Monticello and Montpelier

Today, Tuesday, 26 April, we visited the homes of the third and fourth American presidents, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. It was a cloudy day with rain here and there, although we were able to dodge most of it. Spring weather is dicey and evidently there was a microburst at Monticello yesterday evening and the gardening crews were scrambling to get things cleaned up. Tragically, two 150-year-old trees were toppled by the storm.

Monticello is a strange place and was never completed during Jefferson's . . .

(To be continued: the tornado siren is sounding outside and I am headed downstairs with the others until 8:30: weird spring weather!)

As I was saying, Jefferson never finished the place; he loved building and demolishing. He included every idea he ever had for making a home innovative, and it ends up a bit strange. The Jefferson Foundation has turned Monticello into a beautiful spot, but it took many years after his departure to make sense of the place. The tour was O.K., but the best part was a lengthy chat with a docent, also a tour guide, who was completely candid about Jefferson's family/slave issues. Though there is much to admire about Jefferson, he had his problems.

Monticello after the storm

150 years, gone in an instant

Beautiful kitchen garden

TJ's woods are as nice as GW's at Mount Vernon

We headed north to Gordonsville in search of a fantastic barbeque place where Anna et famille had previously eaten. It turned out to be very fine and tasty food. These folks know their barbeque.

Anna and Kris at the Barbeque Exchange in Gordonsville

Pork sandwich with coleslaw and hushpuppies

After lunch we visited Montpelier where James Madison was born and reared and where he and Dolly Madison lived intermittently and retired after the presidency. These aristocratic-Virginia guys spent lots of money and Dolly's neredowell son also help deplete Madison's fortune. So like Jefferson and Washington who also had aquisition addictions, his house was sold to pay debts. The house is in the process of being meticulously restored by the National Trust. In the last century it was owned by a duPont family from England who expanded it and cared well for it. Two of the expansion rooms have been preserved in the visitors' center, including a dazzling Art Deco room that simply wouldn't work in a Georgian house, but was too good to lose. Nearby, on the way home, we stopped at an Amish country store where Anna bought wheat to make her delicious bread.

Montpelier as it appeared c. 1810 when James
and Dolly retired from the presidency

This little classical temple was actually an ice house

During the last century, the duPonts made this
a horse farm with a race track -- the Madisons would
have planted tobacco here

Horses grazing unfazed by a downpour

The tornado danger has passed tonight and all are now preparing for bed. There is more adventure planned for tomorrow, so stay tuned.

That, however, is all the excitement for now.

OXO

D.