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In and About Charlottesville

We spent Friday night chatting, playing, enjoying a pizza, and admiring the baby. The kids enjoyed their godsibs and spents lots of time playing.

On Saturday morning we set off to see the essential sight of Charlottesville--Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. The house sits on the summit of a tall hill (or small mountain, thus Monticello "Little Mountain") not far from downtown. Turning up the road we passed a construction site with a sign identifying it as a Jefferson memorial. The trip was fairly short before we arrived at the parking lot, with plenty of guides shepherding us to an available spot--two spots, actually, as there were eight of us. It was on our arrival that I realized, to my chagrin, that I had left my camera at the house. Argh.

We stood in line for tickets, and then for a bus to bring us farther up the hill. It took some time, especially as there were tour groups ahead of us. The staff seemed somewhat perplexed and annoyed with one group in particular, which seemed to appear, disappear, and change its mind at the drop of a hat. We finally got all eight of us on the bus, however, for the short ride up the hill.

At the top another guide handed us tickets marked with the time we could take the house tour. In the meantime, he suggested, we should look along the cabin row just below the house. This was a short lane where several shops and slave cabins had been; most were marked with signs, but building remains marked some others, including a stone chimney (for a nail-making shop, I think) supported, for preservation, with cables. An herb garden was terraced into the slope just below the cabin row.

A short way further we found the Jefferson family cemetary, which is still available to Jefferson's descendants. The largest, of course, was the obelisk marking Thomas' own grave. The boys, both six, found it rather more interesting than I'd anticipated!

At our proper time we joined the line for the house tour, and waited some more--that seems to be the standard procedure! The kids enjoyed the grand sport of father-climbing and were dissuaded, with some difficulty, from stone-throwing. Finally we arrived at the house.

Jefferson built Monticello in a few stages, starting with an Italian-influenced domed house to which he added wings. One great feature was placing the kitchen and storerooms with their attendant smells away from the house, and connecting them with a passageway. Jefferson's own bedroom was on the main floor, and he placed his bed in a wall space between a bedroom area and his study. The main entrance hall was filled with maps and items from the Lewis and Clark expediation which he had sent to explore the Louisiana Territory. In general, I enjoyed the house's taste and spirit of inventiveness, though some of it appeared an attempt to hide the underlying reality of slavery both from the original owner's conscience and from today's visitors.

After a visit to the gift shop, we walked back down to the lot from the house, which was a fairly short but rather steep distance. It would have been hard going up on short legs--though Bekah spent most of her time in the stroller! From there we drove back down the hill to an old tavern for lunch. Though it sounds quaint, the truth is that it was a tourist stop. We viewed the arrival of two large buses with some dread! We were, however, welcomed fairly quickly, despite being a substantial group ourselves. The food was served cafeteria style, consisting of fried chicken, stewed tomatoes, a cold green bean salad, hopping john, and biscuits. Once you had been through the line, fortunately, waitresses in colonial garb would bring refills. The food was good, but strangely inconsistent. Our seconds on chicken and tomatoes were noticeably different from the first servings.

After lunch we turned up the next mountain to a local orchard's apple festival. This was fun. Bekah wanted to ride a pony but got scared by herself, and the fellow running it brought a horse into the circle so that Evelyn could ride with her--that brought a grin! We boarded a hay wagon for a ride below into the orchards, and got quite a few apples for caramel apples later. Brendan had just had a school field trip to an orchard and very seriously demonstrated the correct way to pick an apple by twisting it over the branch. I have to admit that he was absolutely right!

They also had a bluegrass band playing and a few hay bales near a big plywood apple with a cutout in it so that you could have your pictures taken as a worm in an apple. The hay bales were the hit of the day. The three mobile kids jumped around, threw hay, and basically had a wonderful time while the adults watched and drank cider and water. They were pretty tired by the time we were in the cars!

Sunday we rose to get to the early service at their Episcopal church for the baptism, which was very moving and lovely. The boys behaved well, and so did the smallest girl (Bekah was at least fairly quiet). Afterwards we took a short tour of the University's main quadrangle, which was designed by Thomas Jefferson, and looks for all the world like a larger version of Monticello, including domed administration building and rambling galleries. As John said, Jefferson had something he liked and did well so he went with it.

One room had an expanded window for passers-by to look through, and was the room which Edgar Allen Poe had lived in during his stay at the University of Virginia.

We had brunch at the Omni Hotel's buffet, which took us quite a while--there was a lot of food to taste! The restaurant occupies a glass-roofed atrium area with some trees and a fountain, and was a very pleasant place. Rebekah curled up in her chair and fell fast asleep and didn't wake up for some time. Excited children don't sleep all that well at night!

From there we returned downtown to a brick-surfaced pedestrian shopping area, where the local Children's Museum was. The kids had a great time. Bekah found a table of Duplos and stayed at it for nearly the entire time. Brendan and Brian climbed steps, dressed up in costumes, tinkered with computers, and just did all sorts of things. While the museum wasn't terribly large, the staff was attentive and the entire place well-designed. I recommend it to anyone visiting Charlottesville with children.