I've decided that I need to find a different route to Walgreens and Walmart. If you've ever been in Des Moines around rush hour then you know you want to avoid the west mix master or the 63rd street exit on I235. There's a similar area in Charlottesville and it doesn't seem to matter what day of the week or time. It is awful either going or coming. You're not going to like the traffic - patience is definitely needed. We thought we found an excellent time. We drove in shortly after noon today and no issues. Yay! Should have known. After leaving Walmart, we could travel about 2 car lengths at a time for the lights up ahead. What normally takes about 30 minutes took us an hour. And did I mention we watched an accident at one of the intersections we were stopped at. One vehicle decided it was tired of making a left turn and turned right in front of a car. Crash, Bam, Boom. Yep, then they sat in their vehicles and yelled at each other. So glad they decided to do it right in the middle of the intersection. There are 5 lanes so we could just drive around them. :)
On another note, we have had very nice weather the last couple of days. We could open the windows and excellent sleeping weather at night. Looks like the ac will be coming back on later today. The sun is coming out and we're supposed to get into the 80's again. Apparently it got hot earlier than usual this year.
Back to the tour of yesterday. We went to James Monroe's home and took the tour. It's about 12 miles from the campground and yes, we had free passes for this one, too. We drove up this road to get to the house, gardens, and lawn. It's a modest house but they still have gardens and livestock. When Monroe owned it there were ONLY 3500 acres and it's adjacent to Thomas Jefferson's home. The tour guide that we had knew a lot about his life. It was extremely interesting.
We started our tour here at the front door of Ash Lawn. This addition was added 20 years after Monroe built his house. He sold his home when he retired from public service and the new owners added on this addition. The second picture - the white part of the house is the original Monroe home with the yellow part the newer addition. Since Monroe was solvent when he died, they still had quite a few of his original possessions including the presidential china used in the White House. The Monroes were the first presidential family to decorate the White House and the first to have China.
It truly was amazing hearing about Monroe's life from the time he crossed the Delaware with George Washington, US Ambassador to France, Secretary of State, Secretary of War and 5th President. There were a few other things in between also like governor of Virginia.
A couple of pictures of the lawn, gardens, and view.
Well, until the next time.
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