What were those daily activities? Well, it turns out none of us had ever been to Monticello. We were too close not to go, so we planned on spending the morning there. RH & Jessica were planning on leaving in the afternoon and we were staying until Monday.
Monticello. The home of Thomas Jefferson. We parked & went into the visitors center to purchase our house tour tickets ($24/person). We were lucky enough to get the 10:20am tour that we basically had just enough time to get to. They have a 20 minute movie to watch before heading to the house, but we didn't have enough time to watch it. We headed straight to the bus that takes you to the house. Once at the top of the mountain, we got off the bus and found that we had about 15 minutes to explore a little. We decided to walk the gardens a bit. (Note: they have a free garden tour if you've got time to do it while you're there.)
We had to gather about 5 minutes before our tour time. Once everyone was together, we were lead to the house by the "outside tour guide" who was friendly and normal. We were handed off to the "inside tour guide" who was friendly and overly excited about TJ's house and history. Just sayin. She assumed certain things were common knowledge, which it appeared were not given some of the questions she got. Then again, the person asking them may not have been all that in tune with history either. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the house.
After we escaped from the inside tour guide... I mean, were finished with the tour... we headed out to walk the grounds a little. We also toured the underground part of the house (where we WERE allowed to take pictures). After a stop in the little shop at the house, we walked down to the cemetery and then continued on to the visitors center & larger gift shop.
After a bit of retail therapy, we headed back to the car and we all decided that lunch yesterday was so good, we wanted to go back. So, we made our way back to Greenwood Gourmet Grocery and ordered sandwiches. We got back to the campsite and RH & Jessica came over to enjoy lunch with us. They brought the rest of the ice cream from the night before and we had leftover quinoa salad from our dinner 2 nights ago. Perfect!
We helped RH & Jessica get the outside of their trailer packed up some and then said our good-byes. Jon & I decided we'd like to go back to Shenandoah National Park to stop at a couple of the overlooks we skipped over on Friday. Note: if it's foggy & rainy, it'll be a lot worse towards the tops of the mountains. We ended up turning around before we got into SNP. The fog was so bad that we weren't going to enjoy driving Skyline, nor would we be able to see anything at the overlooks. Not worth the stress. So, we headed back to the campsite.
We spent the rest of the day relaxing, exploring the campgrounds a little more, and packing stuff up. All in all, a good day.
Would I recommend Monticello? Sure, on a sunny day and if you have some time to explore a bit.
Monday morning, we finished packing up and headed out. We wanted to be back home by 4 or so, so we moved out relatively early. Looking forward to our next trip!
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