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Day Five

It was late in the afternoon when we left Monticello – hours later than we intended to depart for home.  As we got on the road I wondered if we’d be able to make it straight through.  In the past couple years I have lost the ability to drive comfortably at all hours: past midnight I become a drowsy man.  If the conversation in the car is good it’s still possible, but if Miriam falls asleep I get sleepy, too.  So, heading east on Interstate 64 toward Richmond I was still unsure.

We stopped for food at seven o’clock.  Perhaps we were already in North Carolina.  I ate four more biscuits, bringing my total for the day to seven.  Re-energized from the food and soda, I thought surely I could drive another ten hours.  Ha!  It soon got dark, and the miles and miles of South Carolina interstate were monotonous and fatiguing.  The to-stop-or-not-to-stop debate was a perplexing one.  On one hand, another night’s hotel would cost more money.  On the other hand, driving while sleepy isn’t safe, and since it would be likely we’d end up having to stop anyway, we might as well stop sooner than later, because the earlier we get to sleep the earlier we can leave.

We began looking for hotels where Interstate 26 crosses 95 in South Carolina.  Though there was nothing worth anything at that exit, the two or three hotels we asked wanted well north of a hundred dollars for a room.  We trudged on.  Finally, after perhaps another half hour of driving, I could stand it no more, and I pulled into a Super 8 Motel.  I went to the office but found the door locked and the room inside dark.  A teenager within seemed to come out of nowhere and gestured for me to walk around to the side of the building.  I found a small bullet-proof window there, and that’s where we conducted our transaction.  The room was sixty dollars or so.  I was too tired to haggle.  Miriam found the place extremely distasteful, and it did seem like the ideal horror movie setting, but the room was actually clean, even if the air conditioner having been off for some time made the room a bit musty.  The fear of certain murder kept me awake for a little while, but I did ultimately get the sleep I desperately needed.

Day Six

We didn’t bother retrieving our free continental breakfast in the morning.  We left as soon as we woke up.  We had never removed our clothes.  Leaving the parking lot in daylight I got a better look at our surroundings.  The hotel was a hideous yellow, and vultures sat perched along the roof line, perhaps waiting to feast on the heaps of torsos left murdered in the rooms.  It was somewhat chilling.  We got the hell out of there.

We were back in Florida by noon, and had pulled into our driveway by a quarter past one o’clock on the first day of June.  In five and a half days we had traveled 1,762 miles through five states and the District of Columbia.  It was an unforgettable adventure.

Filed under: Dana Heritage Project, Food, Travel on September 6th, 2010 | No Comments »

Day Five

As most people know, Monticello was the home of Thomas Jefferson, which he designed himself.  It is located in the hills just outside Charlottesville, Virginia.  Jefferson chose the site when he was only a boy, and the house was under construction in some form or another from the 1760s until Jefferson’s old age.  The house and its surrounding gardens are, simply put, an amazing place to visit, and in 1987 were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Like George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Monticello is owned and operated by a private non-profit, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.  And, as at Mount Vernon, that non-profit has done an impeccable job preserving and protecting a unique national treasure.  While, as a rule, I would generally prefer to see such places operated by the National Park Service, the rather high admission fee charged at Monticello–a fee which would not be charged were the site run by the NPS–allows the Thomas Jefferson Foundation to maintain Monticello and defend it from myriad threats.  For example, rising above Monticello is a grassy mountain capped with tall trees.  Jefferson owned that land in his lifetime, but the mountain, along with countless acres surrounding Monticello itself, were sold off after his death to cover debts.  A few years ago a proposal was hatched to build condos atop the mountain.  While the view from those condos would be spectacular, the view from Monticello would be ruined.  The Thomas Jefferson Foundation forked over millions of dollars to purchase the land and protect it from development forever.  As a Monticello staffer told me, “anytime any land near Monticello comes up for sale, the Foundation buys it at once”.  Monticello is in good hands.

