Thursday, October 24, we reluctantly leave the Big Meadows Lodge in the Shenandoah National Park at 8:00 to drive the beautiful Skyline Drive, with its very colorful fall foliage. We saw a few deer yesterday and hope to see some today. We do, but we are traveling in our coach and our photos do not come out. We are lucky though, through Tauck's seat rotation, it is our turn for the front seat on the passenger side. It is in the 30s!
Our driver stops at a lookout.
We leave the park and head to Montpelier, home of our fourth president, James Madison. It is four miles from Orange, VA, where we visited on our genealogical trip a week ago.
This was the home of Madison's parents where he grew up and it later became the home of James Madison and his wife, Dolley. He expanded the house during his presidency. In 1787 in preparation for the meeting that later became known as the Constitutional Convention, Madison read many books in his father's library as well as many books he borrowed from his friend, Thomas Jefferson, about ancient governments. He drafted the Virginia Plan which he took to the convention. This with some modifications became our constitution. Madison's actions throughout his career stressed unity. He did everything to preserve the Union. They all knew the "elephant in the room" was slavery, and that it would have to be addressed some day, but Madison's goal always was to preserve the Union of the states.
Looking out from Madison's home, you see a more recently-added horse-jumping course on their front grounds. The temperature is in the 40s.
BobxLiz with life-size sculptures of James and Dolley Madison
Lunch on our own at The Corner on the UVA campus, we enjoy crab cake sandwiches at the renowned Virginian, which opened in 1923. It is 51, a crisp, cool fall day!
The Rotunda at UVA was designed by Thomas Jefferson after the Pantheon in Rome. We tour the grounds of UVA. Very impressive.
After the tour, our coach drives us to the Omni Hotel. After resting and catching up on our blog, we walk out the back door of the hotel and we are on the main historic street which Stu told us was the old main street of Charlottesville. We eat at the Blue Light Grill, absolutely outstanding, all seafood! We split an order of Oysters Rockefeller. The oyster stew was delicious also. It has been a terrific day.
We learn from our glamorous waitress, a UVA grad waiting to go to medical school, that it is not only the custom of those seniors living on the lawn, but all students are expected to streak as they run to the statue of Homer and back to their room. She did it on a rainy night! These are the brightest and best of our young people, our leaders of the next generation!
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