Monticello Plantation

Before the Memorial Day Weekend got fully underway, I day-tripped down to Charlottesville on Thursday with my family to tour another piece of Historic Virginia. Thomas Jefferson's Monticello Estate is well-preserved, the gardens are historically accurate, and the guided-tours very effectively provided added-value to the experience. It was a massive enterprise keeping a plantation going, and I find it interesting to learn about the day-to-day routines and rhythms of life in past times. Of course, like most wealthy plantation owners of the era, Thomas Jefferson held hundreds of men, women and children in bondage, stealing their entire lives and the entire product of their life's work. I cannot think of his life without considering theirs, and imaging their experiences of actually working the land. Beneath the romanticized surface presentation, beyond the beautifully restored mansion and quaint vegetable and display gardens, there was the unspeakable brutality of SLAVERY, and this cannot be forgotten nor forgiven.

Main House



Flower Walk






Vegetable Garden