Hoos there in Charlottesville?

Sep 8, 2010

Lindsay's always wanted me to see Charlottesville, VA, so we visited there for a few days. I got to see her college town, and spent a lot of time admiring the work of Thomas Jefferson from several angles. His design of the University of Virginia lawn still stands today, and he's very highly regarded by the student population as well. I liked Monticello even more than UVA's campus. Jefferson boasted it was a place for the experimentation of all things, which mainly meant agricultural, mechanical things at that time. One of his relatives spoke of Jefferson going to many ends to create comfort, which I don't fault him for.  The man wrote 19,000 letters during his life time, in addition to the wealth of other things he created. That's an average of almost one letter written a day for seventy years. I'll say a little comfort is called for.

We also hiked in the Blue Ridge Mountains a little.  We met up with James from Ireland, who's 65 and has had a dream to travel across the U.S. by train over the next two weeks. He left his wife at home, who's more into playing bridge at home then traveling. He figures he might as well make a go of living out his dream while he has the time now!, Spending time with him felt just like a part of “The World's Fastest Indian”, one of my favorite movies. Jasper, a young talented Dutchman, joined us as well for a short hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains. They were beautiful. He's traveling down the eastern U.S. In his fast car, and definitely made the conversations more interesting.

Appendix 1:

Thomas Jefferson's Iphone.  Jefferson used these ivory slips to record notes during the day (including detailed daily weather records daily for decades) then he had a process to back the notes up in a more permanent paper notebook before erasing the slip and starting over. 

Appendix 2:  Jefferson's recipe for Vanilla Ice Cream.  Also, the typewritten version of the recipe.    It sounds from the type that the ice cream came out a little hard when it was finished: "to withdraw it, immerse the mould in warm water, turning it well till it will come out & turn it into a plate."

Appendix 3:
Jefferson was a big fan of Sir Francis Bacon's organization of human knowledge.  Jefferson's library collections in both the Library of Congress display in D.C. and at Monticello in Charlottesville are organized in this fashion.  It's an interesting way to organize things.  It certainly gives it street credibility that one of the country's most well read men found it useful.  I may try it with my own books once they're back on a proper shelf: