Driving the back roads of Virginia’s rolling hills through lush green country farmland has been delightful. We enjoyed a two day rendez-vous with Cousin Carolyn and Kent in their new fifth wheel at Waynesboro.
Appomattox Court House National Park where the two commanders Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant met at the McLean House to finalize terms for the Confederate Army’s surrender which ended the Civil War was interesting.
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| Union soldier playing his juice harp |
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| Our 3 Bears taking in Appomattox |
In the Charlottesville area,several former U.S. presidential plantations were open to visit. Ash Lawn-Highland, the estate of James Monroe fifth president of the U.S., provided a chance to see the plantation of a middle class farmer who served more major positions in government than any other president.
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| Monroe's overseer and slave quarters |
Thomas Jefferson designed every aspect of Monticello, an icon of architecture and a World Heritage site, constructing and modifying its buildings and landscape over a period of forty years.
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| Jefferson's Monticello |
We are able to see how he brought together spaces for working, living, and storage beneath the main house, terraces, and pavilions. These spaces included a wash house, carriage bays, an ice house, two privies, wine cellar and other storage cellars, a kitchen, a smoke house, and three rooms for house slaves. These “dependencies” or areas for domestic work, served as points of intersection between Jefferson’s family and enslaved people, and were instrumental to the function of the large house.
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| Monticello's vegetable gardens |
We strolled along Mulberry Row above overlooking the vegetable gardens and on down to the Jefferson family cemetery set behind wrought iron fencing.
Later on drove forty miles away to see James and Dolley Madison’s Montpelier in Orange County. Owned by the Madison family 1723-1844, the Virginia property was the lifelong home of James Madison, fourth President of the United States and Father of the Constitution. Jefferson helped design the reconstruction of Madison’s Montpelier house front façade to make it more befitting of a former president.
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| James and Dolley Madison's Montpelier in Virginia |
Appomattox Court House National Park where the two commanders Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant met at the McLean House to finalize terms for the Confederate Army’s surrender which ended the Civil War was interesting.
In the Charlottesville area,several former U.S. presidential plantations were open to visit. Ash Lawn-Highland, the estate of James Monroe fifth president of the U.S., provided a chance to see the plantation of a middle class farmer who served more major positions in government than any other president. 
