I'm so surprised and impressed with myself that I managed to stay on schedule today. I had SO much planned, and I made it to all of it, right on schedule. My airbnb host from last night provided me with a bagel for breakfast, which was fantastic. I love me some bagels for breakfast (note to self: Bodo's before I leave c-ville).
First stop was at Fredricksburg and Spotsville National Military Site. This actually encompasses a out 4 different sites, but I only went to the one battle site and cemetery. I did a short walking tour which took me around the civil war battle site, including an original wall, a house that still has lots of bullet holes in the walls, and a cemetery that has many union soldiers, both identified and unidentified, buried in it. It was very sobering to see the markers for the unidentified soldiers. There were so many people killed in that war.
Next stop on the schedule was the James Madison Museum in Orange. It was about an hour drive through torrential rain. The museum was fine. Not a lot of original stuff there, and there were some grammatical errors on the copy, but if you can overlook that, it was a decent small, private museum.
From there, it was over to Montpelier. Now, I don't remember Montpelier being an option of a place to go visit while I was in school, so I had to ask about the history of the place. Turns out that the historical society only acquired it in 2001 from the duPont family, and then they restored it, opening it to the public in 2008. So that explains why it wasn't an option 10 years ago. The house is still in the process of getting completely restored. Many of the rooms were fully decorated with time-period appropriate furniture or reproductions, but not necessarily items that belonged to Madison. They're still in the process of determining if some of the pieces there actually belonged to the Madisons. I didn't know much about the Madisons, so this was a good opportunity for me to learn a lot. It was a good tour, except for the woman who tried to argue with the tour guide, telling him that the Bible is more accurate than carbon dating to determine the age of the earth. I seriously almost punched her. Ok, not really, but I wanted to.
Then it was on to a couple of wineries. The first winery, Horton Cellars, was great. Loved a lot of the wines there. But Barboursville Vineyard was a mob scene. Seriously overwhelmed with people. Decent wines, but I couldn't really concentrate on what I liked because I felt so pressured to just hurry through the tasting process. Wineries need to know that my inclination to buy wine is not just about the wine, but so much about the tasting process and environment.
After the wineries, it was on to one of my most anticipated stops, Monticello. Is it normal to start crying upon seeing it? Cause I almost did. I kept tearing up. Mr. Jefferson has been such a huge figure in my life. I really do owe him the experience of my education. I visited Monticello once in college, probably fall of 2000. Since then, they've built a pretty sizable visitor center and (I think) added a shuttle up to the house. The tour was great. I loved my tour guide and they do well at moving you through the house without feeling pressured from the group behind you. Rather than pushing you through like they did at Mount Vernon, I felt like our tour group was being pulled through based on when the group ahead of us was done in each room. I got a couple great pictures at the house and explored the grounds including Mr. Jefferson's gravesite, where I almost cried again. I checked out the museum shop and found a book entitled "Thomas Jefferson on Wine." My life is now complete. I may not read much, but I definitely bought 2 books, that one and another one about the architectural foundations of the University.
Finally, I came over to St. Maarten's for dinner. Definitely one of my favorite haunts when I was an underhoo (yes, that's a word). Tomorrow I'll be doing the Charlottesville volksmarch and spending a good deal of time on the grounds. Absolutely cannot wait.
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