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Gettysburg Battlefield
Marker denoting the site of Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address
Gettysburg National Cemetery
Gettysburg Cyclorama at the visitor center
Visitor center book store
The visitor center is pretty big - obviously a big tourist destination
Getting some words of wisdom from Honest Abe Lincoln
The little town of Gettysburg is cute but a little touristy
Lots of pretty farmland on the drive south to Charlottesville
We went through Shenandoah National Park to take scenic Skyline Drive
Adam got lots of use out of his binoculars on Skyline Drive
Derek and Adam with my main man Thomas Jefferson at his estate, Monticello, in Charlottesville Virginia
Apparently they just recently started allowing you to reserve tour times making the experience much smoother
Our guide was intelligent and cute
You always hear about Monticello the house, but the other supporting buildings and the grounds were the most impressive to me. You can only tour some rooms on the bottom floor of the house so you don't see the whole house, but it didn't seem to me that the interior is nearly as impressive as the exterior.
Jefferson had all kinds of ingenious things like this ice house which was filled each winter with ice from a nearby river for use throughout the year
In Jefferson's day, the expansive support buildings with connecting tunnels were bustling with people and made the estate feel like a small town. The tunnels and building material made it feel very pleasant even when it was hot outside.
The views of the surrounding hills from the terraced garden were most beautiful. We spent a lot of time in the garden trying to identify all the plants and marvelling at how nice and tidy everything was.
"There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me"
Derek finally picked out a keepsake - a big nickel?
The football stadium at the University of Virginia. We drove around the nice campus some and there was a big crowd for a baseball playoff game with the University of Oklahoma.Saturday June 12, 2010
There was a big crowd at the hotel in Gettysburg. Gettysburg is obviously a big tourist destination.
I made reservations for the latest tour time (4 pm) of Thomas Jefferson's estate, Monticello, in Charlottesville. That meant we had to hustle to see Gettysburg because I knew that the scenic route I wanted to take along Skyline drive down to Charlottesville would take some time.
We drove to the Gettysburg battlefield and walked around. We walked across the street to the cemetery and checked it out. And then we drove a little way to the Gettysburg Visitor Center where we watched a film and looked at some of the exhibits. As usual, there were lots of other things to do if we had the time.
We had a nice drive South through fertile green farmland and rolling hills. We entered the Shendoah National Forest to take Skyline drive where we saw some fantastic views. We were running late so we had to exit Skyline drive before it ended in order to take a quicker route. It was probably for the best because, although the views along Skyline drive were pretty, the twists and turns were getting old.
We arrived at Monticello in time for our tour, but later than the suggested arrival time. Luckily a big storm had just passed through and all the tour times were pushed back. We took a shuttle bus from the visitor center to the Monticello estate.
The tour of the house was informative and we were able to answer some of the questions our guide asked based on things we learned in Washington DC - like the fact that Thomas Jefferson's personal library restocked the Library of Congress after the British burned the original library during the War of 1812. The tour was pretty quick and you only got to see a portion of the house.
We walked the beautiful grounds for a long time and investigated all the supporting buildings. We spent a lot of time in the garden and, not long after we returned from our trip, the New York Times ran an interesting story about the garden with a neat slideshow.
We walked back to the visitor center and spent some time in the gift shop. Derek hadn't really been interested in anything (that we approved of) for a keepsake of our road trip, but he finally found something here - an oversized nickel with the likeness of Thomas Jefferson?
We were driving back home to Atlanta the following day so we were attempting to cut the distance down some to make the drive the next day easier, but we only drove about an hour before we gave out and stopped in Lynchburg for the night - still leaving us an 8 hour drive home.
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