Beautiful weather, beautiful house, beautiful friends. This weekend, we drove up to Charlottesville to take in Monticello with the Mejias. As always, Monticello is a little mountain with stunning views, making it easy for a novice like me to take some stunning photos. The house kitchen has been renovated recently and lots of folks were taking garden tours to enjoy the spring blooms. The new visitor's center there is spiffy and features an expanded museum shop, so Kim came home with two new Christmas ornaments. Justin also picked up at Thomas Jefferson doll for Elijah. They could have done a better job with accessibility, but the center "fits in" with the landscape and is a nice home to some amenities like a cafe, theater, and gallery.
Following our visit to Monticello, we drove to the University of Virginia's campus to walk the lawn. Folks were busy prepping for next weekend's graduation, and the "capitals" of the columns on the Rotunda were draped in black, presumably in memory of the recently murdered lacrosse player. Otherwise, the grounds were alive with a wedding and college kids entertaining their visiting parents. We ate lunch at an excellent deli in "the Corner," Little John's. The sandwiches were unique enough to be interesting and huge enough to be quite filling.
Justin and Kim usually find Charlottesville's atmosphere a bit pretentious, but today, that was eased by good company. If you go, we also recommend eating at The Virginian, also on the Corner, for a lighter lunch, but we do not recommend Bodo's Bagels, a UVa institution, for anything other than breakfast. The Charlottesville Downtown Pedestrian Mall is a fun stop for leisure shopping and has a Caspari store, something you can find only three places in the world, along with numerous unusual gift shops. You can take the trolley there from the campus area. The farmer's market is also worthwhile and sells some non-perishables routinely. At last check, UVa's bookstore still allows the browsing of the stacks--a shopping treat for academic book nerds like ourselves. You can also make a longer trip with historic homes, visiting Monroe's Ash Lawn as well.
On our drive back to Roanoke, we stopped by The Factory Antique Mall just outside Staunton in our second visit this year. The mall is big and full of non-pushy, interesting vendors on the weekends. It's a great place to find vintage toys, beads, postcards, documents, and books with a particularly good book stash near the back and two finely-organized, reasonable postcard outlets near the front. Highly recommended.
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