April 15-- Charlottesville Virginia

Today was sort of a serendipitous day-- whatever worked we went with. For the first order of the day, we drove to the Monticello visitor's center. But after encountering a few traffic jams, we soon realized that something big was going on at the center. Turned out that it was grand opening day for the center, and it was not the place to be that day. It was just as well, as we had been to Monticello before. We then went on to Ashland Lawn-Highland, home of President James Monroe. Enjoyed our tour there, and went on to Michie Tavern. We had lunch in the eighteenth century tavern, and after that took a tour of the place. On the tour we were able to dance a Colonial Reel in the one large assembly room. We did not have the time then to do much touring in Charlottsville, but we did drive there and walked around the old historic district. We again found large crowds milling around in that area. It seemed that there were political demonstrations and speeches going on there, apparently protesting current policies coming out of D.C. We then walked on to the old courthouse in the historic square. We were not expecting to be allowed in, but the guard at the entrance encouraged us to go into one of the courtrooms, even though court was in session. So we were able to look at one of the courtrooms where Thomas Jefferson practiced as an attorney. All in all, we felt that we had another good day in which we got a good dose of history. We did not even mind that it was cool and misty out- all the territory we covered that day was absolutely beautiful with the the finery of Spring.