Continuing our tour with the founding fathers, we spent a day visiting Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. There were a few interesting things that really struck me about our visit, the first being, there was a TON of people there! On a weekday. Tour buses, school groups, and families. They were organized but we were shuffled through Monticello pretty quickly and it was impossible to see everything because we were crammed into pretty large groups and were pretty smooshed together.
To keep you from knocking stuff around they made us wear our backpack backwards. That was fine but wowzer, they were adamant about it. I was reminded twice before I even managed to get into the tour line. It was borderline impolite when I hadn't even managed to get within 20 feet of Monticello yet.
The house was very interesting, just full of artifacts including a portion of Thomas Jeffersons library (the rest is at the Library of Congress). It was pretty darn cool to walk where Thomas Jefferson walked. I was a little star struck I have to admit. Too bad we couldn't take pictures inside.
Once we finished our tour of the house, things were a bit more spread out as you headed into the lawn and gardens.
On the steps of Monticello.
This is the back side, where it was a lot quieter.
The gardens.
They are currently doing excavations at Monticello down in the slave quarters area.
Kayley even found a small piece of pottery! She asked the archaeologist working and he agreed with her assessment and told her she could keep it!
Thomas Jefferson Grave.
The girls and Thomas Jefferson.
The museum was pretty cool. Here is an invention of Thomas Jeffersons called a cipher wheel. This allowed him to send secret messages.
Another inventions of Thomas Jefferson's. A Polygraph. He invented this so it would automatically make a copy of whatever he was writing. He was an avid letter-writer and wrote hundreds of letters in his lifetime. We learned that he would get upset with his grandchildren if they did not return his letters.
Maggie enjoyed cooking over the open fire in the slave cabin.
Kayley's Monticello.
