C'Ville

We went exploring around Charlottesville today with Mike. He took us first to the place they had rented for a couple years about a half hour outside of town. It is on a small farm. They really did not live there all that time because Mike was working in Portland for close to a year and Ellen was in Kenya as part of her Fulbright fellowship. Their apartment - somehow both John and I failed to take a picture of it - is above the garage. It had a few of pastures and an old barn. 

John loved the barn. He has been searching for antlers for the play we are doing, and he would have walked off with this deer hunting  prop if he could have. 

It almost made him want to take up farming. 

There was a large and rather creepy building further back on the property. We think it was used to keep hunting dogs, but it is hard to be certain. 

 From her we headed up into the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah National Park. Along the road we came across a reconstruction of a pioneer homestead. 

The view as we were driving along was spectacular. 

Back on King Mountain Road I did a little work. Their sun room is such a pleasant place to pass the time.  

Later on, we went into town. Charlottesville is in the South, so there was the inevitable heroic statue of Robert E. Lee. 

We had dinner at a small restaurant. We were joined by two friends of Ellen’s from the Semester at Sea program. The woman on the bottom right - I am blanking on her name - works at Monticello and provided us with four free tickets for tomorrow. The man in the bottom right, her boyfriend, is working on his Ph.D. at UVa in Tibetan Buddhism. Both of them were really nice, nice people.

 

Washington to Washington

When John first set up this trip I was a little uncertain about spending five days in Washington. As we were leaving today, I felt like we could easily have spent another five more. We had a pleasant breakfast, as usual, at the Taft Bridge Inn. We have particularly enjoyed the company of Ken and Celeste, two teachers from Puyallap, Washington. 

We went down to Budget to pick up our rental car. It seemed to take a long time and get the car and even longer to get out of town, but none of this was interesting while it was happening and I cannot image retelling it will make it more fascinating. We headed off to Mount Vernon to finally see the famous estate. 

After you buy your ticket, you walk through a pretty decent museum. One of the most intriguing exhibits is about reconstructing what Washington really looked like. They have this great holograph of Washington that seems to turn and watch you as you walk around it. 

A long path leads up to the main house. 

Although made of wood, the exterior of the mansion is covered with a textured coating to make it look like stone. The docent explained to us that they threw sand on the wet paint. 

You have to wait for about 30 minutes or so to get into the house. Once you are inside, you a pushed along pretty quickly. Taking pictures is strictly prohibited, but I found a few stills on Google Images. This is the last room built in the house, a kind of trophy room. 

This is Washington’s study. Notice the foot operated fan for hot days. 

It was a long an fairly frustrating drive from Mount Vernon to Charlottesville. Once we got there, we were greeted right away by Rafiki, Ellen’s dog. Fiki is getting up in years now and has lost most of her hearing. 

They have a large house on a pretty large lot. It is quite a bit different from their Portland digs. 

There’s a nice dining room, though in real life the wall is not curved. 

There’s also this great sun room. I think it must originally have been a porch, but this makes it much more usable. 

Ellen had to go off to some University function, so Michael made us sandwiches and we went off hiking through the nearby woods. 

John was delighted by daffodils growing wild. 

And on our way home John discovered the colonial house his mother always wanted.