Road Trip: Vilano Beach, FL

We left Virginia Thursday morning and, after two days on the road, we're finally in  St. Augustine, Florida!

St. Augustine is a beautiful old city with cobblestone streets, Spanish architecture, tall palms and huge live oaks covered with hanging moss. Founded in 1565 by the Spanish conquistador Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the United States. To read more about the history of St. Augustine, click here.

Our campground is on Rt. 1A at Vilano/North Beach in St. Augustine. To get there, you cross a causeway from the city of St. Augustine to the beaches. I took this photo from the car as we crossed the causeway yesterday afternoon.

When you leave the causeway, you're in Vilano Beach. This is a view of Vilano Beach looking back toward the causeway and the city of St. Augustine.

Vilano is a little ArtDeco-inspired village that still shows remnants of its history as a tourist destination in the 1940's and 50's.

I love this hand-painted fence at the base of the causeway in Vilano.

Just North of Vilano on Rt. 1A is North Beach. This is our fifth year staying at North Beach Campground to visit our friends Fred and Anita.  Fred and Anita retired in 2014, sold their home in Maine, and began to live their dream of being full-time RVers.  

Sadly, our dear Fiber College/camping friend Anita passed away in 2016.  We've continued to come here each year to spend time with Fred. 

Anita and Fred at Searsport Shores, ME 2014

The beach is right across the street, a short walk from our campground.

I took this picture of the beach yesterday afternoon while Hank was checking into the campground.

We're on site #52 . . . 

Where the Casita is nestled into the palms.

In the site next to ours is one of the neatest vintage campers I've ever seen.

. . . A 1940 Zimmer!

These used to be nicknamed "breadloaf trailers" and were manufactured throughout the 1940's.  I've never seen one on the road, until now. And it's turquoise; I love it!

By suppertime, we were all set up, just in time for a sunset pot luck on the river side of  the campground at the Matanzas Inlet. The sun rises on the beach side here and sets on the river side so we get to enjoy both.

We had a great time catching up with Fred and his friend, Anne, who is from Rockland, Maine.

What's better than drinking wine with friends . . . 

                     While the sun goes down over the water.

I'm writing this on Saturday morning. DH, aka Hank, was up early combing the beach for shells (no luck yet) while I slept in. Hank, who usually shies away from cameras, was so excited to finally be having breakfast outside that he asked me to take his picture!

The sun just came out and it's getting warm. 

Today we're planning on a day of rest after all the driving.

Sunshine and a good book sounds perfect!

This post is linked to:

Happiness Is Homemade Link Party 262 at Bluesky at Home 

Road Trip: Monticello

We spent Tuesday at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home in Charlottesville, VA.

I've been looking forward to this part of our trip and reading what I could about Thomas Jefferson before we visited. Since I could never tell you about everything we learned in this blog post, I've included a lot of links that you can click on to read more.

Although Jefferson is best known as the author of the Declaration of Independence and the 3rd President of the United States, touring Monticello allowed us to see him as much more - a man of the enlightenment who designed his own home and used it as a laboratory for his interests in botany, horticulture, architecture, astronomy,  art, music, and books.

Monticello is located on "the Mountaintop" outside of Charlottesville, where Jefferson owned 5000acres. It is simply a beautiful place.

Jefferson's gardens are not in bloom yet but the cover crops are already getting green.

Collecting and disseminating seeds of choice plants was an important chapter of Jefferson's horticultural life. Many of them are still available at the Monticello shop.

At noon, we met our guide for a one-hour Slavery Tour of Monticello.

The tour took place on Mulberry Row. 

Mulberry Row was the hub of the plantation. Over time, it included more than 20 workshops, dwellings, and storage buildings where enslaved people at Monticello lived and worked.

This is the Hemings' cabin on Mulberry row. A family of up to 8 people would have lived in a cabin like this, the children sleeping on straw pallets outside or, in the winter, in the loft. The parents would share the bed and the one blanket given to the family every three years.

Nearby is the textile building on Mulberry Row. Enslaved people would work here to spin hemp or, in the winter, wool, for clothing.

Jefferson, as always, kept detailed records of their assignments and production.

At 1:30. we joined eleven other people (from Texas, Delaware, and New York) for the Sally Hemings Tour.

Sally Hemings lived from 1773 - 1835, most of those years as an enslaved woman at Monticello, although she was 3/4 white. She was actually the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha. Both had the same father, John Wayles. Although Martha lived a life of leisure at Monticello, Sally, whose mother was one of John Wayles' slaves at a nearby plantation,  was enslaved.

In 1998, during major renovations at Monticello, the room believed to be that of Sally Hemings was unearthed, under the South wing of the main house adjoining the kitchen, wine cellar, and Jefferson's bedroom. Sally is thought to have borne her six children by Jefferson here. This story of the "rest" of Jefferson's life has only been openly discussed, and now memorialized at Monticello, since the geneological use of DNA in the past 20 years.

Sally Hemings' descendents are now welcomed to share their oral histories for recording as part of  Monticello's oral history project, Getting Word. The now-hundreds of descendents meet at Monticello for a reunion each Juneteenth.

Although the focus of our afternoon tour was Sally Hemings, the tour did include the interior of Jefferson's home, which he designed himself. This is Jefferson's bedroom. He died in this bed on July 4, 1827. Note how he built the bed into the area between his library and chamber.

What I found most interesting was how Jefferson, never one to waste space, built his closet in ABOVE his bed.  You can see part of a small door in the lower right corner of the photo. Behind it were narrow stairs which allowed his enslaved butler to access his clothes for him. And, being the scientist that he was, Jefferson designed the oval openings in the walls of his closet to allow air to circulate, avoiding mildew.
~photos from Monticello website; we were not allowed to take pictures inside the house.

