Prez Homes

Early Thursday we headed to Tommy Jeffs home Monticello outside of Charlottesville, VA This is our second trip. but Monticello is still amazing. Our tour guide was barely adequate, but touring the grounds on our own was great, Bets was having difficulty on the grades and because we had not eaten needed extra breaks. We had connected with her friend Judy and husband Dave who left from Nevada a day after we did. We played catchup on our trip and where we were headed next.

Although Monticello is on many acres, the house is not huge, but there are many interesting parts under the house kitchen, ice house, beer and wine cellar and privies. There are additional walking tours around the grounds and down to the family cemetery. Got Bets back up the hill, on the shuttle, and back to the car. First item of business was food..

We decided to backtrack to Montpelier (home of James Madison) of the 3 presidents and confidants from the Charlottesville area, Madison’s home is most impressive, We were in the last tour of the day and the tour guide was tremendous. The house had undergone 4 years of renovation and the official re-opening was the day before. We were not able to tour the grounds, but I talked with a consultant contractor who had been on the restoration project since its inception. He provide insight and detailed activities of not only the construction, but of the efforts of the archaeologists and contractors involved in the project. There were several additional digs underway with more scheduled. A most impressive end to our touring day.

We next programmed the GPS (Ronda) to my mothers home in Roanoke, VA and drove across a part of VA I was not familiar with, but was most impressive with large farms and horse ranches.

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