In actuality, we started our journey with a stop at Lowes & Walmart in Ruckersville. After that we went to Montpelier. The admission was $20/person to tour the mansion, but with a limited budget we needed to choose the sites that we really wanted to tour and I have had a longtime wish to visit Monticello, so we did not pay for Montpelier. We did see a couple gallery displays and learned a little bit about the Madison family and Marion DuPont Simpson. We also visited the family cemetery.
Gallery One: Dolley/Dolly Madison, America's first First Lady, as we think of it today. Her popularity and reputation as a "modern" woman made her name a household brand for items from cigar wrappers and paper dolls to ice cream and cakes. Dolley was the way she spelled her name and Dolly was the marketeers version of her name.
Did you know? James Madison and Zachary Taylor were related, sharing a grandfather (Ambrose Taylor)
Gallery Two: Marion DuPont Scott, yes of those DuPonts, purchased Montpelier in 1901, where they added incredible stables and bred racehorses. The racetrack and grounds are spectacular. There will be a Steeplechase race on 11/5....too bad we will be gone by then.
On to Monticello. The place is very crowded, we're told over 450,000 visitors each year. $25/person for the house tour. The tour was very interesting, filled with many original pieces. The house itself was exactly how Jefferson designed it. There were only two other owners (Levy) between when the Jefferson family owned it and when the Jefferson Trust took over, which allowed for so much authenticity to remain. Jefferson was obviously an incredible statesman, writing the Declaration of Independence, but what you may not know is that he was also an inventor and agriculturist. One of the items that he invented was a polygraph...no not the lie detector, rather a copier machine of sorts. When he wrote, he rigged the machine so that another pen would copy what he was doing. That invention allowed for a vast number of his papers to be viewed, as he saved everything. In fact there are over 19,000 copies of letters that he wrote through the course of his lifetime that have been saved. A big theme of the tour was the fact that he penned the words about all men being created equal, but was a slave owner. There were two other tours of the grounds available, Slavery at Monticello and Gardens and Grounds, which we did not do.
By the end of Monticello, Wilson and I were both tired and we still needed to find a library so that we could do our computer work....so Roosevelt and Monroe will need to wait for another time.
Other thoughts - This is the land of acres and acres of wooden fencing surrounding estates that are, in my mind, reminiscent of South Fork. I say this because the entry drives are so long I can only imagine what lies beyond.
Deep Thoughts by Wilson.....
You know when you're driving down the road and it strikes you that you just love the road...The back roads of Virginia offer well paved roads, 55 mph speed limits, little to no traffic, beautiful farms, polite drivers, and no rumble strips.
Leave Shenandoah at 7:30 am
Rte. 33E ► 20N
Arrive Montpelier 10:45 am - Leave 12:05 pm
Rte. 20S ► 231S ► 250W ► 20S ► 53E
Arrive Monticello 1:09 pm - Leave 3:28 pm
Gas purchased at Exxon - Ruckersville, VA - $1.93/gal (cash)
Total miles traveled -
Really, you don't visit Montpelier, namesake for your homeland's Capitol city just because it costs $20.
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