Washington and Lee Plus Monticello

Hello wonderful people who are reading my blog!
These past two days have been quite busy. On Sunday, we drove all the way to Lexington, VA which was tiring on many levels, the worst of which was being up before 12, but that was nothing to today when i got up at 7:30. :/

Before going up to the Boston Conservatory Program, I'm touring some colleges. Today was Washington and Lee. The school is absolutely beautiful! Plus, I saw Will Richardson just in passing, which was a little weird to see someone from Rabun Gap without planning it... I really like it there, but it's very similar to Davidson. They're both quite big on the honor system, as is Rabun Gap. In many ways, they're all quite similar.

Then, after that, we were going to go to William and Mary, but we spent to long in Lexington. So, instead, we went to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. It was an incredibly interesting house. I used to be really into the whole colonial era, so a lot of it was familiar. But, I'd never really realized quite how much of a renaissance man Jefferson was. His house was totally state of the art for the turn of the 19th century. One of the things I thought was the most interesting was his huge clock which not only told the time down to the second, but the weights that ran it showed the days of the week by how unwound the clock was. He also had automatic closing doors, the first copier etc. It was a truly amazing house.
We also took a tour of the gardens which add to the idea of Jefferson as a renaissance man. He took fastidious recordings of the wind and temperature at Monticello everyday. He used this data to plant gardens, both vegetable, flowers and trees. Apparently, he viewed the gardens as a scientific experiment. He brought plants from all over the world and tried to grow them in Virginia.

Well now, we're at the hotel in Richmond and going off to dinner at TGIF. :D
Tomorrow, we're driving all day. :/
<3 Clara