Shenandoah National Park and Monticello

      We left Pennsylvania on an icy morning.  We drove west to interstate 81 and then south.  This took us through Maryland for 13 minutes and West Virginia 27 minutes.  In Virginia we detoured over to the Shenandoah National Park and drove down the Skyline Drive.  This road travels along the top of a ridge with spectacular views both directions.   The Shenandoah Valley is covered with small rolling hills which are green even in December.  While driving along the ridge, I looked up to see a black bear standing on the wall at the edge of the road.  But I couldn't move fast enough to get a picture.  The Valley was 15 degrees warmer than the ridge, and on the ridge in the shade were lots of ice formations. 



        We drove back down to the valley to camp for the night.  The next morning we drove over the mountains and to Monticello through some of the worst fog I have every seen.  Can you tell me what is in the above picture?  I can't say either!  Unfortunately, the fog continued into Monticello.  Jefferson built his house on top of a hill so that he could see his lands that spread out for four miles.  I am glad he could see them, but we couldn't.

         We toured through Jefferson's last version of his house. (We were not allowed to take pictures in the main house.)   When he first build the house, it had rectangular rooms.  After serving the country in France for several years, he returned to remodel.  Many of the rooms then become octagonal with skylights.  He used the available light everywhere possible to light the house.  He had his bed built in an alcove between his office and bedroom spaces.  Depending on his mood, he could get up and work, or get up and sit in the bedroom.

         Jefferson was quite the inventor.  He had a clock that had a cable with balls on it.  The balls would go farther down the wall over time, and he used this to show the days of the week.  The only problem was that Saturday had to be in the basement.  He also had cables attached to a french door set, so that when you open one door, the other opened as well. 

                                                Front column ageing over time.

                                                         Detail under the eves.

                                              Stables connected to the house.

                                                               Ice house.

      The kitchen was located off the "basement" corridor.  Notice the several holes on the bricks.  This allowed the cooks to use different levels of heat for each pan.  Small or larger fires would be built in the bottom holes.  Off the same corridor were two privies, a brewery, a wine cellar and lots of storage.  The end opposite the stables had some slave rooms.  Once of them was where Sally Hemmings lived.  The Historical Society that runs the park acknowledges that Jefferson had a long relationship with Sally and probably fathered her six children.  (Genetic testing has verified that a Jefferson male was the father of one of her children.)  Sally had gone to France with Jefferson and at the time France had outlawed slavery.  It is rumored that when he returned, Sally (and other accompanying slaves) had the option of returning with him or staying in France.  Sally chose to return, but the rumor has it that she bargained with Jefferson that he had to free her children.  He did free them as they turned 18.  However, while at Monticello, they lived in the slave quarters, not the house.

                                                          Basement corridor.

                                                                         Stables.

                                               Jefferson did enjoy his wine!

                                                   Linden tree on the grounds.

               Jefferson's grave.  This cemetery holds the graves of his "family" but not Sally or her children.

                             Small area that was the slave graveyard.  There are not stones or markers.

Valley Forge

We drove to Valley Forge on a cool partly-cloudy fall day.  The leaves had mostly fallen off the trees, but a few remained.  And the wind played with the leaves, blowing them hither and yon and dropping the temperature another fifteen degrees as it blew any warmth from our skin.  Our first stop was an Episcopalian Church on the Park grounds that serves as a memorial to United States soldiers from the Revolutionary War through the World Wars.  The church was immense.  It had a list of fallen soldiers from the Revolutionary War, listed by state, a bell used in the women's suffrage movement, and several gargoyles that seemed almost anti-Christian.



                                        Across the road, in a field, stood a miniature Washington Monument.

                                              Even the cat was cold!

                    This floor has two different types of stone, one that wears more than the other.

 

Behind the church was a small gift store, that was well stocked with 18th Century cannons slowly wearing away in the weather.  They come in many shapes and sizes.

                                            The leaves were chasing us.

                                                    The last vestiges of fall leaves.

Next we stopped where some of Washington's troops had spent the winter of 1777-1778.  Washington brought close to 6000 men, and told them to build their own shelters.  The sight reminded me of the television show "Survivor" where the contestants use what is available to build a shelter.  The weather that winter was cold and snowy and the troops had a shortage of food and clothing.  Approximately 2000 men died of disease during the encampment.  When they arrived, they had lost Philadelphia to the British, and by camping here they were near enough to keep an eye on the British Army, but far enough away to avoid a surprise attack.  During the winter months, the Continental Army was trained by Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus von Steuben who converted the recruited farmers into a trained army.  He believed that he couldn't use the European methods of demanding obedience from the troops, but instead had to explain why he wanted them to do something because of the American independent thinking.

                      These beds remind me of the ones we saw in  the Dachau concentration camp.

        We were able to walk through the home that George Washington stayed in during the winter, and Martha Washington stayed in part of that time.  It was eerily moving to look into the rooms where Washington sat with his officers planning the strategies to defeat the British.  Washington rented the house rather than just occupy it, believing that government should not requisition property from its citizens without compensation.

                                                George and Martha's bed.

       I do not understand this covered bed, and there was no explanation.  Maybe the cover helps keep the heat in.

                                                Dining area.

                                                      Parlor/meeting room.

                                                       The other parlor/meeting room.

                                              Servant's quarters.

                                               Walkway between the house and kitchen.

Kitchen

                                                           I love the wavy glass in the windows.

The soldiers food and equipment supplies improved in March and April, 1778 and in May they left Valley Forge.  It is interesting that many of the local farmers preferred to sell their goods to the British because the British money was more stable that the Colony money which was not uniform from state to state.  Not everyone supported the movement for independence.  We Americans probably will never all agree on politics.