Monday the 16th: Charlottesville, Virginia
A view of Waynesboro from Skyline Drive. Elizabeth's grandparents used to live in this town and since we were passing through on our way to Charlottesville, we decided to stop by their old house.

The house looks pretty much the same from the outside although the backyard has changed somewhat. We met the new owners, who are very nice, and they allowed us to look inside. It's funny to see how your childhood memories match up with reality...sometimes the real thing is exactly how you pictured it and other times it's way off. Quite a trip down memory lane though...

The new owners were doing some renovations in the kitchen, including pealing off the wallpaper. They found a message from Elizabeth's grandfather written on the wall underneath, signature and all. It seems to be written to the workers who originally did the wallpaper in the kitchen. It says, "Paper is close fit. Please try to make what we have ordered do the job. —C. O. Skelton" Pretty cool to have a Skelton family artifact unearthed!

After visiting Waynesboro, we continued on to Charlottesville and took a tour of Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson. It's a beautiful site with huge vegetable gardens, vineyards, Jefferson's gravesite, and of course the iconic house itself.

The vegetable gardens and garden pavilion:

The house (unfortunately, no pictures allowed inside):

Jefferson's gravesite. Oddly enough, Jefferson died on July 4th, 1826, the 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the very document he authored.

Tomorrow, we'll see two of Elizabeth's aunts, one in Charlottesville and the other in Richmond. I guess the closer we get to family, the closer we know we are to home...