Shenandoah Vacation - Monticello

We tried to alternate staying one day at the resort and driving around the next during our vacation.  Today was another driving day and the destination was the historic home of Thomas Jefferson - Monticello.

Bet this wasn't the picture you expected to see, it's not what we expected either but boy were we pleased.This is just part of the extensive gardens.  Since we walked up to the house from the visitors center instead of taking the shuttle we got to truly appreciate all the gardens.  As we explored each of the boys took a turn at taking pictures of each other and the gardens.

They have detailed garden tours where they explain all the incredible variety of plants on the estate.  I would love to take that tour some day, but this time we only did the house tour and explored the grounds ourself.

Lance's special six leaf clover.

The house tour was incredible and very child friendly.  Over 90% of the house furnishings are original and the stories told along the tour were fascinating.  What was really neat was that back at the visitors center (among many other adult museum exhibits), they have a kids museum.  The hands on museum includes many replicas of the things kids would like to touch on the house tour; including his copy machine, along with areas for acting out the life of the workers on the estate.

We will definitely being going back someday when the kids can appreciate all the exhibits, there was so much to see you could easily spend more than one day.