Day five! This
morning after breakfast, Daddio made his way to the rental car company to pick
up our reserved vehicle. We wanted to
take a side trip to visit Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, just over 2 hours
outside of the city. Daddio had his
first experience driving in the DC area, while I read the paper (aloud) so we
could discuss current events. Sunshine
was…thrilled. Ha! She did have some time to read a book about
child survivors of the Holocaust, so we weren’t boring her too much.
We arrived at Monticello just after noon. The drive was nice and the views were
beautiful, but we hadn’t seen anything yet.
As soon as we stepped off the tour bus that drove us from the visitor’s
center to the top of the mountain, I begain snapping photos. The scenery was magnificent. It was nice to take a deep breath of fresh
air. We started our time on the little
mountain doing the self guided tours, and then participated in a walking tour
about slave life at Monticello. The
information was very interesting, I think we all learned a lot from our tour
guide.
As a splurge (and because I love the “behind the scenes”
portion of tours), we decided to pay for the extended tour of the house. We were able to see rooms on all 4 levels of
the home. Our tour guide was
amazing. She rattled off information and
recited quotes by Jefferson with such ease.
My perception about Jefferson’s daily life and lifestyle changed many
times during the course of our tour day.
It definitely left me thinking.
After the tour, we decided to head into
Charlottesville. A friend of mine moved
out that way a few years ago, and I was reall looking forward to seeing
her. We were able to visit their fmily
for a few hours before heading back into DC.
Tomorrow is the last full day of our trip. It has passed so quickly. I am looking forward to seeing how much we
can pack into a day!
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