while until we got the itch to get back out there again. This was usually during ski season. Snow birding backwards.

Then we tried 3 months in a place working and travel three months in our trailer. Now, we spent 6 months in Arizona and now driving to Maine to work for two months in the summer. That has given us a new experience of driving 50-200 miles to stop and see what is there.

We left Arizona two months ago. Now as we look back, it has been a whirlwind of so much diversity. Our time frame has been based on dates that we had plans but everything in between has been "winging it". It is strange and wonderful to know that we are doing this.

I guess we have found that there is no "one way" of living life.

Monticello, Thomas's Jefferson's Home

We didn't get the opportunity to visit Monticello when we lived in Bethesda, MD several years ago. This was a great opportunity for us to make the stop and enjoy a tour, even if it was still raining. We stayed outside of Charlottesville, VA in the KOA which was pretty handy.

 Thomas Jefferson is said to be one of the most quoted and misquoted figures in American history.

Having inherited a considerable land estate from his father, Jefferson began building Monticello when he was twenty-six years old. Jefferson inherited slaves from both his father and father-in-law. In a typical year, he owned about 200, almost half of them under the age of sixteen.


 Thomas Jefferson -- author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, third president of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia.
This weather vane is on the underside of the porch so Mr. Jefferson would not have to go out in the weather to see which way the wind was blowing. He had the vane run through the ceiling and liked to make living easier by inventing new ways of doing things.


Thomas Jefferson's carriage traveled at three miles per hour. It took him 6 days to get to Washington DC.

Wine and beer were made for the family and guests in the lower quarters.



What a great old tree.
Even though it was raining, we put on our rain gear and walked the grounds. Needless to say, the crowds were not huge. But visitors that traveled from all over the world to see this UNESCO World Heritage Site got out and took the tours.
Thomas Jefferson was badly in debt when he died. It could have been due to all of the people that came to visit and didn't leave for quite some time or all of the extended family that lived with him. He would buy many many books at a time and barrels of wine to share. But the economic downturn towards the end of his life probably made the debt much worse.




The family cemetary 
The tour guide was very good and our group small.

 Mitchie's Tavern

MICHIE TAVERN, located ½ mile below Jefferson’s Monticello, accommodated travelers with food, drink and lodging more than 200 years ago. Today, we experienced the Tavern’s past through a recreated 18th-century tavern life.
Servers in period attire served Southern Midday Fare.  The rustic restaurant serves up  an 18th-century buffet of southern fried chicken, marinated baked chicken, hickory-smoked pork barbecue, stewed tomatoes, black-eyed peas, buttermilk biscuits and so much more. I don't know if that is what they really ate. Most of the pictures showed thin people. But that is what the story is.


The humidity was making many of my pictures blurred. This was such a good lunch but a bit spendy at $18.95 for fried chicken, very good fried chicken.
We returned the next morning to stoll around the grounds once the rain had stopped.







Not only was this a gristmill, it served as a pre-hospital facility during the Civil War. The owner of the gristmill convinced the Union officer leading the troops that the apparent slaves working the mill were actually feed men earning wages.

The return to this area brought back many good memories of my time working at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, MD 12 years ago. I remember taking care of people from the embassies, lobbyists and people that had emigrated here under difficult circumstances, like an official that worked for the Shah of Iran in the 1970s. They often were more than willing to share their experiences with all of the time spent in a hospital bed or at the bedside of someone they care about.

We had considered riding our bikes on the C&O Canal but had done that many times on our previous visit. This worked out well. It was a great new experience and the canal path would have been a muddy mess.



Sunday, May 14, 2017

Charlottesville, VA

Occasionally, I get frustrated with Blogger and consider canning the blog. But it isn't only about telling everyone what we are doing. We started it to keep friends and family posted. The whole process of sitting down to do the blog has become its own part of our endeavor. It is more of a hobby, much like when I used to quilt.

When we first started traveling with my job, we both kept journals. On occasion we would sit down and read each other's. It was fun to see how the other person saw the day. We would write down thoughts of  our days in email to our families.

Now after our days of exploring, we sit down and go through our pictures. We talk about the day and how we would have forgotten moments that we don't necessarily post about. As we write the short tales of our days, new memories come back.

I am not a writer. As a nurse before computers, we seldom used full words much less sentences.  It can be intimidating but fulfilling when we get to interact with people that read along. It looks like we will keep up the process. We do enjoy your thoughts and comments.

On to Charlottesville. VA and the rest of our time here.

Carter's Mountain Orchard

This orchard is high on the mountain overlooking the beautiful valley that Monticello also overlooks. There are vineyards, apples and peaches growing on the hillside. We headed up in the morning and spent some time walking the paths among the trees after the Saturday morning 5 K completed.



We listened to music as we tasted our flight of hard cider along with a cider donut. I don't usually like donuts. But I chowed down on this warm one.



We visited with a local gal as we sat overlooking the valley and talked about the area. She gave us some tips on places to hike.


Baby apples
Baby peaches

 After our morning on the mountain, we headed into Charlottesville to check out the University of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson was the founder and that was the theme of the day. We parked near the visitor's center and took the free in town trolley to the university.
The rotunda was designed by Thomas Jefferson. (I find myself wanting to call him TJ but that would be disrespectful. He was the President after all.)


It is definitely an impressive place with all of the old architecture.
Then we headed over to the Special Collection building to see the Declaration of Independence exhibit.
 University chapel from 1889 with the original lead windows

Most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence suffered great losses in family and fortune as they were singled out and targeted by the British. Thomas Jefferson at the time said that he felt like he was placing a noose around his neck as he signed. If the war had turned out differently, that would have been a death sentence.


There was also an exhibit on William Falkner in another section of the building. Our heads were getting full of information. After spending some time looking over his life story and work, we were ready to get back to our little home. I wish I could go on and on. But sometimes it is good to call it a day.
The downtown pedestrian mall



Our last morning, we took a walk along the Monticello Trail. The trees were a great relief from the sun and increasing temps.
Tulip poplar log
We took Carter's Overlook Trail after walking the 2 miles of the Monticello Trail  through some red mud from all of the rain recently.


If you are reading this part, you will see that blogger once again published before I got a chance to finish and do correcting.  Very frustrating but maybe a challenge to continue to undertake.





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