The rest of the trip

The remnants of tropical storm Lee interfered with my plans this week.

I'm sure Shenandoah National Park is beautiful and I will go back and see it sometime soon.  However, when it's misty and rainy there is not much to see there.  Overlooks are wonderful, but not so much when you're staring into the fog/clouds.  The few pictures I took there pretty much tell the story.

So I spent a slow day in Charlottesville reading and then  hung out with friends in the evening. It was good to see Alison, Eric and Amy again.  I've known them for a long time now.  

Then on Wednesday I went to Monticello.  Thomas Jefferson was amazing and definitely a gadget hound:  He had a dumbwaiter installed in the dining room just for wine!  A brilliant idea I think when the wine cellar is directly underneath the dining room.  He also used a mechanical copying device, where you write with an ink pen and the device automatically copies what you're writing with another ink pen.  Since he wrote 19000 letters in his life and wanted to keep a copy of every one of them, I guess that's the way to go.   These are only a couple of things he experimented with.  There are many more examples.  From innovative beer and wine making to being the self-educated architect of Monticello.

Monticello is interesting, but what was really interesting was to learn more about Jefferson.  It's fascinating to see the results of a lifetime of work by a very smart and intellectually curious man, who recorded most of what he was thinking and curious about.  And I'm not even talking about his political achievements:  Declaration of Independence, Virginia Constitution, two terms as President, one term as Vice President, Secretary of State and Ambassador to France for 5 years.  Amazing.

I took a few pictures.  The Monticello website has much better ones.  Again, low hanging clouds obstructed the views, which I'm sure are beautiful up there.

So when the weather on Thursday morning was still not conducive to going to see the Shenandoah Valley, I decided to head home.  It was a good trip.  I saw some beautiful country that I hadn't seen before, saw some friends I hadn't spent time with in a while and even really left the US for a few days by going to Quebec. 

After 13 days on the road and 3000 miles, it's very nice to be back home.