We had made reservations online, and our scheduled tour was at noon.  All that was required was for us to pay for our tickets at the visitor center, which we did, before catching the van up to the house.  The drive up the mountain took only a few minutes, and we were let out on a gravel driveway circled by tall ash and linden trees.  We waited on a bench until the guide summoned us to form a line.  From the east side Monticello looks smaller than I expected.  In fact, there are houses in Gainesville that appear grander at first glance.  But my eyes were drawn to the clever things: a clock above the front door that displays the time both inside and out; a dial on the ceiling above the front steps that indicates the direction of the wind; a half-circle window above the portico that tilts in.

We were advised that photography is prohibited inside the house, and I complied, of course.  But I can tell you what I saw.  Directly inside the tall French doors (which, we were told, are reproductions, to protect the originals from wear at constant use), is a large room with painted wood floors and a balcony.  On the side walls are animal specimens (sent to Jefferson by Lewis and Clark), maps of the United States, and portraits.  Above the French door through which we passed to enter is the other side of the clock, slightly offset from the one outside to account for the single mechanism.  Two long chains attached to weights emanate from the clock and pass through small holes in the floor at the corners of the room.  The number of wights visible indicates the day of the week.  We passed through a doorway to the left into a small study used by the lady of the house, then into Jefferson’s library.  There were scads of books, all of which were carefully researched to accurately reflect the titles in Jefferson’s original library, which today is at the Library of Congress.  Only one small bookcase contained volumes actually owned and read by Jefferson, and those were behind glass for protection.  Almost every other thing in the house is original, which is why visitors are instructed not to touch anything, though I couldn’t help but brush my fingers across a table as I walked by it.  We saw a small guest room with a bed built into an alcove, then moved into Jefferson’s own large bedrooms, which, too, had a bed within an alcove that divided the space.  Jefferson, we were told, died in that bed.  Skylights made the space bright, and the contents of the rooms indicated clearly that its former resident was an intellectual and polymath. Off the bedroom was another large room with a high ceiling and walls covered in portraits of Jefferson’s heroes, including Washington.  Two large mirrors hung on either side of a doorway into the parlor.  These mirrors appeared to be quite old, and I asked the tour guide if they were original to the house.  Indeed, she said, they were.  In fact, she added, most of the glass in the windows was also original.  The most affecting moment for me, then, was the realization that I could see my reflection in a mirror that Jefferson himself looked into every day.  We passed through the modest dining room, and out of the house through a side door, where, from the back yard one can see down into Charlottesville, and spy the roof of the rotunda at the University of Virgina that Jefferson designed.

The day was warm and sunny, and although there were many visitors, it wasn’t what I would call crowded.  We were free to tour the garden and the exterior of the house without supervision.  The garden was beautiful and colorful almost beyond belief.  Butterflies were everywhere.  Within a short time we joined a guided tour of the gardens and grounds, and it was extraordinarily informative.  We learned that Monticello has a huge staff of full-time gardeners, which, considering the size of the property oughtn’t be too surprising.  In Jefferson’s time, he had the hillside to the south of the house terraced to accommodate planting, and even today the Monticello staff grow every conceivable vegetable.

A short walk down a brick path lead us to a small grassy plot of land surrounded by an iron fence.  A stone obelisk within bore the inscription:

HERE WAS BURIED
THOMAS JEFFERSON
AUTHOR OF THE
DECLARATION
OF
INDEPENDENCE
OF THE
STATUTE OF VIRGINIA
FOR
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
AND FATHER OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

That’s it.  No mention of his being the first vice president of the United States or third President.

One aspect of Jefferson’s life that is mentioned at Monticello is slavery.  Jefferson owned many slaves, and his home was built by enslaved men.  Indeed, one look at the plantation itself makes clear that that whole lifestyle would have simply been impossible without slavery.  Wealthy planters like Jefferson could not have afforded to live without free labor.  Jefferson understood this, clearly.  But it is a shame to think that the man who wrote that “all men are created equal” chose to 0wn other human beings because it was to his personal advantage to do so.

Our tour had begun at noon, but it was four o’clock before we left the visitor center.

We made one last stop just outside the grounds of Monticello, at an eighteenth century mill and tavern.  Today, of course, it is a gift shop, and while we were there we found our official 2010 Christmas ornament: a small handmade wooden model of Monticello.  Overjoyed at our find, we got back into the car, and back on the road for the long drive home.

