Sat. 9/22/07 ~ Generals Grant and Lee Kiss and Makeup!

We left the Wal-Mart about 7:20 AM and drove a couple of hours to Appomattox Court House National Historic Park. We saw a couple of films, several buildings, and the McLean House where the surrender ending the Civil War was signed by Generals Grant and Lee. There was a young man giving a first person account of the events surrounding April 1865. He did a very good job and when he finished talking he played the banjo. When we came out to leave the motor home steps did not work quite right but they retracted and we started the hour long drive to Monticello. We stopped briefly at the Visitors’ Center and when we came out the steps again would not work only this time they would not retract at all. We called our emergency roadside assistance service and they gave Bill directions on how to disconnect the steps and tie them up so we could continue. We drove about 1 ½ miles over to the Monticello parking lot and after the delay from the steps arrived just at 4:00 PM. We got tickets for the 4:50 PM tour and walked around the gardens and outbuildings before our house tour. We took the tour of the house with all of Thomas Jefferson’s clever inventions including a dumb waiter for wine, a device that duplicated your writing as you wrote, a clock that keeps not only the time of day but the day of the week through a pulley system similar to a cuckoo clock, and a privy with a drain tunnel that allowed waste to be taken away through an underground tunnel. We finally left the grounds of Monticello about 6:30 PM. Although it is not very far in distance from Monticello to Washington DC the route is slow and windy and it is about a two hour drive. We drove for a while but Bill was tired, it was late and he didn’t want to navigate all of the freeways into Washington, DC so we pulled into a truck stop for the night. We were able to get satellite reception and Bill watched the USC football game on television while I worked on updating the journal. It was noisy, hot and muggy but the price was right so we stayed. We will leave early in the morning and get into Washington, DC for several days.