Today was a wonderful day on our way back home. We stayed over a second night in Charlottesville, VA to see some of the sights. Actually we have found so many things here that we want to see that I am developing a list of places to go as we pass through over the next few years! Today we did our #1 choice - Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. It was a beautiful day here, in the 50s this morning and warming up into the sixties later in the day. The sun was shining and the trees are starting to bud, as well as daffodils and tulips are in blossom. We toured the inside of the house and found many changes since we were here once many years ago with the Boy Scouts. What a great piece of history and they are doing such a great job of promoting it.
Here is a side view of the house. They will not allow picture taking inside the house, so we did not get many photos. We did do the grounds, ate lunch at the cafeteria, and visited the gravesite.
After lunch we went on another adventure. You know how much Louise loves the Waltons. Well, we found out there is a Walton's Mountain Museum in Schuyler. With the address and the GPS we traveled over hills and hollows on back roads to find this place.
This building was the school that Earl Hamner, the author of the book that started The Waltons and of many of the TV shows, attended. The Walton house was his home as a child. They have filled this building with pictures and memoribilia as well as the actual contents of several rooms of the house. You can see John Boy's room, the kitchen, the living room, Godsey's store and even the recipe machine.
The house itself is down a hill from the museum. We did not tour it because the stuff in it is not original. This is truly in a far out middle-of-nowhere destination. There was only one other couple there. The community seems to have set up this museum and it is not well advertised. No one would ever come across it unless they had a GPS and really searched for it. It was fun to see all the things they have collected there.
Here's a good picture of the Walton kitchen.
Here's the living room with the door and the stairs to the bedroom for the grandparents.
Here is a good view of Godsey's Store, and another one.
Finally we have John Boy's Room:
We had a great day. It is lovely here as spring is blooming all over the place. This is an area we will come back to visit again. Retired history teachers tend to go back to history - we still have the homes of James Madison and James Monroe to see, plus Woodrow Wilson's presidential library, the caverns, and an historical village on our list!
We did get our pictures taken with the statue of Thomas Jefferson today:
Tomorrow we head on to Pennsylvania. We dug out a jacket and sweat shirt today, and long pants for the first time in many weeks. Hopefully we will get through or past the next snow storm!
