After shuttling from small road to smaller road to tiny road to Indian trail, we arrived at our cabin yesterday afternoon. It’s quite a nice two-bedroom/two-bath affair with a great room and a small kitchen. Tastefully decorated with lots of wood and stone.
We took it kind of easy for a couple of hours and then took a quick walk around a small part of the grounds. We walked down to the lake and then up to the horse paddock, where we found a swing. I didn’t have my “real” camera with me, but I did take a photo and video of Mark on the swing.
Everyone here seems to be really nice. All the employees and also all of the guests wave when we pass. It reminds me of when I stopped once with my parents in West Virginia to take a picture of a cow by the road. About 100 yards back from the road was a house with a family sitting on the porch watching us. As soon as I stepped out of the car, they all waved at me. It was the first time that I’d experienced that, and Mom explained that it was common in those parts.
We had dinner last night at a—well—hmm—what to call it? A road-side diner? That doesn’t seem to fit, but it’s probably as close as I can get. If you live in Columbus, think Chef-O-Nette meets Deliverance. It was stuck in the 70s, and the menu was populated with (not very) cleverly named hamburgers, chopped steak, country-fried steak, and so on. My second burger with fries for the day is definitely reminding me of its presence this morning.
After a quick run through the grocery store for honey and batteries (for my keyboard; without them, you’d be wading through a sea of typos), we returned to the cabin and spent the evening talking about—of all things—the Edmund Fitzgerald (song | info) and staring into our phones/laptops/iPads.
As I write, we’re on our way to Monticello, then to UVA. More later. . . .
. . . I have to admit it. Monticello was not as boring as I expected. I’m not a big American history buff, so I expected to hear a lot of, “Thomas Jefferson’s slaves made butter for the household in this cellar,” and so on, but it really wasn’t so pedantic. Our docent, Mary, was quite knowledgeable and engaging. Also, I spent more time walking the grounds and taking photos than I did on the tour, so that helped.
Even though this is sacrilege to my architect friends, I found the house itself to be graceless. Jefferson’s office/bed closet/sitting room is nice, as is the dining/tea room, but everything else was just uncomfortable and odd to me; I guess that happens when you spend 40 years building a house. Here’s an example: The house has no grand stair—Jefferson considered them a waste of heat and space—so to get up to and down from the second and third floors, we had to climb staircases that consisted of 22-inch-wide by nine-inch-high stairs and that were contained in a six foot by six foot footprint. Try getting up and down those in a formal gown or carrying a child! But because he wanted a dome, Jefferson built on the third floor a large room (possibly the largest room in the house) for which he had no use. The octagonal room beneath the dome was largely unused and, indeed, was so devoid of furnishings during our visit that the echo made it nearly impossible to hear Mary speak. I did find the way the basement and basement entrances were designed to service the house to be ingenious, however.
We had a lovely long chat with one of the volunteers as we were walking from the home back to a very nice visitors’ center, and then we grabbed a bite at the cafe to cap off our visit to Monticello. (For me, cafeteria pizza and not-the-best red velvet cake I’ve ever had.)
If Monticello was the meat and potatoes of the Jeffersonian itinerary, our visit to the University of Virginia—also designed by Jefferson—was kind of the dessert. Which is not necessarily to say that is was any sweeter—most universities that I’ve seen, as charming as they are, are in many ways interchangeable. Rather, UVA was an intellectually smaller course that was delightful in its way but not necessarily additive. We did, however, see some neat public art on campus, and we walked The Lawn that is the heart of campus.
I think the dome on the rotunda (which was under renovation) at the end of The Lawn was more successful than the dome on Monticello, but perhaps that’s just me.
We left UVA and went to an open-air mall in Charlottesville for a little shopping and for dinner. Food proved to be a sticking point for us—Dan and Alex and I are all picky in our own ways—so we ended up going to a French restaurant and, because I was not particularly hungry anyway, I skipped dinner and had only chocolate mousse. It was worth it.
We ran today for more than 12 hours today, and my dogs are barking; it’s time to call it a night. Tomorrow, they’re threatening to take me on a tour of James Madison’s home. We’ll see how that goes.