Filed under: Dana Heritage Project, History, Travel on September 6th, 2010 | No Comments »

Day Four

We have found that the importance of hotel location varies from city to city.  In Washington, D.C., for instance, you want to be in the heart of the city, or close to the Metro.  In Richmond, on the other hand, we chose a hotel on the outskirts of town, since we could drive easily in the city, and saved money over hotels downtown.  In Charlottesville we did the same thing and it worked out just fine.

We checked in to the DoubleTree at dusk.  If it wasn’t as opulent as the Willard, it was at least clean.  It had the usual frills, like flowers in the lobby, but it also had an indoor pool right in the middle of the building.  That was neat.  Our room had two beds and a tidy bathroom.  As was the case everywhere we went this trip, we barely stayed in our room five minutes–long enough to put our bags down and wash up–before heading back out to have fun.

Charlottesville is a university town, and it shares many of the traits common to university towns: a young population; a large, centrally-located campus; a small, charming downtown; abundant pizza restaurants; etc.  We drove around just looking at stuff before parking the car and walking to the pedestrian-only Main Street.  It was obviously once open to traffic, but now is an enchanting brick mall dotted with tables, benches, and planters, with shops and restaurants lining either side.  We spotted two movie theaters, two ice cream shops, numerous bookstores and clothing shops.  There was even a stationary store and a store for crazy cat ladies.

We ate dinner at Christian’s Pizza.  The first bite tricked me, and I thought we’d made a bad choice.  But my tastebuds had fooled me, and instead I found the pizza delicious, with surprisingly crispy crust.  I drank Dr. Pepper for some reason.

We walked up and down the promenade, looked in an antique shop, stopped for ice cream, and in general had a fine time before setting off again to explore more of the town.  We drove up and down random streets not looking for anything in particular.  Away from Main Street the city was quiet.

The campus of the University of Virginia is handsome, complete with the requisite number of statues, athletic facilities, and brick buildings to make it identifiably collegiate.  But unlike any other campus in America, the University of Virginia is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It was designed by Thomas Jefferson himself, and the older buildings and grounds are charming as can be.  It was late in the evening, but we walked all around in spite of Miriam’s “tourist torture”-related foot injury.  We came upon two lovers on the steps of the great rotunda.  They dispersed when they perceived that I wanted to climb the stairs to see what was up there, and I thought they had run off to a dorm somewhere.  But when we were walking back from the other side of the building–the side that faces the great lawn–we perceived that the lovers were, in fact, hiding down in a courtyard.  We left them alone.

Day Five

Our main interest in Charlottesville was, naturally, Monticello.  The home of Thomas Jefferson, of course, is a popular tourist attraction that becomes very crowded in the summertime, and only a limited quantity of tickets are dispersed each day.  Our initial hope was to see Monticello in the morning, and be on our way back home by the mid-afternoon, which would have us pulling into our driveway between one- and two o’clock in the morning.  But we found that the earliest we could get tickets to see Monticello that day was after noon, so we had some time to kill.

We went first to breakfast at Cavalier Diner, which was a total mom and pop sort of place.  I ate many biscuits.  Then Miriam explored a stand-alone Anthropolgie store she had spied the night before.  It was huge.  We had checked out of our hotel already, so all that was left to do was drive up to Monticello.

Filed under: Dana Heritage Project, Food, Travel on September 2nd, 2010 | No Comments »

Day Four

Sunday was the day before Memorial Day, and I really felt I would like to go to Arlington National Cemetery on our way out of Washington.  Unfortunately for us, thousands of bikers had the same idea, and all the streets heading that direction were closed.  Traffic was extremely congested, but the weather was nice.

We had checked out of the hotel and paid our parking bill earlier.  I had made a quick trip through the White House Visitor’s Center, in a wonderful old building just across Pershing Park from our hotel, and purchased and mailed some postcards.  We were both hungry.

Miriam is especially fond of a D.C. restaurant called Open City which we frequented while on our last trip.  We were staying at the Omni Shoreham then, so Open City was the closest possible restaurant to us.  From the Willard, however, we had to drive.  I was looking for Connecticut Avenue, but missed it somehow, and we soon found ourselves in the residential neighborhoods north of downtown.  It was interesting to see how busy the shops and restaurants were: the sidewalks were packed with people going this way and that.  We got back on track, found our way to Open City, where I let Miriam out to reserve a table while I found a place to park.  The latter was no easy task, since the National Zoo is in that neighborhood, and the holiday and nice weather had everyone out and about.  I ultimately found street parking on the most pleasant lane I’d ever seen.  A mother and daughter were gardening in front of their house, and I asked the lady to summarize the parking rules for me.  Parking on one side of the street was reserved for a church four four hours on Sunday, but I’d be fine on the other side.  So I moved the car–right next to an awesome Corvair–and made my way to the restaurant.  Miriam was still waiting outside when I arrived, and we had to wait many minutes more.  But it was worth it.  Open City is charming and bright.  Indeed, the long wall of windows can be totally opened on nice days.  The food was as good as we expected.  We walked together back to the car, remembering our earlier holiday when the area around the Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan Metro stop was our turf.  If we ever move to Washington, we tell ourselves, that is where we’d like to live.

Driving out of the city was bittersweet: we were sad to leave with so much still left to do, but we had so much left to do elsewhere.  (Actually, it was bitterangrysweet, since the traffic was a nightmare and the bikers were outrageously loud.)  But we soon crossed the Potomac and were back in Virginia heading west on Interstate 66, passing Arlington, Falls Church, Tysons Corner, Merrifield, and Centreville.  I had a strong urge to exit in Manassas to visit the national battlefield, but resisted, mostly because I knew it would consume the remainder of our day, and we were determined to reach Charlottesville.

Somewhere near Gainesville, Virginia, I got it in my head that I would like to see Shenandhoah National Park.  I have always wanted to see it, actually, but couldn’t imagine a circumstance in which I would, since I knew it was unlikely to ever be a destination in and of itself.  But since we were so close, and since my free traveler’s map of Virginia (which I got at the visitor’s center) showed me it was a very minor detour en route to Charlottesville, I changed course slightly, and we headed south into the rural heart of western Virginia.  It was beautiful, actually.  Farms and fields stretched out in all directions around us, and the road passed over rolling hills for miles and miles.  The road itself–Highway 211, or Lee Highway–was in excellent condition, and traffic was very light.  We stopped for drinks and fuel somewhere near the ominously-named Amissville, but even that was nice.  We reached the western edge of the national park with plenty of time to meander down the Skyline Drive and still make Charlottesville before dark.

Shenandoah National Park charges admission, but I had no objections whatever, since I’m sure the National Park Service isn’t as well funded as it ought to be, and, in any case, I’ve wasted fifteen dollars on worse things countless times.  Anyone who has traveled along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina will understand what driving through Shenandoah is like.  The only difference is that at the overlooks on the west side of the Drive, you look out over the Shenandoah Valley, and see the fabled river meandering along.  I kept thinking of the old, sad song:

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It was a gorgeous day, and though the park was not crowded per se, there were plenty of cars enjoying the same drive.  We stopped repeatedly to explore the various overlooks, both facing east and facing west.  It was late in the day, and the lower angle of the sun combined with haze down in the valleys made the mountains look blue.  As the day wore on we determined that further stopping would be inadvisable, so we continued south down Skyline Drive, through mountains, through meadows, past animals, and so on, until we reached Highway 33, where I thought it wise to leave the park and head back southeast to Charlottesville.  There is a more southerly exit to Shenandoah National Park that would have spit us out near Interstate 64, but the extra miles along Skyline Drive would have easily taken an additional two hours.  I was satisfied with what I had seen.

As we drove back east toward Charlottesville, the high mountains began to gradually disappear behind us, until we were once again in the midst of rolling fields and farmland.  We made good time on the open roads and soon enough were at the northern edge of Charlottesville.

Filed under: Dana Heritage Project, Food, Recreation, Travel on September 1st, 2010 | No Comments »

Day Three

When Miriam had finished her work we set out for the Smithsonian, to finish our survey of the National Museum of American History that we started the day before.  It was noticeably more crowded on Saturday than it had been Friday, but we were determined to see it all.

