inia State marketing would have you believe that “Virginia is for Lovers” but only now do I know what they mean. If you love history, if you love the outdoors, if you love variety then Virginia is for you. This little four-day trip based out of Charlottesville drove this point home for me.
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At times I need a catalyst to get me thinking and today the Frontier Culture Museum served that purpose. It tells the story of how German, English and Scots-Irish farmers came to the Shenandoah Valley, established traditional farms, and how over the decades these traditions merged. The resulting new standard moved west across the country and became the heart of American farming.
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My Civil War journey started when visiting friends in Charleston where I learning the war began with a battle at Fort Sumpter in the harbor. Since then I’ve been to dozens of battle fields, museums, and memorials because the story drew me in. All the while my admiration for President Lincoln grew and grew. Finally today I visited the site where Lee surrendered his Confederate Army to Grant thereby symbolizing the end of the war. What an odyssey. What a galvanizing event. What a tragic story!
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I thought today was the “Story of Best Friend Presidents” because at both Monticello and Montpelier they talked of the life-long friendship between Jefferson and Madison. Then I visited a place called Ash Lawn-Highland and learned it was yet another Presidential residence in the Charlottesville area. Sakes alive, three Presidents within just miles of one another! The Commonwealth of Virginia ROCKed when this nation was young!
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