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At the end of May, the fearless leader Mary and I drove down to a day of wine and roses at Tufton Farm near Monticello. We smelled the roses, but left the wine to tour around Monticello instead.

At Tufton farm and Monticello, gallica roses finally won my attention. The historic gardens at both places are beautiful and well worth the time to explore.

I am embarrassed to admit that I have lived in Virginia for 8 years and this was my first visit to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s historic home. I have visited George Washington’s historic home, Mount Vernon, approximately 10 times. Each of my children has had field trips to Mount Vernon. Gabe’s class has had 4 visits.

Monticello is lovely, well maintained, and interesting because of the uniqueness of Thomas Jefferson. Throughout the tour, my most common thought was, “That’s remarkable.”

At the entrance, there is a compass on the ceiling which is attached to the weather vane on the roof so Thomas Jefferson didn’t have to leave the porch to determine which way the wind was blowing. In the entry hall, there is a seven day clock whose exterior face on the porch shows the hour, but the interior face shows the hour, minute, and second. The ropes holding the cannon ball weights of the clock were longer than the room was tall, so holes were cut into the floor, and the weights descend to the cellar.

In the parlor, there is a painting of Herodias bearing John the Baptist’s head on a platter. I found it an odd portrait with which to greet your guests.

I loved the maps of Lewis and Clark’s expedition and seeing all the library books. After the British burned the US capitol in 1814 and the Congressional library was destroyed, Thomas Jefferson sold his collection of 6,500 books to Congress. After his books were gone, he wrote to John Adams, “I cannot live without books,” and promptly bought some more.

I bought Josiah a t-shirt with the books quote from the gift shop. I would have bought one for myself, but I had earlier purchased a gallica rose bush and a handful of heirloom seed packets collected from the flowers at Monticello.

The terraced garden was phenomenal. The sighting, the layout, the crop order was all meticulously planned by Jefferson. I walked the length of it thinking, “Mom would love this.”

The views are gorgeous all around. Charlottesville and the University of Virginia campus are visible from the grounds. The tour guide claimed that Thomas Jefferson would observe the construction of UVA with his telescope to insure his architectural plans were being followed.

With the Blue Ridge mountains in the distance, Monticello is truly beautiful.

It’s architect’s most famous document is celebrated today. His words announced the independence of a group of remarkable people who declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

I praise my Creator that I was born in our great nation, the United States of America.

Happy Independence Day!