We went straight upstairs when we arrived and toured an exhibit about the military history of the United States.  Every war was represented along with its technology of battle.  They had more guns than I could count, including one used by John Brown’s men at Harper’s Ferry.  I was impressed by George Washington’s sword,  Andrew Jackson’s sword and coat, and William Tecumseh Sherman’s sword and hat.  Most amazing of all were the table and two chairs used by Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House.  In effect, the Civil War ended on that small oval-shaped table.

I was similarly thrilled to behold three Medals of Honor in a small glass case.  I had never seen one in person before.

Being the Summer of Baseball, I found myself jealous of President Warren Harding’s free pass to all National League ballparks.

There was a great deal of interest in a small exhibit of American pop culture items upstairs, and understandably so.  In separate glass cases near one another were the Ruby Slippers and Kermit the Frog.  The younger visitors seemed less interested in Fonzie’s jacket and Archie Bunker’s chair.

Still, the most memorable artifact in the entire Smithsonian Institution wasn’t the most popular.  Indeed, Julia Child’s kitchen and the exhibit of first ladies’ gowns were far and away more crowded.  In the middle of the museum is a doorway to a dark hallway.  Dim lights on the floor lead you around the corner, where, behind thick glass, spread out across a raked platform, lay the Star Spangled Banner.  The real one.  The one Francis Scott Key saw when he wrote the poem that, when set to music, later became our national anthem.  Miriam and I sat for quite a while staring at the enormous flag.  It was simply awesome.  (Photos were not allowed.  Sorry.)

Satisfied that we’d seen just about everything, we set out.  It was still light outside, so we walked down Constitution Avenue, past the National Archives and the Newseum, to the entrance to the National Gallery of Art.  I really wanted to see the Calder mobile and David’s portrait of Napoleon, but, alas, the museum was closed for the day.  (I reassure myself that the museum will always be there, and we are sure to visit Washington again in our lifetimes.)  We walked briefly along the Mall, then turned north, and enjoyed the amazing architecture of the city as we made our way back to the hotel.  I love old buildings, and Washington has lots of them.  Along our route back we ran across a shop Miriam wanted to explore, so I left her and went on to do more sight-seeing of my own.  The sun was setting, and I took a walk past our hotel and a fancy statue, down to see the White House again.  Though I think the north side is handsomer, the south lawn is impressive.

We rested in our room for a while before heading downstairs where the doorman hailed us a taxi that drove us to the FDR Memorial.  It was night, and some of the inscriptions on the memorial’s walls were difficult to read in the dim light.  But it was a large and suitably noble tribute to the man who led this country through the Depression and Second World War.  Unlike other memorials, this one attempts to place Roosevelt’s presidency in context.  Visitors move through the site–which is expansive–along a chronologically-oriented path.  The president is depicted in a wheelchair.

The night air was cool, and there were plenty of people around, so we elected to walk toward the other monuments along the western portion of the National Mall.  We arrived shortly at the Lincoln Memorial, which I suppose is busy any time of the day or night.  We sat for quite some time at the top of the steps, looking out over the reflecting pool to the Washington Monument and Capitol in the distance.  The moon was full or nearly full, and was just coming up over the line of trees to the southeast.  We walked down through the Korean War Veterans Memorial and the World War II Memorial, then across the Elipse to the northwest.

We had walked approximately six billion miles since the start of our trip, so Miriam was understandably fatigued.  Given my tendency to say things like, “oh, it’s not too far; we can walk”, and her tendency to wear stylish, yet impractical shoes, she had reason to complain.  She joked that I was subjecting her to “tourist torture”.  She felt better, though, when we made a return visit to the Old Ebbitt Grill.  It was late, and we had no reservation, but they still seated us at a lovely table within view of my new favorite painting.  I was still full from eating Five Guys (for the first time) eight hours before, so I just had ice cream and a Sprite.

We got back to our hotel room well after midnight and I slept like a baby.  In the morning we were leaving Washington.

Filed under: Dana Heritage Project, History, Travel on August 31st, 2010 | No Comments »