A couple of weeks ago, LadyRanger and I celebrated our 30th anniversary! We did something that we had never done before. We went on a vacation! We'd had stay-cations aplenty over the past 30 years, but we'd never gone anywhere with the express purpose of having fun and enjoying ourselves. Well, we did that this time. In spades!
We spent a few days at Barboursville Vineyards near Charlottesville. VA.
They have an inn and a few cottages. We stayed in a cottage. Really lovely spot.
At night, it was dark enough to see a vast amount of stars. Very different from our little urban home on the highway.
There are historic ruins!
This is the home of James Barbour, Governor of VA and Jefferson's Secretary of War. Jefferson actually designed this house. Very stately and impressive.
The Barboursville wines are a pretty scrumptious lot of wine, too!
We went to tour Monticello. We have very mixed feelings about Thomas Jefferson. He was obviously fine with enslaving a race of people so that he could live the life he wanted and that is despicable. He did design an amazing house though.
There were artefacts from the Corp of Discovery. These antlers were actually given by Lewis and Clarke to Jefferson.
I'm a wee bit of a history geek and seeing these gave me a bit of a thrill.... For the history geek there are many cool moments in this house.
The famous polygraph:
The famous, or infamous, alcove bed:
Though, I never really pegged TJ as the 'vermillion curtains and coverlet' type of guy. Interestingly, the door at the right is not a closet, but opens to a ladder the leads to a closet above the bed. Apparently, TJ didn't like wasted space.
We saw TJ's own chess set:
We saw the yellowest dining room in the world:
I mean....wow.... Speaking of hating wasted space, there are mini-dumb-waiters on either side of the fireplace used to move wine bottles from the cellar below to the dining room. Very James Bond, I think.
There's the tea room, separated from the dining room by double pocket doors! Very elegant.
Then there was the Dome Room:
Given adequate airflow and modern climate control, I'd probably spend an inordinate amount of time in here....
We saw the kitchen, which, for some reason, was on the opposite side of the house from the dining room.
Then there's the tunnel which runs under the length of the house, connecting the kitchen, the cellars and the wine cellar to the dumb-waiters under the dining room.
The tour we were on did not stint on the below-stairs aspects of the house, nor on the less than admirable side of TJ's character and enterprise. They have reconstructed many of the slave-cottages and manufactories.
Sadly, the gardens were not in bloom. Still, I have garden-plot envy.
After Monticello, there were 2 more days of celebration. These included wines at Horton Vineyards, which included wines I'd never even heard of, and a really, really, wonderful anniversary dinner at The Ivy Inn, in Charlottesville. It is a wonderful place for a special meal.
Overall, this was a vacation that was well worth saving up for.
The only flaw in the trip was that we had to leave Daisy behind! She was well looked after, though. And upon our return?
You didn't even bring me a t-shirt, did you?
Alas, no... but fear not, Daisy was smothered in smooches upon our return. She seems to have forgiven us. That is, after a liberal application of deli-chicken.
CHICKEN!?!?!
Have a great week ahead, all!
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