Monticello (2/10)

One more dream fulfilled for Sally as we loaded into the car and went down to Charlottesville to tour Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. In case you don't remember, he was one of the main writers of the Declaration of Independence. He risked his life by writing this as the states were still under the British and this document declared we were no longer going to be. I thought it was cool to find out he didn't think we needed a big government, but that we needed educated voters (which is something I really need to work on. Jefferson was a man of many interests. My favorite quote from him is "I cannot live without books." I totally understand that! He was an avid gardener, really don't get that. In his vegetable gardens, he grew 23 varieties of peas (because they were his favorite vegetable). I had no idea there were that many different kinds of peas, but there you go. This is one of my favorite places to tour because he has so many cool and, especially at the time, different ideas. He had the beds put into alcoves in each of the rooms. In his quarters, his bed was actually in between rooms, so I guess depending on what he felt like in the morning, he could actually roll out of bed on one side to get dressed or on the other side to get right to work study something or other. He built book stand that holds five books. You can just spin it to the book you'd like to be reading at the time. He was one of the first to have an indoor water closet. He had pathways and coverings so the slaves would be covered during the bad weather. He was a huge fan of music. There was a lovely harpsichord in one of the rooms. He never remarried when he wife died, so he basically raised his girls on his own.Education was huge to him. He founded the University of Virginia (I believe I am saying the right one) and through the trees you can see one of the campus buildings.

In the entry way there is a clock that was very much ahead of its time. not only did it tell the hour, but it also told the day of the week, however, the room wasn't tall enough for all the days of the week, so there is a small hole in the floor and when you go into the cellars, here's the last day.

Monticello has four floors and 33 rooms and took more than 40 years to build. Part of that was he wasn't always home and another part of that was that he would change his mind about some of the architecture. He wasn't a fan of whatever form was popular at the time, so his home was and is definitely an original.

Last time I was here, this tree was actually standing. It was a Tulip Juniper. It died. No one knows for sure what made it grown with the inside hollow like that. It actually took two nights to cut it down. The brought in cranes and everything so that they wouldn't damage anything around it.

A little bit better view of the house from across the lawn.

Mont Alto. The highest point of Jefferson's property. I think he had plans to build up there, but wasn't ever able to do that. The foundation doesn't actually own it at this point. The garden tour guide told has there may be plans to build homes up there. I'm sure they would cost a pretty penny.

Thomas Jefferson's grave. While Monticello and the property is owned by the foundation, the cemetery is still owned by the family. When we came out last time, it didn't look so hot. It was so nice to see that someone had come out and done work on it. Hopefully it wasn't just because there was a funeral two weeks before.

Close up of his grave.

A little bit out of order, but there's Jen's turn with the tree. (Funny thing is when we went two years ago, she wore the same hat. Different outfit, but same hat.)

Website: www.monticello.org