Site-Seeing in Virgina - Friday

It seems that the further away from an event the less descriptive I am able to be about it, so I will have to be careful in the future to try and not let my updates get behind me, so that those who are interested can hear all the lovely details. Looking back to Friday of last week, this was our site seeing day.

We decided to go with Nanna Mary on a car ride up to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, we wanted to see the foothills, and some overlook scenic views, as well as get a look at the fall colors changing. The ride up to Monticello was beautiful, the trees were orange, yellow, red, and green and just beginning to fall. We decided not to go in and do a tour, but there was a very pretty stone bridge that you go under and then over on the approach. Afterwards we went to a place called Mitche Tavern, which was an old Mill, and is now a little shop. It was neat to see how historic everything was. We stopped in and got a few gifts and some wine.

Since we were exploring the area we wondered what was off to one branch of the road and began to follow it, we saw signs for something called Ash Lawn, and decided to check it out. Along the way we drove into Jefferson Library, and Jefferson Vineyard. The library was a colonial looking building, with a pretty circle drive, outside was a beautiful tree that had turned mostly yellow and dropped about half of its leaves. The vineyard was doing tasting and tours, but we stopped just to look at the countryside and fields of grapes.

All along the many winding roads were gated driveways for local farms and other vineyards. When we arrived at Ash Lawn, we discovered that it was the home of Monroe. So we drove up the long winding driveway to see the house. We didn’t tour the inside, this was the penny tour, but the outside of the home was modest in comparison to Jeffersons. The countryside was beautiful, but the driveway was the best part, it is pictured here.

On the way back we stopped at a place called Klugi Vineyard which was a shishi estate with expensive wines and cheese and a great place to go for a fancy lunch, we bought a rose and were on our way to Ty’s House. (Holly’s Great Uncle). We spent about 3 hours driving around and stopping at all the sites and had a lovely day. At Ty’s house Joel stopped in to work on his computer. He lives near to the university, so we drove through the campus on our way home from there.

We arrived just in time for Holy to be the guest of honor for a few more visitors. One of Irene’s friends was coming over for a visit, and over the past few weeks she was yard sale shopping with Jackie to get all of the baby supplies, so she was eager to meet the little tyke. We had a great visit.