Tuesday at Monticello

 Monticello, Jefferson's home, sits on one of the highest hills in the area, so the view from the hill is lovely....everything so beautiful and green.  He owned acres and acres (thousands!), as did most of the plantation slave owners.  We got that sense that one of the reasons Jefferson is still studied so much are the seemingly great contradictions between what he wrote and believed and what he lived.  He struggled with the issue of slavery all his life....knew it was wrong, but couldn't find a way to live without it.

 Monticello was probably one of our favorite places to visit.  We took a house tour and a tour of Mulberry Row, where the slaves lived and worked and learned so many interesting things about the period and the people who lived here.

 The grounds were beautiful and you know I love the way things grow in places that aren't a desert!

 A small part of the huge vegetable garden they grow even now with a view of the lush valley beyond.  Much of what we could see below us was also Jefferson's property.

 They believe this statue is an accurate replica of what Jefferson looked like, as well as his height and body build.  One of the really cool things in the house was a gift to Jefferson from Lafayette.  After the French Revolution, Lafayette brought Jefferson the key to the Bastille.  It's hanging in little glass box on a wall.  There are also lots of things from Lewis and Clark's Expedition in the entry way to the house---including a set of elk antlers.

 We had a few sprinkles our first day.  Dennis is in front of the Jefferson family cemetery.  You can still be buried here if you a direct descendent of Jefferson.  (And you're dead of course.)

 Before Jefferson died, he designated what he wanted to have on his headstone.  The three things he chose to be remembered for were writing the Declaration of Independence, founding the University of Virginia and being the author of Virginia's statute of religious freedom.  After learning more about how strongly Jefferson felt about freedom to be able to worship without government interference, I really believe that the Church could not have been restored and/or survived without advocates such as Jefferson.  (Think how much the early saints were persecuted in a country WITH religious freedom!)  He was criticized a lot in his lifetime for being anti-religious, but I think he truly understood the importance of being able to worship according to one's own conscience.