November 2, 2006

In the Capital of the Free World

Drove up to DC today from Charlottesville, VA, where I was visiting with my PhD advisor who's at UVa now. It's nice little town, and it was really good to visit with Jerry.

I also went to two Presidential homes. Monticello - the former home of Thomas Jefferson, which is right near C-ville, and today on the way to DC I stopped at Montpelier (pronounced /mont-peel-yur/, btw, not /mount-pell-yay/ as it would be in French), former home of James Madison.

Montpelier is undergoing major renovation to take it back to the state that it was in when Madison lived there. I thought that would be a drag, but it's actually really interesting, because it's all gutted now, pretty much.

Thus, you can see and hear about what they have found during the gutting process. And the discussion of his life and stuff is the same regardless, so all in all it was a good time to go.

Maybe I'll go visit the current President's house while I'm up here.

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