We watched the film and toured the museum before heading up to the Jefferson family cemetery. Interestingly, there are still descendants buried there. Jeffersons’ grave mentions that he authored the Declaration of Independence, authored the religious freedom act of Virginia and founded the University of Virginia. He didn’t mention that he was president for eight years, I guess he didn’t think it was an accomplishment...
Touring the gardens made us feel like it was actually springtime! Many of the vegetables are about ready to harvest and the tulips were in full bloom. We also went underground to view Jefferson’s “necessaries” - those were everything from his kitchen to beer cellar and stables.
The house itself included many of Jefferson’s eccentricities such as a weight-driven clock that tells the day as well as the time (but the weights go into the basement to indicate Saturday!). Beds were stuffed into alcoves since he believed that they wasted space in rooms and staircases were as narrow as could be. The tour was interesting but rushed since there was another group only five minutes behind us!
In the afternoon we headed to Luray, Virginia to tour the famous caverns. There was a steady downpour of rain at that point so a cave seemed appropriate. It was full of many different types of cave formations right below the surface. One of the oddities of this particular cave was an organ that produces sound by rubber hammers hitting stalactites - it was an odd sound and tough to pick out the melody.
Getting back to the surface was easy, but getting out of the gift shop was a near impossibility! We toured the automobile museum and the Luray Valley museum which were included (for some reason...) with our ticket into the cave. We drove north (sadly) towards Williamsport, Maryland where we would camp for the evening.
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