Cheeselog

posted by Jill • Tuesday , August 03, 2010 •

At a fundraiser last year, my husband and I bid on (and won) a weekend trip to lovely Orange, Virginia. What is in Orange, you ask? Why, Montpelier, home of James Madison, crafter of our Constitution. It took us a while to make it out to Orange, but it was totally worth the wait.

We drove to Orange (about 20 minutes shy of Charlottesville) on Friday morning. Interstate 95, being the ninth circle of hell, was in fact hellish. After much too long of a drive, we finally arrived at Montpelier, which I am still unable to pronounce. I feel like it should sound French, but no one there says it that way. It comes out more like “Montpeeler”, but who am I to judge? We had a private tour with the head of the recent restoration, a charming and uber-knowledgeable man named John Jeanes. John knew all there was to know about Montpelier, as he was the man who brought it back to its early-1800’s glory. He showed us how they figured out what the moldings looked like, how they rebuilt the staircases, etc. It was absolutely awe-inspiring. We even got to hang out for a while in James Madison’s study, where he formulated our aforementioned Constitution. At the risk of sounding totally pedestrian, it was SO COOL!