My favorite room at Monticello was the dining room. Attached to the large dining area is the smaller "tea room" with windows on all sides providing views of the Shenandoah Valley and mountains beyond. I loved the bright yellow color and asked our guide if it was authentic. He explained that  recent research indicates that it is: archeologists found evidence of Chromium in the original paint layer.

President John F. Kennedy recognized Jefferson's accomplishments when he told a gathering of American Nobel Prize winners that they were "the greatest assemblage of talent in the White House since Jefferson had dinner there alone".

Built into each side of the fireplace in the dining room was a bottle-sized dumbwaiter so that wines could be sent up to Jefferson directly from the wine cellar as needed - another one of his clever uses of space in the house. (I wouldn't mind having one of those at 22 Applegate Lane!)

I guess I'm not the only one who loved this room; it was featured in Southern Living magazine in 2013.

Another of my favorite rooms was this octagonal bedroom, which was used for guests. James Madison and his wife, Dolley, were said to have often stayed here as their home Montpelier was only 28 miles away. Notice that Jefferson built in a closet above this bed as well.

At the end of the day, we visited the African American graveyard. Although Jefferson had about 400 slaves, only 40 graves have been discovered here. It is not yet known where the rest of his slaves were buried.

This is the view of the back side Monticello that is found on the Jefferson nickel. There is no snow on the ground here now; it's very springlike with crocus in bloom along the walkways.

I loved this visit and the sense of history that pervades Monticello. I wish we had had two days to spend there. In the late Spring and summer, the Garden Tour sounds beautiful. It hadn't started yet in March.

Today we leave Virginia and head toward St. Augustine, Florida.

We're on the road again!

This post is linked to:

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage
Happiness Is Homemade Link Party 262 at Bluesky at Home
Sundays at Home at Little Farmstead
Over the Moon Link Party at Eclectic Red Barn
Best of the Weekend Party at Calypso In the Country

Road Trip: Shenandoah Valley, VA

After two days of driving, we decided to stop in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley for a few days. That's part of the fun of carrying our "house" (aka the Casita) with us on road trips. Within a mile of I-81 we were in the country and passing remnants of a world that looked as if time had somehow forgotten it.

I have a thing for abandoned buildings. I like to imagine what life was like for the people who lived and worked in them.

So, within a few minutes of exiting the highway, I was screaming to DH, "Pull Over! Pull Over!  I need to take a picture!" 

After a few stops to take pictures, we did eventually arrive at our campground . . . 

Unhook the Casita . . . 

And stare in amazement at the signs of Spring we are seeing here: Crocus in bloom , fields just turning green , baby lambs and calves with their mothers, and temperatures in the high 60's to low 70's.

After we got settled, we decided to go for a ride to explore the area's back roads.

As usual, I almost got shot!

It goes like this: 

Me: "Pull over! Pull Over!"

DH: "This land is posted; it says 'No Trespassing.'"

Me:  "Pull Over, anyway. I'm just going to take ONE little picture. We're in the middle of nowhere, Who will know? Anyway, I'm not Hunting or Poaching!"

DH pulls over. I get out and completely disobey the sign, walking all around the abandoned property with my camera and (as I realized too late) wearing my you-can't-miss-me blaze orange sweatshirt, when I hear the sound of a very large, very old, very in-need-of-a-tune-up pick-up truck.  I freeze behind the abandoned house. No more loud muffler sounds; the truck has stopped. I'm Dead!

I can't hide! I can only rely on D.H., who is very good with people, to save me. I come around the far side of the abandoned property to see a huge, rusty gray pick-up truck pulled up next to our SUV.  And a big guy in a t-shirt with a Confederate flag on the pocket, leaning into the driver's side.

"Oh, S**t, DH is toast", I think.

But, DH plays the "tourists from Maine" card and we're saved, at least this time!  I jump into the car with my camera and we take off. Big truck guy only follows for a mile or two.

DH and I are both fascinated by the Civil War. We passed many battlefield markers along the roadside and were saddened by the numbers of men who were lost in innocent-looking cornfields along the quiet country roads we traveled. 

At the end of Day #1, we came upon "Dan's Steak House" on a steep hill in the middle of a mountain pass. On a whim, which is how we always seem to discover great places when we travel, we made a U-turn.  And enjoyed the best dinner we've had in a long time, everything homemade, with a mountain view to die for, and all for $20.00 each. Sometimes, you just have to take a chance!

On Monday, our 2nd day in the Valley, we decided to get off the beaten path and take old Rt. 42 south from Harrisonburg. What a beautiful ride! In many places, we were reminded of the English countryside as we drove along narrow curvy roads high above the valley.  In most areas, the little roads followed rushing streams with fat black cows grazing in almost every field. 

And then we came to the village of  Stokesville. All that was left of this once-thriving village was the abandoned railroad station . . . 

And a narrow train bridge that now carries a little road over the nearby stream.

A random "Which way? Left or right?" decision in the middle of nowhere led us to Virginia's Natural Chimneys.

"The Shenandoah Valley was once the floor of a great inland sea. Centuries ago, as that sea receded, the forces of nature carefully etched out an awe-inspiring formation of solid rock. The seven Natural Chimneys tower as much as 120 feet above the pastoral terrain of the Valley." 
~from Natural Chimneys Park website.

We got so "into" our surroundings that, when we decided to head back, we realized that we were almost 70 miles away from our campground.

Today, we're headed to Charlottesville to tour Thomas Jefferson's home at Monticello. We also have tickets for the Sally Hemings Tour, which focuses on the life of Jefferson's slaves.

 Looking forward to another interesting day in Virginia,