Old Dominion: Day 3

Day three was a trip back West to Montpelier,  the home of James Madison, the Father of the Constitution. All the driving and long hours made me go a little demented, so when Madison interrupted my reading of the Federalist Papers to show me what he and Dolly were reading in the backyard, I just had to take a peek...

The cold Virginia rain returned today, making photos of the house difficult, but I did my best. Much of the interior is bare, as they are still restoring the inside, but it was interesting nonetheless. The previous owners, the Du Pont family, gutted the inside, turning it into an art deco nightmare that the Madison Foundation is still working on reversing. They only finished with the outside restoration a year and half ago. 

As for Madison's grave, on the outskirts of the property, it was quite a sight, situated in small, bricked in family cemetery surrounded by penned in wild horses. Madison's grave is the tallest obelisk on the right; his wife Dolly's is the white marble one behind it. I have plenty of traditional photos of the grave, but that's no fun...

I spent an hour and a half waiting for the wild horses to stray into frame, and this is the best i could do...
 

Tomorrow it's on to downtown Richmond for the graves of James Monroe and John Tyler, then, if there is absolutely no traffic, a quaint seven hour drive to Yonkers. But seeing as how on Friday I ran into three hours of traffic between Richmond and Washington, I should be home sometime around midnight.

Old Dominion: Day 2, Part 2

As if spending the day with the spiritual father of the United States of America wasn't good enough, his dear friend James Monroe lived just down the road, so I had to check out his plantation, Ash Law-Highland. The white portion of the house is original to Monroe, while the yellow portion was added by a subsequent owner.

 

While Monroe isn't buried on his plantation, they did have a nice marble sculpture in the garden. Since there is no photography allowed inside and none of the plantation had grown in for the season, there wasn't much else to photograph. His grave will be on Monday...

Old Dominion: Day 2, Part 1

For a year and a half, I had owned a copy of the Declaration of Independence, purchased from an airport during a trip to Richard Nixon's grave, yet I had never actually read it. Thinking it might be one of those "perfect moments" that I am always seeking, I thought it would be fitting to read it at the grave of its author,Thomas Jefferson. Unfortunately, like the tomb of George Washington the day before, I wasn't able to get close to Jefferson's grave; the cast iron bars of the family cemetery prevented it. I still read it on the brick steps leading up to the grave, but it wasn't hardly a perfect moment. It was difficult too with a constant stream of tourists saying stupid  things like, "Why are there so many coins on the grave?" and "It's because he was in debt and people think it's funny." I explained to the two people who make a point to dig through change purses specifically for nickels that,  "Actually, Thomas Jefferson wouldn't like that at all. He never wanted his face on any coin... he thought it was something best reserved for Caesar."

Luckily for me however, I did have my perfect moment, just at a different spot on the grounds of Monticello.

This small brick enclosure, with 1,000 feet of garden behind it, looks over the vineyards on the terrace step below it and out at Jefferson's Tuffton plantation, barely visible from the treeline of the distant Rivana Valley, whose waters flow into the James River and all the way to Chesapeake Bay. The view?

Unfortunately the window to the left's beautiful view has been obscured by a recently built gift shop, but I'm sure the caramel popcorn and jam they have for sale  is worth destroying the view of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the tail end of which can be seen sloping off on the left.

The house itself, Monticello, isn't bad either. Not having the freezing rain that Mt. Vernon had made for some better photos too.

Old Dominion: Day 1

I tried to do a panorama of the porch at Mount Vernon, which faces East onto the Potomac. Didn't come out too great, but I'm too tired to try better. Hit the road at 4 a.m., got to the hotel at 8:30 p.m.

Graffiti on the tomb of George Washington...

Replica of Washington's Coffin...

Hopefully more to come tomorrow...