I had this weekend totally to myself and rather than sit home I decided to take one of the day trips that I used to do when I first moved out here (and what inspired this blog!)
My destination today was Monticello, home of our 3rd President and the man who wrote much of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. I've been meaning to go for a while and I realized Madison and Monroe both live nearby. It should have taken a little over 2 hours, but I stopped for cheap gas in my old neck of the woods and hit some strange 10 minute snowy storm as I neared the mountain so it took closer to 3. This kept me from seeing the other president's homes, but I also drove through Chancellorsville so I'm going to need to go back out there for that and the vineyards anyway.
I love the Virginia countryside. The hills are so beautiful and it feels like you're going back in time to a forgotten place. I absolutely could live out there someday.
Monticello was great and I recommend visiting. The museum portion was nice, but focused mainly on Monticello as a place rather than Thomas Jefferson as a man, so it wasn't my favorite part of the day. I wasn't dressed appropriately because I didn't realize we'd spend much time outside, so if you go in the winter, be prepared for being out on a mountain.
Thomas Jefferson was a putzy guy and I think my brother would have really enjoyed him. The house took 40 years for Jefferson to build because he kept changing his mind about how things were done. For example, he went to France for 5 years and came back with many new ideas.
When you first walk in you enter a large foyer with high ceilings, Indian gifts and maps on the wall, and a large clock above the front door. This was unusual for the time (having a clock), but to take it a step further, Jefferson had the days of the week up and down the wall and a weight system was attached to the clock and the weights moved each day to indicate what day of the
week it was. The man was so meticulous in his planning that his detailed layouts of the house have made it easy to preserve, so 95% of the building is original. Now, when they need to put in safety measures (such as a fire sprinkler system), they can consult his notes and avoid putting them anywhere that would cause damage. In addition to this, his granddaughter drew detailed pictures of the interior, so the furniture and portraits can be right where Jefferson had them.
I got chills as I stood in his study. Though he donated his personal library to the Library of Congress after the fires of 1812, he continued collecting and some of his books remain in his study today. This country that I love so much is built on words that he penned, risking treason and death when he and 56 others pledged "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor" in effort to create a government where all men are created equal and have the freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. To stand in the place where he no doubt studied Locke and the other philosophers that influenced his learning and beliefs....pretty cool.
His bedroom boasted several of his little inventions of which I spoke earlier and Ben would love. He had a lazy Susan type spinning stand for his books so that he could be reading 5 at a time. When he wrote letters (and he wrote many with all of his different interests and positions over the years), he used a machine that would make a copy of everything he wrote (a second pen would mimic his movement), so that he was able to file and save everything he wrote. He had busts and paintings of his colleagues George Washington and John Adams, making me wonder if he understood even then what a great impact these men would have on the course of human events. Basked in the bright afternoon sun that his high ceilings and windows offered, Jefferson also had paintings of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Isaac Newton, the men he said were the 3 greatest who ever lived. He read and wrote in 7 languages because he believed things should be read in the language they were written. On that note, he took 4 of these languages and put together his own version of the Bible in those languages and though he called himself a Christian, he left out the miracles in his version of the Bible because he considered himself to be a man of science...hmmm.
Also worth mentioning is his dining room with a dumbwaiter that only held wine. Once a bottle was empty, they'd send it down to be replaced. Genius.
The final portion of my chilled day was walking down to the family cemetery where Jefferson was buried. He said he wanted to be remembered for 3 things and those things are listed on his grave--
1. The Declaration of Independence
2. Religious freedom in the state of Virginia
3. Founding the University of Virginia.
My drive home was lovely and I had to pull over several times to take pictures of the spectacular sunset.
Finally, the title of this blog is a shout-out to my newest (and apparently late) discovery that I absolutely love and is perfect for my walk into the past this weekend!
West, on a plane bound west
I see her stretchin' out below
Land, blessed Mother Land
The place where I was born
Scars, yeah she's got her scars
Sometimes it starts to worry me,
'Cause lose, I don't wanna lose
Sight of who we are
From the mountains high
To the wave-crashed coast
There's a way to find
Better days, I know
It's been a long hard ride,
Got a ways to go
But this is still the place
That we all call home
Free, nothin' feels like free,
Though it sometimes means
We don't get along'
Cause same, no we're not the same
But that's what makes us strong
From the mountains high
To the wave-crashed coast
There's a way to find
Better days, I know.
It's been a long hard ride,
Got a ways to go
But this is still the place
That we all call home.
Brave, gotta call it brave
To chase that dream across the sea.
Name, then they signed their names
For something they believed
Red, how the blood ran red
We laid our dead in sacred ground
Just think, wonder what they'd think
If they could see us now
It's been a long hard ride,
Got a ways to go
But this is still the place
That we all call home.
It's been a long hard ride,
And I won't lose hope
This is still the place
That we all call home
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