Jefferson and Monroe

Yesterday morning we were up bright and early as our goal was to be on the road by 6:30am. Not counting stops it took us 6 hours to drive from North Myrtle Beach (SC) to Monticello (VA). Friday night we had gotten the new Lego movie from a Redbox for free thanks to a coupon code. Yesterday the kids watched the movie during our drive, and we also listened to the radio and about half of By the Great Horn Spoon. We had packed a lunch and had filled up the gas tank Friday night. This meant our only stops were for bathroom breaks. Our first stop was Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. We watched the movie and the kids explored the discovery room at the visitor's center. Then we boarded the shuttle up to the top of the mountain where we explored the area where the slaves lived and worked, did another activity center for kids, and took a 50 minute family friendly tour of Monticello at 3:00. In hindsight, I should have booked the 2:00 tour. I picked the 3:00 in case we hit traffic during our drive. The downside of having picked the 3:00 was that we were

rushed at our second stop - Highland, the home of James Monroe. Their site had said to allow 90 minutes, and they close at 6pm. I thought we were fine as we arrived at 4:20, but it took awhile to get set up with the augmented reality tour (in part because there was only one man working in the visitor center) and you can't hit pause or resume on that tour. We completed about 75% of the augmented reality tour before we had to return our devices so that we could take the 5:00 guided tour. Today we plan to tour Montpelier, the home of James Madison. That will be our fourth Presidential home tour in eight months. It would have been our fifth if we had made it to Wheatland, the home of James Buchanan last month, but that tour will probably be rescheduled for sometime in 2020.

After visiting Highland, we stopped at a Burger King near our hotel for some dinner. When we were checking into the hotel we discovered that although I had reserved two rooms that each had two queen beds, they only had one room like that available. They offered us a third room for free. Pop Pop and Grandma had a room with one bed, Nadia and I shared a room with one bed, and Paul and the boys had the room with two queen size beds. Tonight we should be sleeping in our own beds!