Sweet Virginia

Here is a little fact about me: I love to travel. I am not really a history buff. But one of the beautiful things about traveling is that you can learn about a place and what happened there and then history becomes real and meaningful and fascinating. I fell in love with the green rolling hills of Virginia. My sister lives in the Shenandoah valley, surrounded by the blue ridge mountains. I am in awe of how green everything is, and the humidity did wonders for this desert girls skin.
One of the days I was in Virginia, we visited Bell Grove Plantation.
It was a lot smaller than I expected it to be. I was thinking Tara from Gone with the Wind. But for it's time period this house was a palace. It was built by President James Madison's sister and her husband and a lot of the design details are believed to be Thomas Jefferson's. The original house had two bedrooms. (It was added on to later). Aaron wanted to walk around on his own so I was asked to leave the tour (he was being good, his little footsteps just sounded loud to the lady downstairs) but I got to see enough to know that I will take my air-conditioned, modern house over a 1700 house any day.

This is the view from the front of the house. During the Civil war, the house became the headquarters for the union army and all the soldiers camped right here in the front. You will notice that there is not a flat spot any where to pitch a tent or lay down a bed roll.

I think that is enough of a history lesson for today. Thank you everyone. Class dismissed.